I have decided to share with you why I have not been around as much as usual.  I have received copious amounts of email (3) showing extreme concern about where I have been.

Some of you know that I am bipolar.  I have been diagnosed and medicated for twenty years.  I am extremely diligent about my disease, and I know as much, if not more, than most doctors.  Anyhoo, I wanted to try to quit smoking, so my doc and I decided that I would try Chantix.  We both agreed that if I experienced any mania (a relatively common side effect for bipolars who take it), I would immediately quit taking it and call him.

Well, the mania hit me so quickly that I was so out of it I didn’t even think to make the connection, stop the chantix, or call the doc.  Until things got really bad.  I didn’t know WHAT was going on, since I am usually very stable.  I told the doc that I wanted to go back into the hospital, because my medication had stopped working (that was my interpretation).  Neither of us made the connection.  We are idiots.

So back in early June, I went back to the hospital (yes, I have been in the hospital a lot over the years).  Since I have been on every medication known to man for my bipolar disorder, and every other psychiatric medication in existence, we were stuck as to what to do.  I really am medication resistant.  So, I decided to do ECT.  After coming off of my Lamictal (which is a bitch, because it takes 8 weeks to get back up on it), I had three ECT sessions.  I was in the hospital for nine days.

I lost my short term memory, and my brain was a sieve for the next week.  This is normal.  I was supposed to continue with ECT three times a week for three more weeks, but I couldn’t get the help that I needed to get to the hospital at that god-awful hour of the morning, so I stopped.

I live alone, so having a swiss-cheese brain wasn’t working out too well.  On top of that, I was off my Lamictal (mood stabilizer) so I was swinging from depressed to manic twice a day.  Then I just got manic.  It was too much for me to handle.  I had no idea what was going on, what had happened the last two months, and what I was doing on a daily basis, plus I was manic, and alone.  NOT a good combination.

On top of that, my money has run out, and I had no job prospects.  That wasn’t helping the mania either, because I was facing living in my car.  So I packed up the car and the dogs, and headed down to my Dad’s in the town “where people go to die but don’t”.

I really needed to be around someone who could ground me.  After a few days, my memory came back, and the holes in my head plugged up.  I am moving back up on my Lamictal, and I am feeling better with fewer mood swings.  I haven’t had any in awhile now.  I have been at my dad’s for a little over a week, and am feeling a lot better.

Now I am working with my friend who is also a professional and life coach (she is helping me pro bono) to network and get a job.  Then, my car went on the fritz.  So, I spent almost $3000 to have it fixed, which was money I didn’t have, and was facing about $3000 to move and store my shit (cuz it looks like I am going to be moving in with my dad).

My depression has been really bad, but it’s situational.  It has to do with feeling worthless because I don’t have a job, and my whole self-worth is tied up in my career.  I also started doing my therapy (well, the tools I have been given over twenty years of therapy), which is making me deal with my feelings of worthlessness and crap, which hasn’t been helping all that much, so my anxiety is getting bad.  Again, situational.

But, I am getting out of the house more, and I am working outside doing stuff in the yard.  This is a huge improvement over the last year.  Before, I wouldn’t leave the house unless I HAD to or it was night time.

On Monday, I will hear back from a very large company to see if they are going to hire me.  Please cross your fingers that they do, because I really need the money.  I also need it for my self-esteem.  If they don’t hire me, I have to liquidate everything I own and move to my dad’s and start my life over.  Not the end of the world, but I don’t do change very well, and the thought of having to liquidate all my “assets”, if you could call them that, is frightening and depressing to say the least.

Now, please understand that I know that I got myself into this position.  I am not whining or complaining.  I just wanted to let you know why I haven’t been around.  Hospital, swiss-cheese brain and mania and depression at the same time (called a mixed episode) is nothing to fuck around with.

So there you go.  There’s my deep, dark secret.