Progesterone again? ...Then a meltdown.

Once again, the evening progressed in such a way that I should now be feeling numb and depressed, but I felt it fade...again. Weird that I could physically feel the symptoms of a depressive episode and was able to feel them dissipate after half and hour or so. Is this the pregnancy? I'll take all of the bodily pain I've been having ANY DAY over a depressive episode that doesn't go away. I don't necessarily feel like myself; I haven't for a while, but it's better than nothing.

It's better than nothing.

Oh, and as for why I would normally be depressed right about now? Oh nothing, just finding out some of my in-laws think I'm cold, aloof, and occasionally hateful toward them when I had no idea that anything was wrong.

My husband, just now, agreed that lately I have been cold and aloof.

...

Maybe I'm not totally over it. I'm embarrassed. Embarrassed that I'm not the happy-go-lucky pregnant lady. Embarrassed that I've had to deal with a difficult past several months, 2 miscarriages, chronic fatigue, depressive episodes, bipolar disorder.

Embarrassed that I'm not bold enough to reveal to my friends or even all of my family that I am a screwed up person - isolated from a series of unfortunate events that have left me feeling like an emotional recluse.

Useless from a pregnancy that has emptied my mind of creativity, so clumsy that I drop things and trip constantly, and in so much pain that I can't even help take care of my house.

I don't know why I can't just be normal.

Oh, and here's a picture of an embarrassing, useless, screwed-up person that I drew during a minor depressive episode 6 months ago:

...I can't stand myself.

3 weeks 'til due

It's a tribute to my progesterone levels that I haven't gotten depressed the past couple of months. I start to, but then it just kind of dissolves. I'm due to have this baby in three weeks, so hopefully everything will go smoothly, and hopefully I'll get enough sleep.

I'm just so tired and sore and full of aches and pains that I don't know how I'm going to get anything done until then, and I desperately need to get a hospital to-go bag ready.

Just pain and blah...............

Pregnancy is annoying and difficult

Having a week or two of feeling depressed for no good reason during pregnancy is not fun. It's only happened 3 or so times in the last 5 months, but still. And what's with my trouble breathing every time I lay down? or the feeling like my leg is dislocated from my hips every time I get out of bed?

The worst part of all this is the crying though. I thought I cried a lot before but Heaven Sakes Alive I don't seem to ever stop crying these days. Yesterday I tried eating a Reese's peanut butter cup and bit into it with the paper wrapper still on - and I cried like crazy. One of the many examples of my numerous outbursts of tears over the past several weeks. It's awful.

I wonder if people think 'I wish she would stop being so blubbery and just stop crying." There was even a moment yesterday that I was bawling in the car, looking out the window thinking (pretty objectively, mind you), "This is so pathetic. Here I am, typical hormonal pregnant lady, sobbing like a baby. I don't even need to be crying, but I just keep crying, crying, crying... Pathetic. I hope the kids aren't scarred by this..." wailing like an idiot all the while.

And when I'm not crying I'm extremely tired. Those are the breaks.. *rolls eyes* The baby's healthy though, so that's good.

It's 27 Time

I had an easygoing, relaxing birthday. The weather's been getting cold, and the reminiscent smell of autumn makes me feel whiffs of morning sickness every so often. lol.

I've also been extraordinarily tired, especially at night. I'm guessing it's a pregnancy phase, but I've been feeling dead tired between 9:30-10:00 every night. I asked my ob/gyn about it, and she said, "Well, you know, you are getting older..."

... I was not amused...

lol

But it's been good. I feel mentally subdued, and it's occasionally frustrating, but I'll take brain fog and extreme fatigue over the other stuff.

I mean, I would like to get the house clean, and I'd love to start writing again, but as of right now I'm just too tired and too brain dead, and I'm just taking everything one day at a time.

Well, Happy Birthday to me. woo. I'm trying to strengthen myself spiritually and emotionally and physically for when the tides roll in. But I feel pretty good inside at the moment, and I'm holding on to it.

The Time Is Drawing Near

I haven't felt particularly happy or especially depressed lately. My morning sickness has mostly ebbed. I'm still quite dizzy at times, but it's getting better, and I'm getting stronger. School for my five-year-old has kept me busy, and I haven't been able to dwell much on anything due to a severe case of brain fog. I turn twenty-seven in a month, so I'm just wondering what's going to happen. Like I'm sitting on the edge of an empty pool, wondering if it will be a little tub of water or a tumultuous ocean when it finally fills.

My mind is buzzing and suppressed with fatigue simultaneously. I mean, this is the first time I've tracked a Major Depressive Episode before it's occurred. Maybe it won't even happen. Maybe since I'm pregnant it will be put off. Maybe it will be so bad that I'll have to hospitalized for my own well-being. Maybe my time is up. I don't know whether I'm waiting in the eye of a hurricane or just expecting a storm from an unreliable meteorologist.

I'll know when it's coming. There are always some pretty obvious tells. I'll just keep living my life until it gets here.



Ocean pulls me close
And whispers in my ear
The destiny I've chose
All becoming clear
The currents have their say
The time is drawing near
Washes me away
Makes me disappear

Please don't Define me by my Disorders

I would like to reiterate what I said when I first began this blog a year and a half ago.

I am a happy person. I have great joy from my life and in the little things around me. I find nature fascinating and love the outdoors. I am artistic and find passion in music, writing, painting, and every crafty hobby you can think of. My faith blesses me on a daily basis, and I would be lost without it.

Please, rest assured that I am not a suicidal person. You may wonder how I've attempted suicide three times and could possibly not be suicidal, but it's simple really. I am not the diseases and disorders that afflict me. I have Bipolar Disorder, but it doesn't define who I am always and eternally. I constantly fight to gain my ground over these issues, and sometimes it's a lot more difficult than other times. Sometimes I make mistakes; unable to process anything but pain and the virulent - sometimes masochistic - ways to relieve that pain. Sometimes I can only think of dying and wishing I could be put out of my misery.

But somehow I've been protected from dying. I attribute it to the faith and prayers of my family members mostly and to God's mercy. Somehow in God's infinite plan I've been saved for something.

Now, this next 18 months is probably going to be extremely precarious for me. I worry that a major depressive episode paired with postpartum depression will be too much for me. I'm not afraid of death, but I do fear myself doing something irrational when I'm in a state of mind I can't control. Imagine my scary post from two days ago - now double the screaming in my head, and make it last 2-6 months. ...Yes, I am afraid of dying the wrong way. I'm terrified of the emotional damage I might inflict on my children when I'm beyond mental agony and can't stop crying and trying to scrape away the pain, and having to hide in my room so they won't see it anymore. I'm afraid of leaving my husband and children without a wife and mother, because I couldn't remember what love or happiness and anything aside from a crazed sense of inundating mental agony. I don't even know how I keep surviving.

But...I do hope and believe that I'll come out of it somehow - stronger, and hopefully more resilient than ever before.

I just have to keep clinging to that faith and hope as the days grow darker...and the episodes more severe.

Slightly better

Sometimes when a manic episode switches directly to a depressive one my brain goes into overload. I literally feel like my skin is on fire, and I scratch at it and feel like I'm suffocating, and, yes, it's like there's a screaming in my head that won't go away. It is an excruciating experience that I wish was one that I would grow out of, but so far in the last 14 years that unfortunately has not been the case.

I miraculously willed myself to leave my room, and with a silent embrace from my husband and the help of my three-year-old daughter singing "I'm a Little Teapot" several times I was able to emerge from that disastrous hour and a half relatively unscathed. Now I'm encompassed with fatigue, weighing down absolutely every molecule of my body, but I'll take that over screaming death-rage any day.

...Sometimes it's a wonder I'm alive at all.