I feel quite alone, no matter where I go or who I'm with. It is still alone... I don't know how to explain it, and for the most part it doesn't bother me. But sometimes the "alone" can turn into "lonely" and I can crave comfort from someone. I don't have any comfort anywhere in my life. Not really. I have a great mom and everything, bit it isn't quite what I need if that makes any sense at all. No comfort. I'm about to graduate as well here very soon, and that should make me happy, but it doesn't. Inm terrified. Its gonna be time to go off to grad school and I'm fucking scared. What the hell am I doing? Where the hell should I go? What should I do once I'm there? What career should I really do with my degree, etc. I know it may not sound like much, but I'm so scared. And I'm having a hard time seeing the poiint in anything. I don't see the point. Okay, let's call this feeling "hopelessness". I don't see the point in continuing to work so damn hard at school and grad school and trying to work to earn $$ and the financial stress I'm under and everything. I'm not making sense. There is so much I want to say but I do not know how to say it. My emotions and thoughts go much faster than my fingers can type on my phone keyboard... Soooooooo I really don't know how to say what I want to say.
I don't like the world. I don't want to participate in the world. I don't like most people. I don't want to play with most people.
That isn't phrased right either. This is a day when I don't like myself either. I'm sad and I wanna go curl up under a rock and cry like a sissy.
I'm screwed up. And that kinda sucks.
I have my methods for when I start to freak the hell out. Or am so not enthusiastic or interested in paerticipating in life. Ativan/Xanax helps sooth the freak outs and vicodin makes me euphoric and then it's all gravy. Drinking almost scares me because I cannot always predict how it will effect me. The pills I know exactly what they'll do and how I'll feel. The liquor tho is different. I wish I had a stash of ativan and xanax and vicodin to last me forever. If I could have vicodin everyday, granted my poo would be really hard, it would help me be more interested in participating.
I'm not happy. I'm numb and sad and nothing. Oh well really. It happens.
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11 comments:
Thank you for blogging about this. I understand EXACTLY what you mean with "alone" and "lonely". And no, it doesn't matter that the one(s) we love are right here by our sides cheering us on in life. I was by myself in another state and moved back in with my parents, have not worked in over a month, and have 2 of my beautiful, precious nephews close at hand, and am still "alone" and "lonely". I feel ya!
My mother has a favorite phrase: "Life's a bitch, and then you die." Damned if some days it's so true it makes my head spin. I spent a goodly part of a morning trying to translate the phrase into different languages. I'd say I was distracted, and somewhat obsessed. The result of my effort was zilch, although I did feel better after I realized I had managed to push the nagging thoughts into the corner for a few hours.
I know, I need to get a hobby.
Oh well. Back to standing on my head.;)
Hang in there. I'm still reading daily, but have a hard time translating my thoughts through the plastic keyboard.
Your situation sounds eerily similar to my own. I have helped myself in this way:
(1) I have decided that emotions are complex, that they are subtle.
(2) I realize I cannot just pin a word on how I feel. "How are you?" gets to be a meaningless question.
(3) Emotions are feelings in our BODIES. They are not abstractions. Thoughts are words and images.
(4) We feel emotions in response to what goes on around us. Emotions are the only valid barometer by which to live our lives. Once someone tells us to deny the validity of what we feel, we are lost. Note: This conflicts with the self-image you left with after being told you are "bipolar" and believing it brings you close to that danger barrier where people say you've lost "insight".
(5) Confusion is completely valid. In fact, I think it is a sane response to the world as it is. We live in a confusing, manipulative, cruel culture. Personally I hate capitalism and do not wish to plug myself into it. I actually had a breakdown near the end of a degree. because on some unconscious level I realized there had been no point to it. And it was a supposedly "useful" degree - computer science!
(6) We also feel emotions in response to things that have happened to us in the past. If we have not cried about something, for example, or something made us sick or disgusted, it remains in our bodies until it's purged, like vomiting.
(7) If our emotional systems are "gummed" up - if we are shut down, numbed, traumatized, etc. - all those emotions just build up and soon we're foggy and confused. If things reach a crisis point, our emotions just explode - imagine water spilling over a dam and you've been standing on the dry side all the time not even knowing what's been happening.
(8) By listening to your thoughts and inner images while feeling what's in your body (and not even trying to name it - just feeling it and continuing to feel it), you can reconnect with your experience. Your emotions start to make sense. You realize all of a sudden that actually you have all sorts of reactions to what's going on around you, often reactions of anger, worry and distress! These so-called "bad" emotions are FINE. Denying them really screw us up, in my opinion.
(9) Note that not every thought or impulse needs to be acted upon. You can also just stand there and fully experience it. Follow the feeling, let yourself get absorbed in it, follow the thoughts. Focus on feeling. Don't worry about trying to "respond" to a situation in the way you think is "right". Chances are that response might just be conditioned based on others', i.e. cultural, expectations of you. In fact, through this process you will get in touch with how you ACTUALLY feel at each MOMENT.
(10) Most people just aren't fun to play with, and friends are hard to come by. True friends. Authentic friends who accept all your thoughts and feelings as valid, and who are authentic in turn - who are aware of everything they are thinking and feeling and have developed the ability of discernment.
Just from reading your one post, I think you have this necessary intellectual discernment.
You might want to look this up on Google: Healing Through the Dark Emotions in an Age of Global Threat.
If you would like to communicate - you are most welcome to - you can e-mail me at sara_arenson @ yahoo.ca
Sincerely,
Sara
Ann,
Hi, my Wonder Woman. Yep, you still are my Wonder Woman. I am so sorry you feel so anxious and depressed. I wish I could take all your pain and hurts away.
You have accomplished getting halfway to your dream. I am so very proud of you. I hope you go for the gold and finish grad school. If it's overwhelming to do it full time, is it possible to reduce your course load and accomplish it in doable chunks?
You have given so much to so many already. Just to give you 1 example: You suggested I find another doctor because you and I agreed that I might be bipolar rather than cyclothymic with major depression.
YOU HAD IT PEGGED. My new psychiatrist is a specialist in mood disorders and addictions. He saw the report I gave him from my old Pdoc, asked me a few questions and got very upset! He told me emphatically that that diagnosis is absolutely wrong--I'm bipolar.
Anyway, I have not seen any posts by you at the website you used to visit so I decided to try to get in touch via your blog.
I hope you are feeling better today. Please, if you don't mind, let me know that you are well.
JourneyUpward
I don't like the world. I don't want to participate in the world. I don't like most people. I don't want to play with most people.
This phrase describes me 99% of the time. Yet I feel like the world forces me to be apart of it whether I want to or not.
I hope you are doing well. I was looking for recent posts, but I guess this was the most recent.
Please keep writing. You are awesome and you have a gift of writing. You are giving so many people hope with this blog. People with bipolar and people who love someone who is bipolar, depend on you and your blogs.
They make us feel that we are not alone. That we can be functional in society, that we can go to college. That we can go through all the rough stuff, wake up and pick ourselves up and try again. You are hope that we never give up.
Please realize that you mean so much to so many, even when you don't feel like that yourself.
I hope and pray that you write again soon.
Thanks for your post. You're not alone. I mean you may feel alone, but I'm sitting thousands of miles away and I'm hearing what you're saying. Hope that makes the lonliness a little less. Emma.
Wow. If I had a dime . . . .
Your fears and concerns are all REAL. Not just real because they may be, shall we say, 'enhanced', by a mood system that is out of the ordinary.
Speaking with someone mid-way through their working life, i can tell you that almost everything we do IS pointless--but we still find degrees of meaning inside all that crap.
So. . . . You are right, it is hopeless. Now, perhaps we can decide that even hopelessness and pointlessness is pointless, and sort of do stuff anyway? Graduate, write, express yourself, do the 'normal' things, but do them to the best of your amazing ability--without every denying the fact that you have an amazing inner dialogue that keeps you grounded.
Yeah. Grounded. Folks that DON'T feel what we feel are actually the insane ones. In my book, we are like the 'oyarsa' in C. S. Lewis's sci-fi triligy in that we (emotionally) do NOT move in tandem with the rotation of the earth. We have to rush to keep place with our fellow humans.
But doing that is a mercy to them, so we do it (lots of the time) even though it sort of kills us.
Boy, I hope that helped our made a little bit of sense . . . .
www.sethwindsor.blogspot.com
You can do this. Bipolar disorder cannot hinder you if you have the drive. I speak from experience. I had the drive to complete graduate school and now, I'm going back to school 8 yrs later to finish another graduate degree. My advice is to ensure that you find a career that you have a passion for. It's important to people diagnosed with bipolar disorder to follow their hearts because the triggers of a stressful, unhappy job only make this disorder harder to deal with. Good luck with everything!
Marsha
www.didyoutakeyourmeds.com
I am so manic today....I just want to be mad at me and everyone around me. Can anyone here me? I am so sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I am tired of feeling FAT, so damn fat. I hate myself...why am I so stupid and especially ugly lately.
Will I ever feel good again? Please someone tell me??
I am so glad so many people can relate to feeling this way. Thank you all for the words of support and encouragement! You have no idea what that means to me.
Sara, I really liked your list!! Great things to keep in mind.
Jon, your comment made me laugh, have fun standing on your head ;) .
Journey, I am SOOOO glad you have a better pdoc now, and that I was able to help you in that way.
Denise, wow, what you said really means a lot to me. Helping others is what I hope for, my goal. it gives my disorder meaning, and it gives me a purpose.
Emma, that does help :)
Seth, I love your philisophy! most awesome. and I will be checking out your blog as well.
Martha, yes!! I have found my passion in my career choice. if I hadn't, oh mannn it would be bad. :)
To the last anonymous post:
All of us here are sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, we can all relate. Some people give up on hope and resign themselves to misery for the rest of their life. I however, refuse to believe that I am meant to feel like crap for the rest of mine. I have hope, so much HOPE for something better.
Each person has their own challenges and obstacles they must overcome. Some lose, some win. I am determined to be one who wins and can make better days for myself.
Keep hope. Don't let anyone take it away from you. one of the benefits of being bipolar as opposed to strictly depressed, is that we have both the ups and the downs to experience. yes they both suck, but we know there is more than whatever our current status is. lets look at it this way: unipolar depressed patients only feel blue all of the time. bipolar kids get to be blue, *and* have the energy of mania. when i begin to feel a bit manic i find one good spot in it and say "well, at least now I'll have energy/time to get my cleaning and stuff done". ... I hope that makes sense. I'm not enjoying bipolar by any means, just trying to find whatever "good" sides there possibly are. And now I am rambling. I'm sorry for that!
Again, thank you to all who left comments. :)
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