Month: January 2020

Nerves, Symptoms, & New Beginnings, Bipolar Doesn’t Have to Conquer You, You Can Conquer it.

On By inspiredodysseyIn bipolar, Uncategorized4 Comments

me

It’s Sunday, and I still haven’t done my school assignments. Procrastination much? My boyfriend comes out of rehab Tuesday, and I am scared, excited, and nervous about that 3-hour drive upstate to get him. We’ve been through a lot in a short time, his extreme behavior battles with my extreme behavior both negatively and positively – and where most people would scoff and say our relationship is doomed – I am absolutely optimistic and know in my heart without a doubt that he is the man for me.

I’ve been doing well. After that last hospitalization (as traumatic as it was) was what I needed to jumpstart my life again after being dead and dormant for so many long miserable years. I’ve looked back on past blogs, and boy, was I fucked up. I spent nearly two decades drowning in alcohol, men online, dead-end jobs, and overall misery. Bipolar conquered me, the same way it defeats most people today. It’s the depression, it’s the mania, it’s the hopelessness that kills us every time – and when we finally are doing well, something Holy Unbelievable happens to destroy all the progress we’ve made. It’s this kind of destructive cycle that I had been faced with for all those years, and I think I have finally broken through all that horror.

Firstly, the key to my success is the right medication combination. I have admitted to myself that this combination of Respirdone, Lithium, and Seroquel will probably murder my organs by the time I reach 60, but there is really nothing I can do about it. I would rather have a full life in the next 20 years than live in misery and being symptomatic. This look at my ultimate mortality is what propels me even further, and makes me fully aware that because I have been taking these medications for so long, and my soon-to-be-husband is on just as much, we are probably both not going to live long. My goal is to enjoy every damn moment of life right frickin’ now.

I’ve also started working full-time and looking at a side business. I want to live comfortably, and I want to be happy, and I want my marriage with my man to reflect all that happiness in the short time that I have. I realize I may be overreacting and could very well live till 100, but I think the fact that I feel my life is limited, makes me appreciate every moment so much more.

Bipolar doesn’t have to conquer you – you can take that beauty, the thoughts and dreams you have in mania, and write it all down. Make art out it, create what the bipolar gift has given you, and enjoy your self-expression in new and exciting ways. I call it a bipolar gift because that’s precisely what it is – we see things others don’t, we experience realities differently than others, the rush and the excitement that we feel can’t compare to the most potent street drug and that high that people all over the world search for so much, we feel naturally because it is part of who we are.

Conquer the bipolar – go get that job, rip yourself from underneath the covers and sing, dance, or paint away all the pain.

My 40th birthday is coming in six months – I was just 24 when I was first diagnosed, and I lost 16 years in complete stupidness. Not anymore.

Stay tuned.

Approaching 40….WTF??!! Wasn’t I JUST in High School Screwing Around??

On By inspiredodysseyIn bipolar, Uncategorized4 Comments

Kissing+30s+Goodbye

Yup. It’s EXACTLY how it sounds. I honestly don’t know where 22 years just evaporated into nowhere. However, turning 40 isn’t as scary as it was turning 30. What is it about the Big Three-O that’s got everyone so shaken? Everyone, as in women, in particular.

I think for me, it was the fact that I was leaving my 20s behind, and there was just so much that I wanted to accomplish by the time I was 30 that I didn’t. You know, graduating college, meeting the love of my life, getting married, moving out, and so on and so on. The fact of the matter is due to this bipolar curse that was thrust upon me; instead of looking towards the future to acquiring all those things, I was continually being pushed back and back and back, with constant hospitalizations and traumatizations. Honestly? My 20s were a fuckin’ nightmare, and it lasted well into my 30s. I mean it wasn’t like I was poverty-stricken or anything, I was just in mental anguish all the damn time, and I wanted someone desperately to love me. Desperately, I say again, DESPERATELY.

Love was the only thing I ever wanted, and I would have sold my soul for it, sometimes I think that I had with all the creeps I had been dealing with, and The Devil was having his fun collecting his due. But that’s for another time. The volumes of my hypersexuality can wait till I am ready to talk about them – “bipolar slut ” is putting it mildly.

In this attempt to find love, I was doing basically what everyone is doing now – except without the swiping and the apps. I was on dating websites, filling out questionnaires, trying to make the perfect profile, spending hours perfecting the most flattering selfies to post on them, and trying to make myself stand out among all the other relationship-seekers on these sites. Now, we all know that girls get more messages than guys, but what is in abundance of quantity, is severely lacking in quality – much so as it is today. In my case, though, (and I don’t know if you guys are guilty of this too), I never went past the messaging phase, ie. I sat on my computer all day talking to guys and never meeting them. Ugh, no wonder I was miserable.

Why am I talking about this? Well, the sad, sad reality is, that the 22 years between my high school days, and my present college days, (getting my degree now, woohoo!), is that a whole lot of nothing happened. Okay, the drama with the hospitals, manias, car accidents, hearing Jesus and Aliens, and all that good shit aside, (I promise I will let you guys in on some of that insanity), but after all that had settled down and I was HEAVILY medicated, so I came back down to reality – it became quiet…..too quiet. I basically spent a bulk of those years drinking very heavily and screwing around online talking to thousands of guys, in which half of them were probably in relationships or married.

What kind of life is that?

This last hospitalization in 2019 taught me one thing – this shit has GOT TO STOP. Like seriously, I can’t be like a revolving door in a psych ward, come on already! When I got discharged, my mom came to pick me up, and on the drive home, she told me something that has stood with me and has been my driving force to do all the things I’m doing today.  She said, “you messed up the first 40 years, make the next 40 count.” And that’s EXACTLY what I’m doing. I happen to have met the love of my life in there this time around, (go figure), and he has a whole host of problems that I don’t even know how I am gonna handle all his shit, my shit, money shit, job shit, apartment shit, and dammit, grown-up shit! And how am I gonna handle being someone’s wife???!!! ARGHHHHHH!!!!

40 seems scary as hell now.

But it also seems very promising as well.

Stay tuned.

A New Year, A New Decade, And I am Trying My Hardest to Not Screw Up

On By inspiredodysseyIn bipolar, Uncategorized1 Comment

20200101_153756

So this is me. I took a bunch of pictures today in an attempt to break out of my shell and put my best foot forward for the new year. The last ten years have been littered with failed relationships, horrible dates, hospitalizations, bipolar hell, oh, and NO SEX – excuse me but how does one go a DECADE without sex and remain sane??!! And, not to sound conceited, but I am one hot piece of ass, so why the drought you ask?

MEN SUCK.

Sorry dudes, but you do. The horror show of online dating is what I have to show for my 30s, which I am SO GLAD I am not bringing into my 40s. Giovanni ended my no sex drought with a fucking bang, literally, and he wholeheartedly wants to marry me without question. X marks the friggin spot, done and done! But back to my men suck comment. Sorry guys, I didn’t mean it. Not all you guys do. I have met a lot of you who are wading that dating pool who are just as frustrated as we are. Did I mention I was in a hot/cold kind of on and off relationship with my best friend during the last decade of no sex and headache? So yeah, I am no saint mary. BUT I want you to know that IF you are going into the new decade with hopes of finding love in the online dating world – the only advice I would give you is DON’T SWIPE.

Stop the swiping.

Stop it.

Just stop it.

Delete the app.

Coffee meets whoever Tinder said to replace this app with.

Delete it.

Stop it.

For the love of God, stop the damn swiping.

I have to admit I avoided the whole phone app dating process altogether.  I don’t know how I managed it, or in what universe I was in, but I left it alone. I did everything through the PC, oh and Reddit, the black hole of the internet.

So I guess in the world of dating is not what I meant by not screwing up in this new decade. I want a career. Like a real-life grown-up one. I am almost 40 and have been wishy-washy about what the hell I want to do with my life for God knows how long. I about to come into a new chapter in my life, I have a man who wants to spend his life with me, (with drug problems, Jesus it’s never easy), and my family is moving way down South ripping my security blanket right from under me. I have to learn to stand on my own two feet, which ironically came so damn easy for me in my early 20s except, HELLO in 2004 when I was just 24 at the height of my Accounting Career I got slapped with a bipolar diagnosis, hospitalized an INSANE amount of times before anyone got my medication right, therefore KILLING any real chance I ever had of becoming successful.

HOLY FAILURE AND DISAPPOINTMENT BATMAN.

It’s amazing, isn’t it? We can never have it all. I bet you out there somewhere, there is a multitude of AMAZING people, singles, DYING to be in a relationship with the job, apartment, pet, and sane mental health who just feel so alone. Here I am with a man who loves me SO unconditionally, completely, is SO handsome, and accepts me for everything, but I have NOTHING. NO money, no career. And then there are all the celebrities, who have friggin EVERYTHING, but can’t get it together at all. How the hell did Whitney Houston’s daughter’s ex-boyfriend just die of a heroin overdose at 30? Look, I am not saying kicking a drug habit is easy, I am fighting it now with Giovanni, and my alcohol addiction was FAR from pretty – but I don’t know why or how we get so sucked into all this shit. No wonder we fail and disappoint ourselves so much – between drugs, alcohol, doctors, medication and everything else that just kills us on the inside, how are we ever supposed to find success and happiness?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, for 2020 and the dawn of a new decade, I am going to try to find it.  Sober with my fiance – his ass better remain sober too.

I am going to DO IT.

AND SO ARE YOU.

Cheers to success in the new decade!!