Know that I love you since before I was born
Know that I loved you since before you were born
Know that you are my every reason for being
Know that I want to leave to set you free
I try and I fail and I try again and I fail and fall harder
Maybe this time it will work
They sneak in they crawl under my skin
Never invited they come in
I wish I knew when to expect them
They twist and divide themselves into thousand particles
They make me think of the worst possible outcome
I close my eyes and push them back
As I do they get stronger and louder
I keep this fight till my voice is gone
Do something they command to end it
I am voiceless, paralyzed with nothing but fear
I am invaded, occupied by the worst enemy
Oh dark thoughts why do you come back, didn’t we agree I can’t?
I wish to obey but strength I have not
I wish to disobey but fear I cannot
Leave me alone I silently scream
Too late they laugh you are not you anymore
My only consolation is maybe then I would be left alone
Maybe then no more tears will be shed
Perhaps everything will settle into place
No more screaming no more guilt no more pain
It would be the gift of life to everyone
Raw
That is how you feel after one of them attacks
Raw
Like the flesh of your wounds that you cannot hide from yourself
Raw
As shame invades your soul trying to find even seeds of regret
Raw
Emotion and thought entangled in a web like a knot I cannot undo
Raw
I wish I can curl up and wait till the storm is over
Raw
I know that this is a dream for I am the storm
I want to take a pair of scissors and chop my hair off
I want to break both legs
I want to cut my face with a knife
I want to slice my wrists and watch blood oozing out of my veins
I want to live on the street
I want to never speak again
I want to never feel again
I want to never see again or hear again
I took the drugs today. Don’t know why or how many… probably lithium 250*3, Prozac 20*3 and a couple Temesta 1.
I had gotten so angry before it. Not mad angry but scary angry; where nothing matters anymore. I have been there and it is not pretty. I am getting numb now. Getting slower. My nerve endings are not painful anymore. My upper back has stopped wanting to detach itself from the rest of my body. I am mellow. I am high and low and I will hit the ground faster than I know it.
I couldn’t succumb to what I wanted to do. Is this safer? No. Is this what I want? No. Did I lose yet another month or two trying to be a good girl responsible for her body and mind? Yes. Do I gain points in this game or does my score go back to zero each time? What now? A life of broken promises and misery all around to which am the catalyst always. If I could just be on an island free to live or not as I please. Would it change anything?
The worst feelings I have are about those around me. The destruction I create in their eyes. I don’t want to talk to them or look at them. I don’t want them to see me. I should be locked up alone like a crazy relative in the attic. In a bare room with a small window. I wouldn’t be let out because I lost my confidence and words remain words. What is a promise? Why is it so important?
I want to see my children grow from far away. No need to get them messed up with me. I will tarnish their childhood with worry, fear, and dread. Their small hands come to me to cuddle and my skin burns. Their kisses burn my face. I know I shouldn’t have been their mother. It burns and I feel I am contagious. What did they do to get me? How could I have predicted my state now 10 years ago? I love them too much to hurt them. I hurt them just by being a mass in a bed that moves right to left all day. I hurt them when they cannot play because Mama is in pain. They cannot go out band cause Mama is having a bad day. They cannot have friends over because Mama needs silence. They know I am sick and they ask me what hurts. They bring me dolipran and ask me if I want coffee. They tuck me in. The small one tucks me in ans shuts the door behind him… How long will I be able to lie?
I want to get my father only on the phone. I don’t think I can even handle this. I don’t want him to see me a bag of bones. I am his life and that is the problem. What kind of life is that? Tormenting my old man is what I do.
My husband…
My husband, I don’t know what I want for him. I want him to go on and not stop because of his handicapped wife who should be locked in the attic. I want him to forget me and that is the toughest of all. I want him to forget 19 years of mostly joy and a year of mostly hell. I want to erase his memory of me and maybe remove all love and pity from his heart. If he forgets whom I was before maybe he will let go easier…
I want him to stop believing it will pass. I want him to stop hoping it will not be like this tomorrow. There is no more older me, a me of those were the days: she is gone. He says: She is getting used to new drugs, she reached the therapeutic level of the drug to work, she is having side effects from the drugs, she is in withdrawal, she is …. she is…she is done habibi that is what she is. The one you loved dearly is not me and I am not her. All what we had has been taken away with my illness. We got robbed 20 years and only you have at least a couple more 20 years to live. Don’t live in hell.
I want it to stop being about me.
Is this too much to ask? I want him to go to work. I want him to travel for work. I want him to do his job as he should. I want him to have friends and hobbies. I want him to have fun. He cannot with me around. How can I disappear? I want him to plan his life like anyone should be. I want him to stop walking on eggshells all the time. I want him to stop detonating my bombs right and left… I want him to live and embody life for our children. He can do it.
The nausea is kicking in now. My body is very heavy. I have a few hundred steps to take back home. It is sunny. I had coffee. People are in summer dresses. The street is buzzing. Kids in strollers and people on bikes. Motos ans buses make the most noise and it is annoying. The world is not stopping…
TBC
I have to document what I am going through. It is equally possible that I have done the boldest or the stupidest decision. I quit three medications cold turkey. Prozac 20 mg, lithium 600 mg and Temesta 1 mg.
I did this without the knowledge of my psychiatrist; I even postponed my appointment with her not to get influenced.
I know what science says. Don’t quit cold turkey whatever you do. I know. Not to brag, but I quit before for other reasons, other drugs that were extremely addictive and I survived. Yes I almost died, but it was totally worth it.
Question now is how long will this honeymoon phase last before withdrawal kicks in? What is the difference between withdrawal and the side effects that I am going through? The big question is, why should I keep on taking drugs that do not alleviate my pain and give me a bundle of other things to suffer from? The question is, when do you say enough? When do I say I know my body and I know how it functions best?
Illusion or reality. What am I expecting now? A miracle? No, I so do not believe in those. I am just humbly aiming to get back to my initial problems; to my initial depression before psychiatry got involved.
I am a good patient. I am quite reasonable. Yet, and I repeat, why take drugs that make me sick?
I refused to draw a comparison between cancer and mental illnesses because I thought they were very distinct. I was wrong. I thought more research went into cancer: true. I thought cancer is a more pressing predicament. Yet, cancer patients sometimes reject treatment. Families of deceased cancer patients often swear the medication is the reason behind the death of their loved ones and not the illness. Patients who go through one cycle of treatment and sometimes do not accept another one. Yes, they would rather die; or live?
This leads me to my main two points here. One as a patient I have a choice. Two, quality of life is more important than life. Why else would euthanasia be legalized?
All I know is that part of my remaining brain is telling me I have to listen to myself. I prefer my own illness to that one artificially induced and resulting in neurological and neuro-chemical imbalances in my body.
I simply want to know why I am crying when I do. I want to stop twitching. I want to look in the mirror and see me; the fat or the ugly. It will be me and not some alien inhabiting my body and taking random decisions on my behalf.
Risk is part of life. We all make equally good and bad decisions. Only time will tell. The worse that could happen is returning to the status quo. At least then I would know my human limitations and will stop complaining. Wouldn’t you try if you were me?
TBC
I don’t want to hurt myself. I do not want to end up in an emergency room.
My only weapon is my writing.
I have to fight myself as much as I have to fight the system. What on earth am I supposed to do not to end up in an emergency room? How can I control my impulses?
Could my pain make my heart explode? Is this physically possible? Will I let my children see me this way? What does the system offer to those in my position? Waiting and some more…
I wish I could feel numb like the last 48 hours. Today it hurts like an open wound. Will I keep on bleeding endlessly? will I hold this scream till the end of time? Will my tears ever dry? What can I do to protect my children from me? Leave? Go where? Die? They will be motherless just like me.
I have given all my strength in this fight. There is nothing left in me, not even pride. All what I ask is for is that it be quick. This separation that is tearing me apart, could it happen in the blink of an eye?
I am rambling, scared like a lost child in a forest. How can I be a mother when I am like that? God, if you exist help me… and if you don’t, then let me be…
Anger is a monster whose main duty is to scare you…
It comes at night, when everything and everyone is quite…
It has big claws and red eyes, it wants you to look at it, so that you tremble and fall…
At this point you would expect that the story would turn around, and the monster will be chased far far away…
No, my monster, my anger eats me up and makes me eat up and we struggle every night. No one wins, well it mostly wins with me taking my sleeping pill that sometimes only works for a few hours. I wake up, and it is still there with red eyes staring into mine challenging me to go into battle. I know I will lose sooner or later.
So far I have kept my promise of not harming myself. But the struggle with the anger monster keeps me alive but am dead really. Nothing matters anymore. I want to eternally sleep and I have to keep my eyes opened – reminds me of a scene where Donald Duck sticks up matches in his eyes not to fall asleep.
So till when will this battle go on, and what will happen when I have no more hunger to eat to keep my eyes opened? What kind of anger will I come up with? Will it be against me? I sorely hope so. And how strong will it be, crescendo or a volcano? Will I harm myself? Will I feel this tearing up between my promise and the fantasy of death? What is this spectrum of mood disorders and where do I stand? Am I evolving forward towards a more developed syndrome? I cannot honestly answer the latest question with anything but yes.
I passed through a hell of a night, but I kept alive. The fridge and I talked together like good old best friends. You see it helps me fight the monster. I looked at myself in the mirror while passing from one room to another. I saw my reflection: I was the monster. My eyes were shot red, my hair all over the place, my skin grey…
Yet I was alive. But this is a small fake victory – for am not alive no more than the monster is real.
I am an insane mother and this monster cannot hurt my little ones. I will not allow it, alive or dead….
I know how to fake it with my children. I only do not know how much longer I will be able to do this…
But I will do it till there is nothing left of me – or in this state (a lot) if you get what I mean.
I make no sense at all, even those around me find me nonsensical. I am one day seeking hospitalization, the second minute am cracking my head against the wall to get out.
I am scared from the monster, for that monster is nothing but my own mind….
TBC
As the droplets of rain fall onto my swollen feet, I wonder about the meaning of existence…
What does existence mean I ask in t his suffering? I gained 5 kilos in 2 days. That is a reflection of the anger and irritation inside of me.
When the grey sky looks down upon me, I wish I did not make promises of any kind to anyone.
Existence is so painful. That is the phrase that keeps repeating itself in my mind. With my swollen feet, I walk with shame around the house.
I want to shut the curtains and cover the mirrors. Yet, I can still see myself with my eyes closed, I suffer in silence.
If I am to scream, I would be voiceless. I am drained. I am a mass of depression roaming the house with clothes that ache from holding on to my ever growing body. I wonder how they manage to do it!
My body, my mind, my bipolarity are insanity. Insanity is a state of mind where nothing is logical or meaningful anymore.
A promise kept at the dark alley of a mental hospital to stay alive is the only thing to which I am holding. I do not even think I am helpable (new word)
I feel like red ridding hood, in a dark ugly forest with someone showing me the way to avoid being hurt by the wolf. I am now alone with my fears with no medical help to avoid this wolf of suicide and depression. Maybe the sounds of the ambulances I rode were not so bad. Maybe the million questions asked by the paramedics before being reanimated are not too difficult to answer. Maybe just the fact of voiding myself and putting the responsibility of being alive on someone else’s skills is not that stupid after all.
Just a vow to stay alive. My only wish is for this vow to be kept. No, I am lying, my only wish is that something not of my doing happens to me to alleviate this pain by ending the source of it: my mind. Maybe falling into a coma would be achieving both goals: staying alive and shutting off my mind if I am lucky.
The only hope is that when I end, all this suffering will end with me. Otherwise, it will be the biggest farce humanity has ever faced.
Unfortunately TBC
Betrayal is the feeling of having been left alone, stabbed in the back, having someone take action behind your back or against your will.
Abandonment is the act of betraying a promise – written or otherwise for no logical or understandable reason to the person being abandoned.
Ethical Framework to the counseling professions is about Ethics (values, principles, and personal moral qualities) and it is also about Good Practice (putting clients first, working to professional standards, respect, integrity, accountability and candor, responding to ethical dilemmas and issues etc. )
I have been chewing on these few concepts since last night. I slept because I took a sleeping pill, which for once was quiet useful.
I would like to dwell today on values. I like the word values, it is tricky because it is personal. It is related to morality, because why would something be valued if it is or is not morally viable? hmmm
You might perhaps be wondering why I am asking or putting forward all these philosophical and linguistic babbling. Here it goes:
I was betrayed and abandoned by both my psychiatrist and psychologist agasint the ethical framework binding the helping professions. Ah, much better to say it in writing.
I am not interested in pointing fingers, or mentioning names. I like Jesus, this wise man decided to give the other cheek. I take to his way of doing things, though am neither religious nor wise. But you see, Jesus had a point. When you give the other cheek you force the person in front of you to start questioning their moral stand point. They start thinking of their actions and reactions. They question themselves. Maybe, if one is lucky, they discover that they could have acted differently.
The reason I am being denied treatment by both my helpers is that I refuse to be hospitalized. I prefer daily monitoring, while being close to my children. I am in no danger to others and I have vowed not to pass to the act of self harm under any circumstances. I was not once offered an alternative solution to hospitalization, I was not once talked to about the benefits of being closed up. It was just decided, with a strong authoritarian approach that no hospitalization equals no treatment.
Is there something called middle ground? Let’s try and find out in the dictionary. Yes! There is dear people something called middle ground, and it means and I quote the Cambridge online English Dictionary: “a position between two opposite opinions in an argument, or between two descriptions.”
Very well, So if the argument of my therapists is that they wash their hands from the blood a potential suicidal person – whose suicide has now been established to be induced by anger – is valid. What does it actually mean? Here are a few options, you may add your own:
1- Protecting their “practice” is more important than protecting their patient: Self evident really. I wash my hand from thee blood on me chart of dead patients.
2- Protecting their “practice” is more valuable than the life of a borderline personality disorder (BPD) patient: By default a BPD fears, like seriously fears being left alone or behind. But again, thee blood is not on me finger (choice of finger left to you my dear reader)
3- Protecting their “practice” is a manipulative: Aha, yes let us tell the patient we shall not be responsible for you anymore and then wait behind the theater’s red curtain for the moment when the patient falls into the ground and starts begging them to control her life and take her back into the bliss of treatment.
There must be many more reasons, one of which is plain stupidity. Not once was I asked to find anther therapist, or helped in finding one. What about the period between ending your mighty help, and me finding someone else to help me? Lexomil, Dolipran, cutting my own veins? What was going into your tiny minds, with your tiny neurons floating around in this state of reduced mental capacity for judgment? I would seriously reconsider careers if I were you… But you are not that smart
You did me some favors though:
I learned that I alone own my destiny.
I learned that I alone control what goes into my body and in my mind.
I learned that I alone decide whom I will share my life.
I refuse to learn that people are bad until they prove otherwise.
TBC
I had no idea or no intention to write again. I though that’s it… The end.
Life decided differently, and now am alive. I had almost died 6 days ago. I overdosed again, but this time for a different reason.
Sunday it was, I knew there would be one pharmacy only opened. I went in and asked for 2 packs of paracetamol and one of aspirin.
I headed along Rue de Seine all the way to the river. I had even bought a large bottle of water at the pharmacy. What were they thinking I don’t know!
Glam, I was looking at the river and sipping one by one my pills. Families passing by, a child on his scooter, a group of American tourists on bikes. One pack gone, then I opened the second. I had managed to take 20 pills of paracetamol 1g each, and this is when I discovered that the aspirin needed to be dissolved in water.
Headed back towards the back streets of the 6th arrondissement, and found a nice coffee shop. I ordered their largest coffee and a glass of water. Little by little I had 18 pills of aspirin 350mg each.
It was 10:30 in the morning. I ordered a cab and decided to go to the psychiatric emergency center by my house CAC*. I had called my parents by then and they were waiting for me. Soon the ambulance came and I was taken to the reanimation room. My temperature was high.
Tbey started inserting canulas and tubes all over me. I had one placed inside my nose and this was the worst part of the whole experience. They filled it with charcoal to make the paracetamol effect go away. They told us I would stay at least 5 days at the hospital.
I threw my guts out. It must have been that which saved my liver, or maybe it was God. I’d rather say the latter. I have to confess that I was scared. At some point I felt that was it. They then said that my blood results were good and that I could go home. A miracle by all means.
I wish the story ends here. It just begins. My husband had to take me to the famous psychiatric hospital of St. Anne. I had to have a psychiatric evaluation by a third party different from my own psychiatrist or that of the CAC.
Well, four hours later into the waiting room, we were finally able to sign the most importantly binding paper of my life. It said that I can get out of the hospital against all medical opinion and under my own responsibility. My husband of course had to sign it as well. We had talked hard and long about the danger of such an act. It basically meant that he will be psychologically guilty should I decide to be in danger to myself or others. That night I promised him that this will never happen again. I would never forget the look in his eyes..
The deal may sound naive. Yet we have a good system in place to avoid further crises. The CAC is my panic button. I will tell my family immediately that my rage is coming up and I would immediately go there. At the center they talk to you, they give you medication, well they do what it takes to stop you before committing the act. I also have biweekly meetings with the team to discuss any important developments.
Lesson learnt the hard way. Life is precious. By doing this I was not only hurting myself, but my whole family; my husband, my children and my father. Do not commit the act. Talk to someone first, try it. Maybe it works, maybe it saves your life and makes you grateful for what you have never lost…
Tips and tricks for those in Paris
*CAC Garenciere: A centre for psychiatric emergency. These centers around Paris are places made to welcome and orient or even be a place of hospitalization for a short period of time.
Today I decided to share with you how it all started. I do not know why I feel the need to tell you this very personal story. I got a tattoo recently saying “Busco Me”, which is a Spanish title to a song that I absolutely love.
The song is totally bipolar, though my tattoo does not make sense in Spanish grammatically speaking, I chose the name of the song: I am searching for myself. I have been trying to avoid this subject while doing nothing else but soul searching for the last ten if not twenty years.
I have to talk to you about psychology to get to my the essence if my bipolarity, my insanity, my story. I chose to be a psychologist after the death of my mother at the age of 16. It was the only logical thing to do. Well, probably there were other logical things to do at the time. But for me to it was a calling.
My mother had psychiatric problems, if not at least psychological ones. She was a heavy drinker – an alcoholic. I was always ashamed of talking about this. It was my secret, our secret. I discovered recently that it is not the case. I cannot be hiding behind a thick curtain hoping to see the light. This was the reason I left psychology behind 10 years ago. I decided that the past is useless, the future is unknown and the now is what only matters.
Yes, this is a good mantra, yes it is indeed. But do not forget that the past that you have lived, makes the now you live. I had tried long and hard to escape rom this catch 22. Why I kept asking myself, why do I give so much importance to my childhood since my mother died 21 years ago? Please I am 37. I have a husband, 2 kids, travelled and lived in over 7 countries. I speak 4 languages, I have more diplomas than I will ever use.
I can pack and unpack a house in 24 hours almost on my own. I know how to change diapers, while having a glass of wine, talking on the phone, and making sure the food am cooking does not get burned. I help my husband make difficult decisions. I am a source of happiness for many people around me. I always encourage, always ask people to believe in themselves and that they are born for a reason, which might not be clear now, but surely will be. I am your typical cuddly dog, faithful, yet strong, playful yet with clear boundaries.
You get my point. I am polyvalente. I can do many things, and do them well. My husband says I must be German, though my only relationship with it is a goof friend of mine born on the same day as me. Why am I looking for the past? Why is it haunting me?
I will not tell you all at once, it will be too long. I want to keep you interested. It might turn out to a book this soul searching experiment. It might also be thrown to trash, but it wont be Eat, Love and Pray or whatever it was called. Sorry, not my type. Who cares anyways? The pleasure is in the journey not the destination. Do we need to argue this too?
TBC
Helpful resources in France:
Enfants -Adultes D’alcooliques: Dedicated to the topic. But it also has a few good specific articles in french about how to deal with certain situations.
Al-Anon/ Alateen France: Since the 50’s in the USA and early 60’s in France, this association helps families and friends of alcoholics. Good tip they have sessions in English and Spanish for families of alcoholics.
Information elsewhere:
Adult Children of Alcoholics: An association that is in the US helping the same population through different resources.
Children of Alcoholics: Very interesting resource speaking about how this specific population is at risk of addiction and offers pathways for prevention and treatment. They even have rehabilitation centers! Of course, you guesses well. This is indeed in the United States.
Feel free to add resources that you personally found useful yourself in the comment section….
suicide
ˈs(j)uːɪsʌɪd/
noun
plural noun: suicides
1 1.
the action of killing oneself intentionally.”he committed suicide at the age of forty”
2 synonyms:
3 self-destruction, taking one’s own life, self-murder, self-slaughter, felo de se; Moreself-immolation;
historicalsuttee;
historicalhara-kiri, seppuku;
informaltopping oneself, ending it all
“she committed suicide”
a : the act or an instance of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally
2: one that commits or attempts suicide
So I am admitting: I am suicidal. I have suicidal thoughts that lead me nowhere. I cannot commit the act for so many reasons. The most obvious is my family. I cannot do this to them… I just cannot imagine their distress, sadness, and feelings of betrayal.
Secondly, maybe not secondly but anyway, I cannot commit suicide because I have no access to any of my favorite tools- Benzo* meds. I am hospitalized and thus I am only allowed one dose at a time; always checking that I actually swallow everything they give me.
Thirdly, down deep inside, I feel like a coward wanting the easy way out. But honestly I sometimes I do not even see the “difficult” way out.
Good news now I have quit Seresta, “used for the treatment of anxiety and insomnia and in the control of symptoms of alcohol withdrawal”, a Benzo but that for me does absolutely nothing. From reading about it, I think it does not work for me because it is an intermediate acting Benzo which supposedly should’ve decreased my anxiety. It works on GABA receptors – which basically makes your brain less anxious. I talked to several patients here with me and many said even at high dosage, it is quite useless…
But of course, this antianxiolytic has to be replaced by something else, otherwise I will have horrible withdrawal effects: the last thing I need. So now I am on Valium, which honestly decreases my anxiety levels and reminds me of my favorite Benzo Lexomil. I cannot take my fav because I overdosed on it. So now this Valium (Diazepam if you are keen to know the real name for it) is great as it is a long acting Benzo, which is similar to Lixomil. This means less anxiety and more muscle relaxation.
*Benzodiazepines: are a class of psychoactive drugs whose core chemical structure is the fusion of a benzene ring and a diazepine ring. [They] enhance the effect of the neurotransmittergamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) at the GABAA receptor, resulting in sedative, hypnotic (sleep-inducing), anxiolytic (anti-anxiety), anticonvulsant, and muscle relaxant properties
Continue reading “Dealing with suicidal thoughts when you have Bipolar II”
Happily Depressed... 