Forgive and forget

My last therapy session focused a lot on forgiveness, and building bridges that were burnt down, between me and some people. I had to try to make a mental list of which bridges I would like to rebuild and then tackle those relationships, sacrifice my pride, even when I had been right, and try to build those relationships again.

The hardest part has been deciding which were truly toxic relationships, which I should be glad and relieved are over, and which should I salvage, if any. 

Firstly because I live with my dad, I have been trying to be more positive, and try to see his good parts instead of constantly focusing on the bad ones. Instead of expecting him to freak out at me everyday, like he mostly does, I have been trying to be nice, and friendly, even if I don't feel it.

It has made a huge difference, and I had just started to feel good about this relationship again, when he told me today he can't sleep at night, he's going to drink a bottle of wine tonight.

I begged him, pleaded with him, to Please please not do it. If not for himself for me. He has completely disregarded my pleas, has immediately started picking fights with me about everything, and I can barely look him in the eye now. 

I can't do this again. I don't know how to get out of this, but I can't stand this again.

Alcoholism

I can't remember if I've talked about my dad's drinking here. It has always been excessive  Until he is drunk out of his head. Barely able to walk, and completely out of it. He also has black outs about his behavior.
Luckily he isn't violent, but he does extremely embarrassing things.

I've always hated hated hated his drinking. I remember when I was around 12, him having to pull over on a highway to throw up. He drove drunk a lot, and I always thought this is the night we're gonna die.

To live with that stress as a child is so damaging.

Since moving in with him I've had to face his drinking again. It was every single night, until he was sufficiently drunk to struggle his way upstairs and pass out on his bed. He'd then spend the night singing, talking, fighting, and walking in his sleep.

I never thought he quite, but he did. about 2 moths ago. And according to him had absolutely no withdrawal symptoms, and cravings. Although he replaced his drinking alcohol, with drinking cool drinks.

I was glad he stopped, but I still have a lot of anger about his drinking. It will take time to get over that.

Then last night he drank again. I spent a big part of the night hearing him freak out in his bedroom. Luckily he wasn't able to unlock his bedroom door in the state he was in. It makes me sick. It absolutely horrifies me, and makes me incredibly angry.

I've been walking on eggshells, expecting it. I've been checking up on him occasionally to make sure he wasn't sneaking alcohol, but last night he was open and blatant about it.

I'm sick about it. I hope it was a once off thing, because if it wasn't I don't know if I can stand it. I don't know what I will be able to do, but I think I'd take a lower paying job, just to get some way of moving out of here. I might have to lose my medical aid, which means loosing my meds and therapy, but I can't go on like this. I can't stand it.

On a positive note, I have been feeling less depressed on the new dose of meds, which is great. It makes it slightly easier to handle all the other crap.

Mixed Moods, Meds and self inflicted misery

I can't remember if I ever wrote of being date raped at age 19.
I don't think or talk about it much. The resolution of those emotions and pain was sorted out with my first bout of therapy years ago and I usually feel nothing much even when I do think about it.

I have not had to feel those feelings of vulnerability, dread, absolute misery and self hate that was associated with that incident for a very long time. Let me go back a bit though.

It was a long weekend. my Psychiatrist nicely asked me to please drink my meds at 8am every single day. This means weekends. I struggle with that. I tend to sleep in on weekends because after 9pm is the only time I get to  spend some time with my husband watching movies, or catching up with my TV Series etc. So it;s me time, and on weekends I like to stretch it just a little bit which means I get to bed late, and usually sleep in..

To my own detriment though.

It seems the books are right. When you suffer from Bipolar disorder you need routine routine routine. I suck at routine.

So Wednesday last week I saw the psychiatrist. Told him happily I am very stable of mood since starting the meds. We decided to slow my increase of Epitec as I was getting extremely light headed, and that stopped with the slowing. We also decided together that capping me on 100mg instead of 200mg should be okay, seeing as I had been doing so good.

Obviously the cortisone I received during my stay in ICU after my Gall bladder removal, as well as the Anesthetics, both contributed to a pervasive low mood I'd been having. But in my mind all was well. I knew why it was there so expected it to lift soon. It hasn't

So by Friday which was a public holiday I had a cold and felt low down depressed, and very pissed off with myself for not being able to get out of bed.

Saturday I forced myself out, and made myself go to the mall. Bad Idea. I hate the mall. What's worse than the mall is going there when I am irritable and low. And going clothes shopping for my picky, whiny 5 year old while she's with me.

It was a BAD Idea. And while I was out there I just started to see all these things that were wrong with me and wrong with my life, and wrong with my husband. And I sank deeper into anger and missery.

It got so bad that when we got home, after being horrible to my husband and impatient with my daughter I decided to have some wine. This after I had given up on drinking, and doing so well with it.

So I drank because I felt horrible and I had a huge "talk/fight/discussion" with my husband while my daughter played at the neighbours. Eventually we started making some progress and the wine was having effect ( 2/3 of a bottle down). He still smokes and my resistance is low while drinking so when I felt like a drag of his cigarette I rather went next door.

There we drank some more and I switched to red wine, at which point I apparently lost all memory. I can't remember much. I have never blacked out while drinking. I apparently did some silly things, and said some silly things, and acted like a total drunk, which is embarrassing enough. But when my friend went to put her child in the bath and my husband left to do the same with ours, my neighbours husband made a move on me.

Even thinking about it now makes me sick to my stomache. I have no idea why I remember this and not what else happened that night. It';s not very clear exactly how insistent he was or how touchy he was but the thing that stays with me is that same helpless, and self hating, angry and hurt, and stupid feeling. I keep saying the same things to myself. " Why was I so stupid to drink so much" " Why did I end up with him alone" " Did I fight it enough" "Why didn't I fight it more"

Just to be clear, I wasn't raped again, as far as I remember it was just a lot of unwanted attention and maybe a profession of desire. But it was enough to trigger those horrible emotions that have been buried for years. I don't want them. I can't snap out of this now.

I'm more moody, I don';t take it out on my husband though and I try not to take it out on anyone else, but it is hard.

I want to be alone but I can't. I want to crawl into bed, read, watch movies, disappear. I want to just not have to live right now, but I know I have to. I have to go on, act normal, get stuff done, take another breath. Try to be okay again.

I have to

Crash Boom Bang

The sound of me hitting Low. I could not stay awake yesterday. Firstly I can never sleep soundly past 8 on a weekend morning. That's the time my 3 year old wakes up at the latest, and she never allows me to sleep later, so when I first dragged one eyelid from the other at 12pm on Sunday I knew something was wrong.

Physically it is impossible for me to sleep that deeply that long. I wrote it off to having a few drinks the night before, but I did not feel hungover in the slightest, I just felt physically drained. I still do.

I dragged myself to the couch downstairs, attempted to keep my eyes open, and failed miserably. 4 drinks don't do this to me. I spent most of the day in and out of naps on the couch. I attempted to force myself to get up and play with Caitlin but my neck could barely keep my head up. Luckily I seem to have a very patient, and forgiving husband, who kept Caitlin busy and also completed the household tasks.

Eventually he made dinner, we ate. I tried to force myself to bath Caitlin but I couldn't even walk up the stairs. I had to get her out of the bath and dress her, and it was excruciating. I almost fell asleep with her on her bed. Eventually I dragged myself out of there, forced myself to shower and pack her lunch, and fell on my own bed exhausted.

I read a bit and fell asleep at the normal bed time for me. I had a bad night though, tossing and turning. So by this morning I felt like I hadn't slept at all.

I even had a low blood pressure episode when I got up this morning, but managed to get everything done I had to. I feel slightly better than yesterday, but still physically drained.

Now in order for this to be a Bipolar kind of Low, that means I was coming down from up high.

Since last week Wednesday I have been very frustrated and angry, so was that a hypo manic episode? I've been googling symptoms, and irritability is one of them. I just thought it was my hormones.

Saturday I was doing a bit of the "life of the party" thing and I did have a little warning bell go off in my head, but I still thought, nah I'm fine. So I guess maybe it was. It would have to be for me to hit such a physical low, wouldn't it?

Mentally I'm okay, just tired. Thoughts dragging and not really willing to do much. Late Sat night I went out with a friend. The 4 drinks didn't affect me much, physically, but mentally I also started dragging, so maybe it was a combination of factors.

Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, but it very rarely kicks me in a low by itself.

So now I'm just hoping it passes swiftly and I get to go back to a nice level normal.