Today I woke up anxious...

Today I woke up feeling really anxious... no idea why! I didn't sleep during the night I stayed up and cleaned the house lol. Well I fell asleep at like 7am and woke up at 12.30pm, I didn't feel tired but really anxious, that horrible cloud of fear that sometimes hangs over me was there. Isn't it weird to feel petrified of nothing in particular?
Well now I've missed my lecture so I'm going to have to listen to it online. I hope I can shake this anxious thing, its pretty bad - singing with the choir in a service tonight and right now I feel randomly too scared to leave the house. Omg what is wrong with my brain. *sigh. Maybe I should go drink some coffee, should totally settle my nerves :P

Full of bloody good ideas

*yawn I'm actually really tired now!! I have been hypomanic I guess...I didn't sleep at all on Sunday night, so I was pretty hyper the next day. I had so much adrenaline coursing through my body that I was literally shaking and I had to keep going to the bathroom during my lecture.... sorry if too many details!! My pharmacology presentation was okay, I think I talked too fast and stumbling over myself a bit, but oh well. I fell asleep finally at 1am on monday night and I must have been totally tired out because I slept in until like 11am today. I felt hyperactive again when I woke up though. Mum came up at lunch time and I think she got a bit freaked out by my weird paintings from Sunday night which I proudly displayed lol not realizing how disturbing they probably were...

We went shopping in Fremantle, I got some new clothes and some art supplies for more painting/collaging! Mum nicely paid for most of it, good thing because I would have spent heaps on my own and I seriously can't afford it! But now I feel a bit guilty that she spent all this money on me. I also bought this crimson coloured ink, and I already have a calligraphy pen - I figure it'll be awesome coz it will be like writing in blood!! I announced this epic idea to Mum and A., but they looked at me like I was nuts.

Had netball tonight too, which was fun - and we won! I had so much energy, I was a good defence! :P

Made plans with R for this friday to dye my hair an epic white/silver/lilac colour, dunno if it will work lol my hair will probably fall out when I bleach it, but I don't care X) Also to have an awesome arty arvo sesh.

Tomorrow I have group therapy and am singing in a service, getting paid $70 to do it though so that's cool!

Gah I'm so annoyed that I'm feeling worn out again now, I really would like to stay up and do music practice and paint a picture! My body is so annoying with its limits, I just want to do and do! WELL I think I might go do a little bit of flute practice before sleeping, I am so behind in my music atm!

goodnight world.....

crazy

I feel bad. Trying to let out emotion etc, so I've been writing and I painted a picture today, for the first time, its terrible but who cares, I was trying to find a new way to express. I don't have a camera and the webcam on this laptop wont work for some reason, so I couldn't upload a photo here. Can't really describe it in words so I won't try.

 "A." kind of had a talk to me today about how upset he actually gets with the SH. Seriously I just don't know how else to cope, it's getting harder and harder to deal, I'm going out of my mind. I haven't felt stable for at least 10months and seriously I don't know what's going to happen to me. I can't go on like this forever, somethings gotta snap. I'm just not "normal", I can't function like other people! I know I am not alone by any stretch, so many of my friends have similar (or worse) problems. I am so tired, like mentally exhausted from trying to cope every day. Everyone thinks I'm alright, my pdoc even says to me things like "you're not at all crazy" "the intensity of your emotions is worrying but you're not mad" and last visit she said "I'd be mad to put you in Graylands." Really? Because f*ck, if I'm not mad then I'm not really sure what is. I don't even think I'd mind going in to hospital, it would be a place I could stop "trying" to function normally, like what a f*cking relief that would be to be taken care of and not worry about the stress I was putting on other people.   But I suppose I'm not "mad" enough for institutionalization. Ohmyffinggod, but I am mad if ever there was a definition for it, and I am struggling oh my god am I struggling!!

Tomorrow oh f-,  tomorrow I have to do a TALK in front of the pharmacology class. Yes good luck with that, everyone stare at the crazy girl. What if I snap and do something awkward like cry - or scream lol, I wonder what reaction that would get?? Oh but I couldn't do that to my poor other group members.

WORLD WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME DO?? What am I supposed to do when my thoughts are like fire and ice and everything in between?? HELP oh I can keep screaming HELP as long as I like, but there's no-one or anything out there that can hear or HELP when the problem is your own existence and you can't do a damn thing about it...

But I'll try to sleep.

Stop Shivering

Stop Shivering

I want to die and I don’t want anyone to see me and I don’t want but I want something I want it all

I want to cry but I hurt too much to do it and I hate myself for existing so tenaciously and I

I am love beneath the mortar blood like wet mortar seeps and I can’t bear it not being able to see it I want

I want to drag a blade across my skin I want to bleed to death but no courage to press down you coward

Stop shivering I want to say but the trembles numb my mind my mouth feels like a swollen fruit

No way in to that garden no way out of Now If I could explode I would even if it meant they had to pick up 

the pieces

Line after line after line of madness and I sit here so calmly pill in the bottle as I don’t like surrendering

TRAPPED TRAPPED TRAPPED I feel I will scream and now there are some tears on this reflection I 

don’t like being Controlled I thought about starving myself to death but haven’t the conviction I thought 

about painting but I couldn’t I hadn’t the imagination I thought and found I was already dead nothing there I 

am a monster! Should be afraid

Of myself but I’m not there’s only anguish my legs and my arms stinging but it means nothing I don’t know what

It means and all of this is trapped inside me and I CAN’T STAND IT I can’t stand you and your casualness 

I can’t stand And don’t tell me to bloody crawl instead and I can’t listen to light because I am sick and none 

of this is helping at all Because I still want to do it and do it properly this time you have an obligation makes 

me sick I am sick with and of Guilt and you say I do it to you when I am the one when I am the one who 

lives it I want to stop it all and let the flood Gates loose I want to stop shivering and start screaming

Mixed state

Think I'm in a mixed state. I keep having these crying sessions, and then feeling really agitated and terrible. :/ Still the SH going on too, its the only way I seem to be able to cope...

Went to group therapy for the first time on Wednesday, I liked it, the other people in it seem cool. I got really anxious before I went though and SH'd. Seems to be my thing atm. My arms look pretty bad, even though they are only ever shallow cuts there are a lot of them. So I need to be pretty careful about hiding them. A. seems to have accepted it a bit, once he realized that I'm not actually suicidal when I do this.

Okay I'm feeling a bit better now. I just caused a big fight with A. by going on and on about wanting babies (I'm hyper okay), and he got reallly angry at me. Sheesh I wasn't serious, I was just TALKING about the possible future, but anyway he got really upset then we fought and I cried. Then we made up. *sigh* Life is so freaking boring and yet so dramatic at the same time. And I alternate between wanting to die and wanting to do a thousand things at once!!!!!

Yeh I dunno why I put that picture I just did.

Lol I just said to R. "If only I got paid for Pondering, I would be rich."

wow I'm so wise in my ponderings....

Scribble Paper

This is my sixth day on the new meds, zoloft and saphris. I'm sleeping better and it's way easier to get up in the morning. Unfortunately been getting bad headaches and dizziness by the afternoon, but they are getting less so hopefully just temporary side effects! I also have been bad with the SI the last couple of days, I went a bit nuts and did all up both arms and a couple on legs (only shallow). But now I'm supposed to go play netball so Oh shit. Maybe I can wear long sleeves under my netball top? Also, my Mum saw today, even though I wore long sleeves she god-forbid caught a glimpse and immediately demanded what was going on, and freaked out pretty bad.

I had a pdoc appointment today and she also noticed, but luckily she is pretty cool about it - at least doesn't have a hyperventilating fit over it lol. But she said I need to try some other coping methods, she suggested one that other patients use by getting a red pen and scribbling really hard on paper, like writing or scribbling whatever, or maybe with paint. Will have to give that one a go!

Mann SO exhausted, feel like I spent half the day driving! Better go figure out what to do about netball..

Purification

Purification

My head leans against the tiles.
Sadness glistens on my spine
on my breasts and thighs;
clear water-droplets.

A knock and a hesitant voice.
I scrub away the black eyes;
Yes, I say, because it's too late.
I should have bought a lock

To hang around my own neck.
I don't want you to see me,
but you cast aside
the shower curtain.

You don't know what you stare at.
A question. Yes, I'm alright.
Shame turns me away.
When you are gone,

I contemplate it.

Oww..

woah, I am EXTREMELY dizzy and spaced out and my head is pounding with a headache... it feels exactly like the seretonin withdrawal symptoms I once got from stopping paroxetine cold turkey.

I reallly hope this symptoms go away, I feel bloody awful lol! Gaaahhh, why can't somebody invent some psychiatric drugs that don't have all the awful side effects??!! - maybe that will be my job, if I decide to pursue medical research after uni :P

Was in orchestra rehearsal today and had to sit through three hours of loud crashing Mahler chords.... groan...

"Let's Challenge That Thought"

Went to a pdoc appointment and a therapist appointment, both on Wednesday. The pdoc had squeezed me in at lunch-time because I rang her on Tuesday saying I was feeling really down and needed to see her. Well I agreed with her that I needed to go back on meds, so I'm now taking saphris and zoloft. Hoping against hope it will do something for me!
Tried to explain to my therapist what its like for me at night, and why I put off going to bed because I know all those bad feelings are waiting to surface and that I can't take it. She pulled the whole "lets challenge that thought, the "I can't take it." How do you KNOW you can't take it?"
Oh f me LOL.

Do I really need to say any more?

Anyway, looks like the group therapy will be starting next week, at least I might be able to meet some more like-minded people? Although I feel really lucky to have such understanding friends already, sometimes I do not think I deserve such support, because I push people away when I'm not well. I also feel like maybe I am being punished with this depression because of what I did to A. at the beginning of the year. Yeh I was manic, but I really hurt someone, like REALLY hurt the one person who basically unconditionally loves me. I deserve punishment for that, I guess.

Oh, what am I even saying, I don't believe in higher power or judgement or karma or anything like that, it's just sometimes when you feel like you can't take the  pain anymore and it's like "WHY? what the hell did I do to deserve this?" '

Probably everyone in the whole world has been there

Please, Universe

It can be such a relief to cry! I've been holding it in all day at uni, with this fake smile plastered to my face. Today I actually prayed - yep, the atheist got down on her knees and prayed - to the universe or the collective consciousness or whatever - to ANYTHING - to please help me through this.

Why do I have to hurt so much? I don't know how many times I've asked that. I don't understand what or even who I am, and existence is just a huge jumbled, confused mess to me.

I think perhaps its time for yet another long hot bath, and maybe listen to that relaxation tape again.

Can I do all this again tomorrow? One thing at a time, its the only way to get through.

The Boatman

Wasn't so good again today...

But tonight I did a bit of pharmacology revision and sang/played music with A....  this beautiful gaelic song I came across on youtube, called "The Boatman":  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHe2H2WOQXs&feature=relmfu

Music never fails to lift your spirits! at least, hardly ever fails :)

All I can do at the moment is tell myself it's going to be alright. I don't exactly know what's wrong with me, but there is sadness and anguish and the SI. I know I need help, I need to see my pdoc. I think I will ring either tomorrow or tuesday.

Monday is a full day at uni...  lecture, 5hr lab, followed by choir rehearsal. Gah... you can do it Tam, one thing at a time!!


I listened to the progressive muscle relaxation tape my therapist gave me, I really liked it. Strange thing is though, whenever I do those "relaxation" type activities, meditation or whatever, I immediately start crying. When I relax, I cry. and I have no idea what I'm crying about.

Oh wow, my last post was pretty bad, I'm really sorry to anyone who might have read that. I am a lot better than yesterday, thank goodness...

I had a terrible day yesterday, the "catatonic" type depression came back and I could hardly move, I slept all day. The effort to get up to go to the bathroom, took the most massive amount of willpower and the energy of a marathon. Mum came up to help look after me, which was really nice.

Today I am still moving in slow motion, my body is so heavy... I missed orchestra rehearsal this morning :(

Anyway, today will take it easy, going out tonight for a friend's bday though. It'll be a small thing, so I should be okay. I have to go because I'm not letting anyone down again.

Deep breathing, its going to be alright!

Bad Place

I'm sad again :(.  Omfg, why couldn't I at least have had the hypomania for more than a couple of days?? What is with the super short elevated episode, I would like to know. Oh my god, what the hell did I do to deserve this? Other  people are starving and sick, and I can't handle life in a first world country. I wish I could die so that someone who deserved it, who would be grateful for being alive, could take my place.
I was mostly healed, but A. saw some recent SI marks from this week and I could tell it upset him and I felt really bad about it.

Today it was singing and more singing with the choir and I thought I would sing my vocal chords right out but I could not get out the shit that was inside of my head and my chest. I wish I could be a spirit and just take a vacation outside of my body so I could escape the poison that seems to be in there. Unless its my "soul" ("mind" whatever) that has the problem and not my "brain." What the hell, I believe they are the same thing anyway. Who exactly am I blaming? God, who I also don't believe in? My own brain, which can't help being wired that way? My lack of will power, also a product of my apparently "flawed" brain.

Omg I am sad. I am a sad piece of sh*t who can't get out of her own self-obsessed cocoon of sadness to actually do anything worthwhile with her life to help anyone.

Omg I need to get out of HERE... I'm going to take a sleeping tablet, oblivion please, just for a while!

Manic Run

Well my night/v. early morning jog wasn't as quite as good an idea as I thought...


Firstly, I decided not to wear bras because I thought it would be "liberating." Turns out even my poorly endowed chest does not respond kindly to such jostling. Sorry for the imagery.

Secondly, it was freeeeezing and the wind was howling my head off!! and I get this thing where my ears REALLY ACHE in the cold and the wind! so I ended up tying my jacket around my head like a turban to counter this.

Before I tied the jacket however, a police car strolled past and I was like omg are they going to arrest me for manic 3am jogging?? But they did not. Later I also realized that the earphones I was wearing were not connected to an ipod...
           and the unconnected chord was dangling out the bottom of my shirt. Wow I must have looked really mad!

Also I forgot my asthma spray, so its lucky I did not get an asthma attack and die.


BUT I did have some luck because as soon as I set foot back inside my house the rain started pouring!! thank goodness I did not get caught in it!


LOL look at this poster I found of a movie:

   ... totally need to see this one!!


 Hahaha.

lolll slightly manic and awake at 2am...

I tried to go to sleep but I've been lying there hyperactive as hell for two hours so!! I really want to go for a walk actually, but its really windy outside... and it rained earlier... I guess I could brave the wind! I don't want to get raped and murdered (not necessarily in that order). But I figure the best thing to do when hypomanic is to do more hyperactive things to reinforce it. 

Btw I'm going to get a tattoo with C!!! I showed her this design I liked I was thinking about, and she was amazed because it was the same one she'd been thinking of getting! It's something like this:

But I thought I'd put the words "Imagination is Life." 

"Imagination" going around the outside and under the tree, and the "is Life" going underneath the middle of those three spirals.

To give you an idea of what someone else did: 

If you can even see that; for some reason it's really tiny. Btw I also wrote this  love poem:

The Parting Note

Where he sat at the end

Sat at the end of the table,

By the moonlight he was able

Able to make out the runes,

The ruined runes that leaked like wounds

Like wounds from weeping fingertips,

Stained the inky colour of her lips.

And as he wrote he spoke.

Spoke he: I hereby send

I send the makings of my end,

My end of being and of soul.

My soul is sealed within this scroll:

A single page, a mere stage

For you; for me, in fact, my final act.

Tamara, 7th Aug 2012

Lol I can't tell if it's bad, or if it's dramatic ... is it bad? You can tell me, it's okay. Okay well I think I'm going to go off on this walk, and maybe listen to a uni lecture when I get back (accidentally missed it today, slept in... that's ironic because now I cannot for the life of me get to sleep). 

The world is extremely exciting and magical right now, how could I ever have forgotten that?? I feel like I could write and write or walk and walk... but I think mostly right now I would like to walk while perhaps writing in my head.

Goodnight, world of sane, sleeping people. Oh, how much you miss. xx

Skipping Stones

Soooo....  I may be a little bit hypomanic atm... Found it v. difficult to go to sleep the last couple of nights, particularly last night. Poor A. had to get up really early for a choir performance, and I kept him up really late, I wouldn't stop talking! And today I know I was hyperactive, and my mind gets that airy, leaping kind of feeling, like my thoughts are skipping stones that I'm flying over, and I do and say things before I even realize what I'm doing or saying. Yes yes, its elevated, for sure, but I'm not particularly "happy" either. I found this picture which summarizes it:
..... lol, so true! Probably difficult for a non-bipolar to understand, I'd imagine! My pdoc knows me well in that respect though. She said once that I always had this distinct underlying sadness, whether I was depressed, manic or anything in-between. I am sad. What is wrong with me? I think I'm basically just f*d. I don't think you can ever "un-sad" once you've been there. Not really, ever. 


But listen - that's the rain falling on the roof and it sounds amazing, and I feel cozy and safe while I sit watching the Olympics with A. Why couldn't moments like this last forever, where you are safe in your own world, and never have to worry about tomorrow? 

But didn't I have a nice day today? It was so much fun doing the bbq and walk at the river with the MH peers support group... it was hilarious watching J try to throw an afoil box at someone's football she spied in the top-most branches of a pine tree... and watching the alfoil unravel through the air. I also liked it when the seagull stole her kebab and flew towards a family with a small child, and and entire flock of seagulls racing after it and subsequently engulfing the family. XD It was a beautiful day to be at the river, too. T kept saying, Tam, you are a bit manic. Why yes, hello, but is that not much preferable than that terrible fatigue-type depression? At least if I give in to this kind of madness, I can push aside all the dark stuff. 
I would rather be madly elevated, yes let me be mad, thank  you, because it seems I only have a choice between "elevated and slightly mad" or depressed and exhausting and hurting, always hurting! I'm like a wounded child, what is wrong with me? I don't even have an excuse, nothing sufficiently terrible ever happened to me to make me like this. But I'm kind of broken, anyway! I hope I just stay mad and manic forever, so I don't have to feel the full weight of that crushing sorrow anymore. I just can't deal with it. 


So screw the whole "check your hypomania early so it doesn't turn into mania", I am not taking antipsychotics that will bring me down and make me feel terrible again, nope, bring on the madness... even at the expense of others. Yep, I'm feeling that selfish. I need to escape reality, and it looks like my brain is going to do it for me. 

The Injury in the Orchard

The Injury in the Orchard




I did not cry at the swift, final blow,
Though the full-force rocked my body and my soul,
And my heart stopped, and the red current flow
Obscured my vision and pillowed my fall.
I did not question if I deserved it
As I lay, mute, staring at the ceiling;
I watched my floating thoughts, only feeling
Stillness. And the darkness - I yearned for it.
It never came. Lights danced before my eyes;
Tauntingly, my soul recognized beauty.
Your face hovers; the questioning word dries
In the air of your silence. The fruit tree
     Was tended by my own beseeching hand;
     The fall like nothing you could understand


Tamara, Aug 2012

Zombies & Aliens

Last night I found myself unable to sleep, although A. was snoring calmly beside me, muttering about "brains" in his sleep. Must have been having zombie dreams. 

While A was fantasizing about zombies, my waking brain was still pre-occupied with the idea 
of aliens. The street lamp outside my window was casting this really strange yellow-orange light
 through my window, and I suddenly got this impression of having stepped into another world, 
or having appeared on another planet! And then I started considering that there kind of ARE 
"multiple worlds", if you take the idea of "reality is in the mind" literally. You could, theoretically, 
travel between different worlds, or different versions of this world, by altering your mind state. 


I mean, don't I already do that, being bipolar? But what if you could do it by choice? How infinitely
fascinating would that be, to be able to escape or explore different "realms", if you have it, at will? 
Whenever you felt trapped, you could simply step through into a new reality. 


Today I amused myself by pretending I was on a brand new, alien planet and trying to look at it
 through the eyes of someone who'd never seen it before. Things became suddenly a lot more 
fascinating. Went down to the beach with Aand sat there eating icecream :) but I was looking out 
at the water and like, really SEEING it, and thinking how amazing it was that we were sitting 
there on the surface of a planet, covered largely by water, and that there was a whole world there 
under the waves.... and that above us was the "sky" which was really just the atmosphere of our 
planet and that after that was the universe, space, that (for all intents and purposes) basically 
goes on for ever and ever....

Woww, doesn't that make your mind blow?? Existence is so fantastic that its impossible to truly 
comprehend! 


I think I just switched mental state again - but not manic, don't have that never-ending energy.
Still, its a nice break from the nihilistic depression, I hope it sticks around! 

Alien Tam

Today began with A. dragging me out of bed by my feet at 12.15pm... it was a good move because I would likely have not got up at all!! Damn this apathy... just no motivation for anything at all! I am so SICK of being so tired, and so sad... God know one realizes how hard I actually have to try to function normally, to appear normal... in all honesty I'm not really "present" at all most of the time. Someone is talking to me and I feel like there is a glass wall between them and me, it's this huge effort just to figure out what they are saying... I feel like a freaking alien most of the time... 

... with human communication issues. Not sure how group therapy will go, although that doesn't start until the end of August now, meaning I have three more one-on-one sessions - oh no. Although we are just trying to work on relaxation and sleep patterns at the moment, which I like better than the whole "thought-analysis" CBT stuff, which really hasn't been doing it for me lately. 


J, L and the kids left this morning for China, didn't see them of at the airport as it was a really early flight. But did spend the afternoon with them yesterday, which was great omgosh I could not stop feeling sad! I hate myself so much sometimes; I feel like it is somehow my fault that I feel so detached from everyone. What the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I just snap myself out of it? I try so hard!! and it's never enough. :( :(


I wish I could forget myself. I wish I could forget my whole past, and just become a blank canvas, start anew. I thought about attempting this, but my therapist ruined the dream immediately when she brought up something from the not-so-distant past I've been trying desperately to forget. I felt like weeping when she so-casually narrated it for me yet again. Yep, it's official... sadness from your past will never, ever leave you, no matter how earnestly you try to run from it. I was musing over the immense impact everything has and has had on me, when I wrote this:

Interval

My favourite colour is deepest sapphire

velvet blue, like that of the evening 

sky. I like to look up at the stars, 

though they can make me feel 

strange and tiny. I like to dream - 

that is, when I can ignore the shadows. 

I, I, I. What have we but ourselves?

Everything originates there. Love,

love was not always as blind. Mine was,

I thought, a superior kind

of truth of that means nothing, now.

A curious thing, time.

You have forgotten me, but I -

I remember everything.