My Life and Bipolar

Today's blog entry comes in a more serious tone. I would like to talk about my fight against bipolar disorder and depression.

Ever since I was little, I had been very sensetive to how people are towards me. The littlest praise would shoot me to the stars! The smallest discipline would bring me right back down, and then some. When I started school, I was definitely the awkward one. Really tall, larger body build, but not fat, and definitely did not know a stranger. I was gullible, and believed anything anyone told me. Everything was a fact. I got picked on at school, even in kindergarten. I got teased in the first graded for having a Barney raincoat.

By the time I reached second grade, I had already been dubbed an outcast. I never knew why. I knew my clothes weren't like most the other kids, I had my own sense of style and imagination. I wasn't prissy like the other girls, always the tomboy. My mother couldn't even get me into a "fancy" dress until my 8th Christmas! (Tons of pics were taken because she knew it wasn't permanent.) I think I just rubbed the other kids the wrong way by being too forward and friendly (still am, from what I understand.)

My parents moved when I was about to go into the forth grade. I was scared to death about going to a new school. But, for some reason, being the new kid was awesome there. I had tons of friends! I joined my first "clique". It included H, U, MB, MJ, and L. H is still considered my bestie. :) U and MB were pretty tight and MJ turned out to be a cousin of mine.

With the change of schools, so did the change of buses. Not the best experience in the world. I got bullied on there. Got sexually harassed by a kid actually younger than me. I had some of the worst things said to me on that bus.

By the time I got to middle school, I was feeling pretty good, minus the bus rides. I had had an incident at one point my fifth grade year, but would rather not speak about that. I also had broke my arm the summer before school. This, later on, caused more bullying.

My sixth grade year was pretty bad. This is the first time I think I truly suffered from depression. I was coming home every day from school crying. L ended up back-stabbing me when everyone made the move up. She thought she was better than everyone. Better than me. She told most of the secrets I had told her. I was also having to face my old bullies from my first school. Some have now come along, others haven't. I got called chicken shit and horse shit by the boys. I still have no idea why I deserved such colorful names.

Middle school got a little easier as it went along. At least at school, it did. At home, I was dealing with my parents going back and forth. My mom would leave for a while and then come back. My dad was no longer the person she wished to be with. I got picked on for "developing" much earlier than all the other girls. Gym class was hard because we now had locker rooms. I also could not do certain activities due to my arm not healing right. I was a black sheep. Always left out. New friends included K and P, who were cousins. I also made another friend, ML, who I really thought was my friend. She had had a hard life. Mother did hard drugs and gave her up to her grandparents. They had moved to TN to start a new church. They were from California. I lost friends (due to back-stabbing me) and gained friends.

Right before high school, I had another incident similar to what had happened before I started middle school. It was hard for me to get over. High school started off really bad. My mother got pregnant with my youngest sister and ML started the rumor that I was pregnant. It was a not an out of control one since my mother showed really early and the rumor was dispersed. My parents also got divorced at the end of my ninth grade year. It hit me really hard. I was still getting picked on. I could not get a boyfriend. Every boy was my "friend" and I was not "girlfriend" material. This included my best guy friend MP.

I also made friends with MS and D. MS was very artistic and D was very shy. I thought she was 8 when I met her. She was 14. :) I had more rumors come and go. Finally the pain of what happened in the summer and from the rumors, I cut myself for the first time. I only told MP, because I knew he wouldn't go to my parents. They never knew.I had also met my husband for the first time, but that's another thing altogether.

By the time I was 16, I had, you know, did it. I ended up telling my mom. I got put on Depo aka the shot. A lot of things happened soon afterwards. I was having mood issues and gained a ton of weight. My life felt like it was coming undone. I had thoughts of prying into my dad's gun cabinet and getting a gun. I ended up going to the doc and was ordered to counseling. (He was Christian and didn't think drugs were the answer. I thought he was crazy.) My counselor was what I always liked to call the Extremely-Happy-Joyful-Weird-Nun. She actually was not a nun, but think of Sister Mary Patrick from Sister Act. Except with dyed blonde hair. She wanted to actually diagnose me bipolar. When my mom found out, she yanked me out of the program. I was also off the Depo shot. Things got a little better, but not great.

Let's flash forward a bit. I graduated with Honors, yata-yata. By the way, I was actually pretty smart. Maybe my smartness was a problem for those boys in middle school… sorry, side thinking here. Anyways, I've had my bouts of depression on and off since then. Then I came upon my wild years. According to my last diagnosis, this is when I suffered from bipolar the most. I was very much out of control. Things changed when I started dating my husband. I calmed down.

I still suffer from bullying. Now it's at work. This next part is a little hard to muddle through. It's long (to me), but it all fits together. This past August, I started going back to college full time. That's pretty stressful when you've been out for 5 years. I got married in September. A lot of people consider that stressful, and for some reason it was stressful at first. In an odd way though. I knew it would happen, just like with school. I dealt with the stress. I thought everything was fine. I also work full time in a very demanding management position. So, school, marriage, and work. All full time, all demanding.

In October, the stress had been getting to me. I was angry all the time. The tiniest things would set me off. I would be okay one minute and crying the next. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Work was getting very demanding and my manager NEVER thinks before she speaks. She reminds me of a girl I knew in high school. Thoughts had been creeping into my head. I've had these types of thoughts before, but thought they would go away, just like all the other times. They didn't. The impulse to act on them was getting stronger. I wanted to ram my car into an object. Tree, wall, something. Very fast. Very hard. My husband came to get me from work one night and I broke down. We had been talking about me going to speak to someone at the local crisis center, but I always thought I would get through it. He didn't know what my true thoughts were at the time. We went.

That night, everything just flooded out of me. Even my suicidal thoughts. I ended up in a Crisis Stabilization Center for 3 days. I was admitted at 3 AM. I didn't get much sleep. I cried the first day. I didn't interact with the other patients or nursing staff. I felt like I was a burden on everyone and everything. And to top it off, my workplace would not stop harassing my husband about my whereabouts. I was through with it all. I got better, and happy again. While I was there, I was officially diagnosed with mixed bipolar disorder. Things were not easy to go back to at work. My manager pushed to know why I was gone. I was actually threatened with losing my job. It was an "unexcused absence". I showed her the doc note. Things still have not got better, but I was given tools to properly deal with the issues, and have been told to seek another job.

Well, there you have it in a nutshell. I would like to say to everyone that if you need anyone to talk to our to just have a friend, I'm here. :)