It's been a long time. Several people were asking what was going on, so I'll explain a bit of it. Heeding the advice of my therapist, I stopped writing. It helped to get everything in the open, but there were other things that I needed to focus on. And with that, I'll shift focus...
I think that this is harder to write about than drinking. For well over a year or two, my therapist has been mentioning that she thought I was hypomanic. It was mentioned by my psychiatrist, as well. My energy level tends to soar for a few weeks, but it's an energy level that's unsustainable. I'm irritable, agitated, and I don't sleep well. I set goals that are so high, I can't accomplish them. I snap at people and I'm cynical. It goes on and on. And then... I crash. Hard. I get so depressed that I barely move. I don't eat. And, of course, I drink myself oblivious. Worse, I don't think twice about any of it. This has been happening for years - rinse, repeat. I don't even have the "good" kind of mania! I have the pissy, irritating, I'm-going-to-flip-out-for-no-reason kind of mania. Has anyone noticed this?
Ahem... not all at once, please.
What I didn't realize is that this behavior is indicative of Type 2 Bi-polar. I know this now because, after a few weeks of binge drinking off and on again (more on than off), I finally checked myself back into the hospital. All I thought was, "Something is totally NOT right." It didn't occur to me to stop drinking or call someone or do anything real helpful. In turn, the hospital checked me into a psych rehab for dual diagnosis patients - patients who are experiencing mental health problems along with substance abuse issues. I requested this specifically because I've freakin' been everywhere else at this point! I'm so sick and tired of talking about drinking, even though it's such a large part of what's been going on for several years. It's a symptom. Something deeper hasn't been right for a very long time. I just thought I was depressed!
Unfortunately, that's exactly what I was being treated for - depression. For three and a half years, I've been seeing various psychiatrists and they've all prescribed me anti-depressants. And for three and a half years, I've felt like I've been going nowhere. It's been the hardest and most miserable period of my life, hands down. Relationships get destroyed, I relapse over and over, I can't hold a job for any more than six f'ing months. And since it's my mission to be as honest as possible within my blog (wait... I DO try to be honest everywhere... I try), I'll also admit that some of the meds I've been on have almost, *almost*, made me suicidal. The thoughts were certainly there. I finally told this to the hospital psychiatrist who interviewed me a few weeks ago and it was a load off my shoulders. Turns out, if you give someone with bi-polar an anti-depressant (without something additional to stabilize his or her moods), then you make the situation even worse. My psychiatrist should have know that. Sadly, people with Type 2 BP do have the highest rate of suicide. Fun facts.
Checking myself into the hospital and rehab must have been luck. I don't think I had moved in the two days prior to it. Maybe it was an impending sense of doom that made me pick up the phone this time... I don't know. The rehab was wonderful and I felt like someone was finally listening to me. My medication was completely readjusted and time will tell whether or not this is going to do the trick. It's not a cure, by any stretch, but hopefully it will help. Similar to addiction, bi-polar doesn't go away. You can make it better, for sure, but you're never going to fully arrest it. You can only hope to make the ups and downs less..... well, up and down.
Also, between the hospital, rehab, and therapist, I'm learning to identify my behavioral patterns. I never realized I was acting like, um, such an asshole all the time... happy one minute, snapping the next. It seems to happen over a period of two months or so. Then I start drinking like an idiot, come to, and repeat the cycle. My therapist went through my file and my relapse pattern is clockwork. I blamed it on the 60 day "hump" that some AAers talk about (I wrote about it last December), but it has nothing to do with that. My cycle is dictating my sobriety, not the other way around. But I can see it now.
I guess I didn't have to write about this. It's difficult to put this to virtual paper because it's entirely new to me. Now that I know why I've felt and acted the way that I have, I'm more aware of my current state and can adjust it as needed - or ask for help if I can't. I suppose it's important for me to write because this shit simply isn't talked about enough. And I don't mean just bi-polar. I mean bi-polar, OCD, depression, psychosis, etc. There are some people I could tell and they'd be fine with it. There are others who will look at me like I have three heads and a tail. And I know there are family members and friends who have a "we'll see" kind of attitude about all this. It probably won't comfort them much when I say, "Me too."
