JOURNAL: forcing myself

i stayed up until 2am last night. then i awoke at 3 and was up until 4:30 with a pain in my stomach. damn these health problems! i had a moron of a GI doctor that i met with yesterday. he wouldn't/couldn't explain to me if the allergy panel showing an allergy to "wheat" meant; was it just the proteins found in wheat only, or was it gluten, and then as such all the other proteins like gluten that are found in the barley, oats, rye, etc. all this man was concerned with was doing the colonoscopy and the endoscopy. which cost $$. which i don't have to waste. especially if the answer if going to be, "you are allergic to wheat"... which is exactly what i already know.

i have realized that the quality of my posts has been deteriorating for quite some time. i have been using this mostly as a ranting forum and it isn't benefiting others. and i feel bad that i am not offering insights or other things worth reading by others. is it wrong that i am hard on myself for putting up low quality posts? i mean i don't technically have a responsibility to provide anything on here, this blog should be for my own personal venting and writing therapy, and even at that i have turned it in to another responsibility i have to fulfill. this is another illustration of the duality of my mind. the drill sergeant versus the "normal" person. will they ever meet up one day? honestly, probably not. it's my nature, part of my personality. ever since i was a little kid. i believe it may be helpful for me to be aware of the conflicting ideas and motives in my head, hopefully the awareness will help facilitate weaving these two selves together into one healthy functioning adult. meh. i can try anyhow.

last night on House M.D., one of the characters committed suicide. nobody saw it coming. the character had portrayed himself as a well adjusted (although he had overcome a lot of troubles and issues in his life) successful doctor. he always seemed to be zealous about living life. curious and funny, and excited doing his job. and then he kills himself. the troubles he was having, the inner torment, was hidden from all, even his close colleagues. he suffered silently. i was really able to identify this character. people that know me, when i tell them i have bipolar disorder, they do not believe me. they say, "nothing is wrong with you", etc. it pisses me off that they dare to think they know me so well as to tell me what is or isn't going on within myself. how arrogant to assume they can make a diagnosis without any training or real knowledge (aside from what may be portrayed in the media, etc.) about the subject matter. let alone never having taken a trip inside my mind to see what exactly is going on in there. duh. seriously people.

i went off track... what i was trying to say, is that maybe some people in the audience of the show last night would not get how he must have felt on the inside and why he wouldn't have reached out... but i really did. the empathy was so strong as though this character was a real colleague of mine. in some ways, i saw myself. the issues he had, he was open about (watching his birth parents get shot, and being adopted at a young age), such as i am open about the "bipolar" and other things i struggle with. but despite the "openness", which led others to believe they knew all that was going on with the person, there was a much deeper and darker place within that was shielded from view. his openness of issues lulled the people in his life into a false sense of security believing they knew all about him. nobody probed any further. i feel this way. and i found it interesting that this same scenario was displayed on a tv show. i appreciated in it a way. i am open about the "issues" and things i struggle with. i describe them to people as best as i can, but when i do, i leave out the theatrics and drama of it. i keep it simple, generally emotionless, and pretty factual. i am able to make crack about it, poke fun at myself, and make light of the situation. and when i do try to explain in more detail the specifics of my mind, the extent of horror is never quite properly conveyed.

while this is helpful for everyday functioning, it can be harmful in a couple of ways. for one, the psychiatrists don't see the extent of my disorder bc i have become a master at wrapping this whole thing up in a pretty little package with an innocent bow on top. second, the people in my life don't really get how screwed up i am.

that last sentence is slightly misleading. i am a screwed up person who has it all together. i don't know if that makes much sense. allow me to try to explain... while i have the deep issues now and again of being generally tormented with trying to balance the disordered shit in my head, i am not the usual run of the mill "idiot". i have my shit together. i do not act like an idiot in interpersonal relationships. i am not screwed up in that manner. if that makes any sense. it's the the crazy shit that fucks me up. and even when i do stupid shit or think things all wrong or am all messed up in one psych crazy way or another, most of the time, i can see exactly what i am doing form a psychological perspective. sometimes i can correct this crappy behavior, but other times the crazies have control over me and i sit in the back of my head and watch and lecture the crazy side of me and do a relatively good job of hiding the crazy and not making a total ass out of myself.