Today is a relatively serious post. You don’t get to see the “real me” very often. What you get to see is the me that attempts humor, feigns disdain, and loves sex jokes and innuendo.

Although those characteristics are truly a part of me (meaning, I do not have a ficitious online character, I am just a character with omission), each of us, including me, has deeper meaning to which we ascribe ourselves. The intended audience for this post is someone who is open and amenable to reading a deeper blog about an individual, rather than the quirkiness and funniness that we are all used to.

I am bipolar. I have been successfully medicated for 20 years now. There are times when medication has to be changed, due to hormonal changes, age, or a resistance to the medication occurs. I am highly educated about my disease. I have had 20 years to study it; longer than many psychiatrists, since I focus exclusively on one disease. However, you can ask me about any mental disorder and any medication, and I could give you the history and any other facts known to man about it. I create a partnership with my psychiatrist. He trusts me implicitly because he recognizes how much I know about my disease, the medications, dosages, side effects, what works, what doesn’t, etc. Let’s just call me the encyclopedia of mental illness, treatments and medications.

I have seen people’s alters who are diagnosed with MPD (multiple personality disorder). I have met REAL borderline personality disorder individuals. I have met MANY schizophrenics, narcissists, those who suffer from deep psychosis, and generally any other mental illness you can think of. I have spent many months with these indivduals. I could write books upon books about my experiences.

I grew up very quickly. Being diagnosed bipolar, and having that re-evaluated over and over through my twenties has placed me in a position to learn things about the medical industry and other mentally ill adults that most people never experience. I know exactly when my medication isn’t working, and I know exactly what needs to happen to change it. I see my psychiatrist, tell him what we ought to do, listen to him and we come to an agreement.

Two weeks ago, my medication was not fulfilling its responsibility. I encountered what is called a “mixed episode”. This is when you are manic and depressed at the same time. I know it sounds dichotomous, but it’s possible. You are depressed, but obsessed with the depression, your mind races, and you cannot sleep. It is the worst of the swings to treat. Now, it’s not really that my medication stopped working; it’s more that stress got to me, I lost my dream job because they were into illegal activities, and I watched my dreams go down the drain with no prospects.

Plus, I am used to working at home. But I hate it. Since I have everything I need, I usually don’t need to leave the house for five or six days at a time. So I don’t. I mean, where would I go? It’s cold has hell outside, and I do all my shopping online. UPS loves me.

So here’s the fun part. Bipolars are almost always required to do therapy along with medication, because of the need to learn how to deal with stress, and because we all have things we need to do. I have learned many techniques. Over the last two years, I have begun to explore my spirituality (or rather, spirituality in general), and I have practiced a tremendous amount of meditation. It has helped considerably. But I am now at the point where I can really get in touch with what’s inside of me, and there is tremendous, stabbing pain in my heart emotionally. The way through the pain is to experience it and eventually it will release itself. All emotion is energy. To express a feeling requires different activities. Anger requires physical energy output to get to the hurt underneath. Despair; well, that’s a different story. It would seem that all of my pain from my past (I grew up in a REALLY shitty home), my past relationships, my poor self-esteem and my belief that I am disconnected from humanity has decided to pop up all at once in one giant overwhelming pain in my heart. I know that I have to feel through it. I am not depressed; rather, I am the opposite of depressed. Depression is the lack of feeling; good or bad. Feeling is good. That means you are still “here”. The problem is that the pain does not go away. I have a lot to process, and apparently, all of my pain from my past has decided to culminate into one desperate and unimaginable stab to my heart that is consistent from moment to moment.

Don’t get me wrong; this is not a pity thing. This is actually something to celebrate, because it means that I am willing to finally feel and release that which has held me back for so long. But there is only so much one human can take. I spend a good amount of time meditating, concentrating on the pain so that it will reveal itself and release, but it just ain’t going away. Sometimes I just cry… I feel overwhelmed. And that’s a good thing. That means I am releasing painful energy. I just hate experiencing these feelings.

The main reason that I cannot let go of these feelings and release them is the fear of what I will be if I release them. Who would I be? How will I be defined? I have defined myself exclusively on my past experiences, and, if those “go away” and are released, what am I left with? Logic dictates that I would be left with happiness and contentedness. But that requires trust in something of which I am not familiar, since to remove the fear is to trust that losing that part of me is going to generate a self of peace, happiness, awareness and consciousness.

I am not a drinker. Never have been. I have found myself wanting to drink every night for a week. I actually went to the store and bought beer a moment ago. I have never done that in my life, except if I am having a party or going to a party. I have never sat around at home and drank, except a couple of times when I was extremely bored. But the pain ain’t going anway. I need a reprieve. It’s gotta go away for just a little while, or I will just die. I swear it.

I had no idea I still held onto so much of the past; that which I blamed myself for. That which, because I blamed myself, destroyed what I believe about myself. I actually believe that both of my failed marriages are 100% my fault. I believe that my failed relationship with Jason, after three years, was 100% my fault. Mostly, I feel 100% responsible for that which I consider to be “negative” in my personal life. I do not feel worthy of the attention of another human being. As you can imagine, my bipolar disorder does not become an issue unless my medication isn’t working as designed. It is quite difficult to find someone that loves you enough to accept that about you. There are days I am sad; there are days that I write all day; there are days I cry and write. And I guess that scares people. But that’s who I am. Those are my most creative moments. And I am okay with that. I guess men want to fix everything, and they don’t understand that I am healing myself by crying and writing; or crying and making pictures…

Who knows. My life is not defined by my bipolar disorder. Hardly. It’s just that is what is the most prominent issue in my life right now, along with my fear of releasing trust to something other than myself so that I can release all this pain that I am feeling.

Well, thanks for listening. This has been mostly stream of consciousness, so I didn’t grammar check it or review and revise it.

M–