This past weekend I've been feeling truly terrible. There's been a death in the family ~~ my step-Granny died last week; the funeral's in London; everyone is coming and I said I'd go. Truly: when I think about what's going on, and how many people I'm going to have to deal with... I just cannot handle it.
I asked Binky whether she'd be willing to go with me and she said yes. I also have a friend called Mitt who offered, for the cost of the petrol, to drive me across town and back.
I spoke to a person in my family whose viewpoint I respect earlier today, who asked basically how emotionally I was going to cope. What with my mood having peaked and troughed and cycled up and down in days gone by. And nobody knowing what it's going to be on the Day that is Not About Me at all (and I don't want people thinking about me then either). In truth, the mood swings I get nowadays are nowhere Near as extreme as bipolar moods can go. But, in truth also, I still feel like a basket case.
But Binky, never one to miss the opportunity for an emotional meltdown in her own life, wants to disagree. She says it's really disrespectful not to go when this funeral of a lady who spent her latter years in West Wales but always wanted to be Laid To Rest with her Late Husband in an Outer Suburb of West London is taking place in a location reachable by me. When I could attend if I Really Wanted To. If I could Only Tough It Out... Timewise, whether we went by car or tube, the cemetary would probably be equidistant.
Binky was really peeved and pissed off with me for having switched off my phone on her and anyone else who might have wanted to ring me back. And for having agreed to come across town with me for this funeral. And now I'm chickening out. But I'm terrified, basically, of meeting all my long-lost family-members all at once and them staring into my eyes... mirrors of my soul... I don't know what they're going to see. I'm terrified of what my soul might tell ... maybe, after all, I ought to wear dark glasses... I don't know. Binky is really pissed off with me for nearly adopting a furry great doggie, offered by Mitt offering free of charge. If I took on a crossbred dog she is EXACTLY the cross I would request ~~ a German Shepherd/Akita. And a SHE! A SHE! I ALWAYS wanted a great furry Akita, didn't I always say that? Well Mitt, who's HIV+ among so many other of his problems says I can have this doggie absolutely free ... who was going to go to Battersea (famous London dogs' home).
Well I don't know what to say. Although Binky disapproves, and although my feelings are severely mixed... it probably Is the Right Thing that I Don't Come to this funeral on Thursday... and it might Also Be The Wrong Thing to take on this doggie that I've always wanted, but hell, if Mitt brings her round on Weds as promised ~~ providing he furnishes me with lead and bowl and a good week's supply of food, I think I WILL take her on. The poor swine needs somebody to love her and I have so much love to give to somebody who is bushy-furred who will not hate me back...
I don't know what else to say, except that my moods this past week have been bad. Most of the time I endure rather than enjoy. I wasted ridiculous money in Iceland yesterday, wishing I had not blown the sliver-slim remnant of my cash on Mr Kipling's Rum n Raisin Slices and a box of Thornton's Milk Chocolates (when really I'd far have preferred plain but hey you gotta go for what's there...)... I used drugs today and hyper-reacted. I have to stop the drugs. Without them I feel too terrible for words. Or too manic-depressive. I never know what is going to happen. Binky is annoyed with me because I told her this morning that I ought to take up the habit of regularly overdosing on my medication like she does. I think she finds the notion of my copying her behaviour unconscionable. Oh I don't know about any of this. My head is in a whirl and a swirl and I don't know what else.
Please take care of yourselves and each other. I wonder WHY it is so incredibly DAMP and CLAMMY and FREEZING COLD and INCREDIBLY CLOSE weather. HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE DAYS.
I really hope my Family is OK, those who are grieving the most... but I don't know what else to do apart from follow the advice I have been given and if Binky wants to guilt trip me over situations she does not understand... well she can waste her breath as much as she pleases but I've never been one to dance to anybody else's tune and I'm not gonna start doing so now!
i haven't read this back... i hope i haven't said anything TOO Terrible... {o bloody hell: please no!}
Peace, love and respect to you all XxxXxxX
Hey I've just clocked WHY Binky went so nuts at me earlier for switching off my phone: DSM Diagnostic Criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder:~~~ "frantic attempts to avoid Abandonment, real or imagined"...
MADONNA: BLOND AMBITION TOUR ~ LIVE IN JAPAN
Give yourself Time.
ReplyDeleteThat s all you need.
Time and rest are so useful in times like this.
Butterscotch kisses and I sent you an email.Long.
Take care of yourself you are loved.
Time... I'll try and give myself Time... Thanxx Darlin' XxxXxxX
ReplyDeleteHere I am again.Its good you have Binky to go with.Some times a friends shoulder is all that keeps us standing.Wear the dark glasses.Do what you gotta do to get by.
ReplyDeleteXoxo
~HATE~ winter too. It's awful, and the most frequent season eye hae trouble with, emotionally. Physically, always a problem.
ReplyDeleteEye'm doing way shitty in some ways, not in other. If appropriately "medicated' (Drugged) did you still have symptoms but not really "feel" the mood cycles? Seems to be what eye'm doing. Eye'm basically in suicidal depression mode but thankfully don't FEEL it, just don't care about a hell of a lot and have certain thoughts - but can manage to act like a person and ignore it all, if eye have to, am around people, etc. Kinda the same otherwise, eye'll have times eye can't sleep too much and stuff, and almost Always pace the house, but sure don't feel all on edge.... just kinda act like it in some ppls opinions.
Oh, Gleds, I'm so sorry. I can't advise you about the funeral but I do think taking the dog on is the best thing you could do - for you and for her. I wish I could give you a hug. Here are cyber ones from Simi and me. xx woof!
ReplyDeleteBEV: Binky was really pissed off with me for daring to switch my phone off for half an hour and I was thinking of taking issue with her attitude but in the end just couldn't be bothered
ReplyDeleteEYELICK: when I was on risperidone I did get the feeling that were it not for that I'd have been mid-episode. But now either the moods have got worse or the quetiapine doesn't work as well ~ I really cannot tell which but I really do feel the moods. What the quetiapine seems to work better as is antipsychotic. Although I still get weird feelings of drifting out-of-body or shrinking in the night. This when I'm awake (it's not a semi-dream thing). I think it's one of those things that happens when you're slightly mad but not THAT crazy... or something!
When I was really manic but on the pills, last year, I remember getting this feeling of a huge "rush" where normally I would have run around in circles. But because the meds were working I managed to keep perfectly still... antipsycho tablets are weird like that...!
WELSHCAKES: thank you; I would love to take the dog but am not sure it's 100% practical + I don't know anyone who would look after her if ever i got ill... at least I DO have access to the back garden, which is a great thing... hugs back: I think in the modern internet language that is "ooo" (~!!)
EYELICK: your blog is not letting me comment. No characters are appearing in the character verification box. But this is what I WOULD have said chez toi:~~~~~~~
ReplyDeleteHi I hope it lets me "publish" this as I've had bad troubles with Internet Explorer not letting any comments through to blogs that use your specific template for commenting...
You sound like you would be really depressed without the pills. My house is in bad squalor too I try to do cleaning 1/2 an hr per day but it seems to make no difference. I don't mind cleaning sinks, surfaces, toilet, shower etc. What I hate is clearing and cleaning the floor. My excuse is I say I'm too tall & so the floor is too far away from me.
I also sleep far too long, nearly every day. I read a really good book by Emil Kraepelin about "manic-depressive insanity" and he points out that all symptoms cycle independently, so that they're slightly out of sync with one another... which explains a lot. I've turned to quite a few books and websites on bipolar and find they all make the same mistake of writing around the DSM diagnostic criteria rather than describing what the illness is actually like in real life... in fact I'm so pissed off with the sweeping generalizations that get perpetuated book to book and website to website that I'm thinking of writing a book of my own.
B4 I go: here's wishing you a v merry xmas and may 2013 be way better than 2012 was! ;-)
Eyelick Ignore that I managed to get the comment in. The computer kept telling me I was on an "untrusted connexion" ~~ yes Google! ~~ and when I eventually battered the security settings down it showed me the nonsensical words.
ReplyDeleteI've had to add Word Verification to mine as well after getting about 200 comments a day about Chinese Ugg Boots
Hey can you exPlain what you mean by feeling like you're shrinking when you are In bed? I get something similar I think. When I close my eyes I lose all sense of my size and feel like I'm very small and floating around in space. Gets worse when I'm stressed. I have a mood disorder and I've had this feeling from being around 10 when my issues started getting stronger. It'd be interesting if it's the same feeling you have. It's such an odd feeling I have to open my eyes but the second I close them it's back, kinda like dreaming whilst being totally awake. I feel very detached from this world.
ReplyDeleteShrinking in space? Yeah it is a bit like you describe yourself. Dreaming whilst totally awake. And detached from self and world.
ReplyDelete1st time this happened I was around 20 and depressed but into hash smoking. I don't think I was stoned when it happened. But it was an intense feeling of shrinking very small ~~ like the dot in old-style televisions you used to see when you switched it off. Or like concentric russian dolls my body going into complete unreality. It was really really intense experience.
More recently it's as if I'm shrinking but my body and self are disconnected it feels really bizarre. I'm not sleeping, I'm awake when this happens. So if it's a "dream" it's a waking dream.
Sometimes I have felt like my body is misaligned. Eg that my arms are pointing to the ceiling. When actually my arms are at my sides pointing down.
It's really hard to describe but it feels really real/unreal at once.
It doesn't happen that often. But other weird things do. Eg like an echoing word pushed straight into my head where it reverberates, then to be withdrawn.
I try not to think too much about what any of it can "mean". But I still wonder.
Omg yes I have exactly the same feeling. I started getting it when I was really small. Sometimes I get the most awful sense of foreboding when it happens too.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I love the Internet. It's so good for people who suffer with mental illness. It really helps me to be discover shared symptoms...especially when the person isn't locked away haha the human brain truly fascinates me.
Hope each day is easier than the last. Happy Yuletide! Xx
Foreboding? Ukh I hate that feeling. That's why I stopped taking risperidone. It gave me anxiety and panic attacks. Usually I don't give a crap about anything and I like to keep it that way! Each day is certainly better than last week because I felt SHIT last week and I'm feeling way better now. Would you believe that HALFING the dose on Seroquel actually made me less depressed... then NOT depressed. Then a bit MANIC. (But not very manic). See. The drs know almost nothing. I hope you have a good xmas too. And an even better New Year 2013 ;-)
ReplyDelete