Monday 10 April 2017

Mania, Meds & Awesome Shrinks



So if you happened to read my last few rather novelesque blog posts I would like to apologise for the format and the whinging. My mania escalated somewhat and after averaging around an hours sleep a night for quite a while there and being unable to hold my shit together in public an emergency visit to my psychiatrist ensued and meds were increased and Valium was added to help me sleep.

As I think I have mentioned before my psychiatrist is absolutely amazing, she is an empathetic and kind woman who actually provides proper talk therapy as well as writing scripts. She also takes the time to explain everything she is doing and her reasons why.

She and I both want me to stay out of hospital if at all possible as she understands my family dynamics and how impulsively I can act when I feel like I am trapped and agrees that that situation isn’t likely to actually help me but just complicate matters at this point. 

She also is acutely aware of the ‘higher the high the lower the low’ issue with bipolar and wants to bring me down firmly but steadily to hopefully reduce the depths of the low that will no doubt follow rather than with a sudden massive dose of meds as they would in hospital which will make me crash head first into depression.

We are very mindful of this particularly at the moment as I am getting very easily irritated and angry when my senses are overloaded and it is now the first week of the two week Easter school holidays here and we discussed ways of coping with having the four children home all day fighting and asking for things and – well, being normal children I guess! 

The other issue that was quietly hiding in the background and is now becoming a bigger problem again is my eating disorder. The tablets seem to make me nauseous and supress my appetite, although I was feeling funny & less hungry before I started taking them too so it’s hard to tell what is side effect and what is just a result of the mania.

I’ve lost 7kg (15.4Lbs) in the last 10 days.

On one hand this has me doing the happy dance, I fit into my nice clothes again and I actually feel good when I look in the mirror which is a very rare feeling. On the other hand, I am knowing that that it is extremely unhealthy to lose that much weight that fast and I have very quickly become trapped in the “now that I am this size I can’t gain weight again, therefor I can’t eat even if I do get hungry” mentality and I’m starting to blur what is side effect that will pass and what is eating disorder that will get worse.

It’s currently 8am on the first Monday and my daughter is the only one awake, she is quietly watching a movie in the other room. I slept last night, a full 8 hours too! But I am still quite jumpy this morning but more ‘very hypomanic’ than ‘manic’ as I was able to sit still long enough to write this. It’s going to be a big day, I have to take the kids to town to get hair-cuts and maybe do the groceries, depending on how I’m coping, then I have to drive into the city for my brother in law’s birthday dinner. 

Dinner. Shit. It just occurred to me that not only will I have to try and curb my outwardly hypomanic symptoms which is nearly impossible, I will also be expected to eat a regular sized meal. In the interests of surviving the day I am going to try and compartmentalise it and direct my anxieties to the first half first.

So that’s what’s happening here at the moment, thanks to everyone that sent kind messages. I feel very loved and I appreciate it!

Tuesday 4 April 2017

I Guess My Story Isnt Over Yet



It’s Tuesday. So I would like to think that last weeks’ reign of terror is over and this is a fresh start.
 So obviously I am not dead. Cool. The few days since Friday have lasted an eternity, possibly because I have only had a few hours of scattered sleep, I’m not physically tired but I have been fluctuating between extremes of euphoria, manic energy and the emotionally drained urgent need to end my life. 

On top of the mental symptoms, there have been even more rather ridiculous quantity of WTF WHY?!?!?! Moments. All the stuff that might generally happen over a year seems to have happened over the course of last week and I’m not currently in the right frame of mind to deal with the intensity of it very well.  This has gotten long (again, bloody hypomania fuelled writing binges) so I have divided into days again to save your eyes.

On Friday I spent a lot of time writing, poetry, song lyrics, those really long winded last few blog posts and of course the old favourite – suicide notes. It felt like from every possible angle the universe was telling me in little ways that my time was coming to an end, even the invoice I wrote for my husband’s company was both the final one for the quarter and invoice number ‘99’. 

I was fighting massive surges of energy fuelled anxiety one minute and then hiding in bed the next. I hadn’t slept more than a few hours Thursday night which didn’t help matters either. That night I laid in bed half waiting to die but choosing not to take fate in my own hands, I was supposed to be working Saturday as my final shift ever and I wanted the closure of going to it. 

SATURDAY

When the clock finally struck midnight on the 1st of April, I laughed and wondered if being allowed to live was an April fool’s joke on myself, my adrenaline was surging and I couldn’t sleep for the euphoria of having beaten the date, beaten Bel. Maybe the meds were helping. I gave up trying to sleep around 5am and got up and made a big breakfast for the family of eggs, bacon, hash browns and fruit salad using one of our giant homegrown watermelons.

Despite the feast for the family, it didn’t even occur to me that I hadn’t eaten anything since Wednesday. I was on cloud nine as I got ready for work, even though it was going to be my last shift I felt no sadness at all. I gave all the kids a big hug, told them how much I loved them, left a lingering kiss on hubby’s lips and got in the car. 

I turned up the volume on Eminem and just drove, leaving the farm and my inhibitions in the dust cloud behind me. I made it about 4 km when a group of Kangaroos jumped out in front of my car. The brakes screeched as I put my foot flat down on the pedal and I noticed the number on my speedo was nearly 140. Fuck. I don’t know how fast I was going.

The first kangaroo hit the front of the car with a sickening thud bouncing onto the bonnet and falling down again where it repeatedly rolled into the front of my still braking car as I tried to swerve, the other roos scattered in all directions as the one I had run into was hit with a surge of adrenaline and managed to roll his way off the road with one leg left hanging from his broken body.

Shaking like a leaf I pulled over and ran over to the roo who was now lying down, as I got closer I realised he was not dead as I had hoped, just maimed and in agony. As luck would have it the incident had occurred right outside the local transfer station (country version of a waste dump) and Saturday was one of the three days it happened to be open. 

I ran up the little wooden veranda and pounded on the glass sliding door of the demountable admin office, Pete the guy who works there knows me and came rushing up to see what on earth the problem was. By now I was on the verge of tears and asked him pointlessly if he happened to have a gun – of course he didn’t have one at work. I told him what had happened and he went over to the roo, as he approached it started flailing helplessly. He looked at me for a minute and could tell I was on the verge of losing it. “Right, is your car ok?” “Yeah…” I replied, although I hadn’t actually thought to check yet. “Okay love, you go on to work, I will deal with it” he said kindly. 

I thanked him repeatedly managing to hold back the tears until I got back into the car, there was a huge dint in the bonnet and the front bumper bar was cracked and hanging down a bit. Considering the speed that I had hit it at, the car was in pretty good shape really. The brakes made a horrible scraping sound as I pulled away and I turned Eminem back up and started balling.

The next 40km were spent ugly-crying and trying to mop up streams of tears and snot with a single pre- used tissue. Every truck and every gum tree I drove past was a temptation and I started to work out how to best make it look like an accident.  

As I continued on, the desperation to die - or at least self-harm, became unbearable, but I also HAD to go to my last shift, my head was spinning, adrenaline was pumping and I was completely conflicted. Then I had an idea. 

I had been toying with getting a semi colon tattoo for a while, hubby doesn’t like tattoos and besides they cost money, I had always stopped myself in the past, but right then what better way to inflict the pain I was craving and do something positive and symbolic at the same time? Plus, I still had cash in my wallet left over from my little gambling relapse on Thursday.

There is a tattoo place around the corner from my work, I had 15 minutes to spare before my shift started, it is only a small tattoo and I decided that I would go straight there and if they could fit me in right now then it was another sign from the universe and ‘meant to be’.

Glancing in the rear view mirror as I parked outside, my eyes were red and although my mascara had held up well, it was obvious that I had been crying. I pushed open the door to the tattoo parlour and was hit by the smell of antiseptic, the little waiting room was full of people, I felt a bit like an awkward virgin, with all of the customers already having tattoos covering every visible part of their bodies.
I went up to the girl at the reception counter and said “Have you got like 15 minutes right now for the tiniest little semi colon tattoo on my wrist? I kinda need it like, now…”  She could obviously tell that I really did need it right now and despite the full waiting area she popped out the back for a moment and re-emerged smiling “Sure, we can do that”. 

My hands were shaking with the adrenaline of the decision and the fate of the universe allowing it to happen, it was all meant to be, the kangaroo – everything. The paperwork looked like a toddler had filled it in I was trembling so much. 

Minutes later I was ushered around back to a little cubical with a funky chair and smiling bald headed bloke covered in tatts “First one?” he asked, I said it was and he smiled and said “won’t be your last, they’re addictive!” He showed me the size options, we picked one and he started. I had no idea what to expect in terms of pain, it is a really small tattoo so I guess it’s not a great example of ‘tattoo pain’ but it did provide the momentary release I needed to bring me down, equivalent to a cut or burn but with a permanent message of hope instead of a messy hard to explain scar. 

I was thrilled with the result and the tattoo artist put glad wrap over it and warned me not to stick my arm in a fish tank that day. He grinned and said “see you next time” as I forked over my pokie winnings. I ran back to the car and drove straight to the shop only about 5 minutes late, the shop was franticly busy with everyone taking advantage of the clearance sale so I just whispered “sorry I’m late, I was just getting a tattoo…” to my colleague R and she was like “no worries, hang on WHAT?” 

The shift flew by because we were so busy, I was flying high again by that stage and could pretty well sell ice to Eskimos. I think I had used all my tears up that morning but there were lots of sad moments throughout the day as our regulars came in to say goodbye. While the Saturday was supposed to be my last shift we were also going to be open on the Sunday and we had been so busy that we only finally managed to shut the doors an hour past close time so we ended up deciding that I would work Sunday as well – which made it easier, I suck at goodbyes so dragging it out longer felt right. 

I rang hubby as I was on the way home to see if he wanted me to pick up something for dinner as I didn’t feel like cooking and Mr 14 answered the phone with “Mum, J got hives again, but this time they covered his face and he couldn’t breathe properly!” 

So a year or so ago Mr 13 aka J, was playing outside and came in complaining of being itchy, he thought he had scratched himself on something or touched a plant and started to break out in hives. I gave him some antihistamine and they went away and we thought nothing of it. 

About 6 months ago it happened again, this time an ant stung him, the hives were much more severe but his breathing and face weren’t affected and the antihistamine worked so everything went back to normal. At the time I was a bit worried and thought I should probably organise to see an allergy specialist but we never got around to it.

This time something had possibly stung him on the finger – he was climbing trees - the hives took about 10 minutes to cover his body but were so severe he looked like one giant red welt, they covered his face, his lips swelled and he got really wheezy. 

Anaphylaxis. Fuck.

Hubby gave him two types of antihistamine and the swelling subsided quite quickly and he could breathe again. By the time I arrived home his breathing was back to normal but his lips were still swollen on one side.  He was ok to stay home from hospital but had to go and see the doctor on Monday to get a script for an epi pen and a referral to the allergy specialist with strict instructions to stay in the house and away from trees in the meantime just in case.

As we finally settled into bed I explained the ‘semi colon principle’ and admitted to hubby that I had gotten a tattoo that morning. He looked at me with a really disappointed expression “really?” He said, he hates tattoos. “I love you” he sighed with that look he gets when he is pissed off and doesn’t want to talk about it, and then he rolled over facing away from me and went to sleep. I was sorry he felt that way but still very glad I got the tattoo. 

Really, what else could this week possibly throw at us?

SUNDAY

I didn’t sleep much (again) maybe an hour or two around 4 – 5 am. I was playing on social media around 6am when Hubby started to stir, he hugged into me “love you” he said. “love you too” I replied unsure if he was still mad at me or not, perhaps he was too sleepy to remember. He held me tight for a long while, the way he does when he doesn’t quite know how to feel, the way he did when I was in the hospital. After a while we ended up making love, and it really was that, not just sex, not just a good fuck. It had an emotional quality that seemed different. If anything it felt like goodbye sex. 

As I headed off for work I felt like I was flying in a strange euphoric bubble, I felt fulfilled. Even though I felt so good, in a way, that ever present semi suicidal part of me felt like it would perhaps be fitting if I died that day and never saw him again. A final fanciful memory to treasure forever.
I sang along to the music pumping on my car stereo and absorbed the scenery as I past it, the world was just so damn beautiful. I got stuck in traffic and ended up late again, “another tattoo? R joked” when I arrived.

We used to have a several team members but over the years as the larger chain pet stores moved in, gradually less shifts were available and people moved on to more permanent full time jobs. In the end it was just the two owners, their daughter R and myself left. Today two of my old colleagues who had also spent over a decade in the store with me came in to see us, it was wonderful to catch up with them as I had been wanting to for a really long time.  

A few weeks ago a Grandmother had come into the store with her grandson for the first time and chatted to us about closing down and given us a big sob story about how her husband was in hospital and she was off to visit. She was the only customer in the store at the time and bought a couple of things and left.

 After she had gone, R noticed that a dog coat she had only just put back on the rack was missing, nobody had been in except for the Grandmother and she didn’t buy it. R went back and looked at the security footage and sure enough the grandmother had been stealing, every time R had gone to check something for her she had placed an item in her handbag. 

There was also a clip where it looks like the grandson took something and placed it in his pocket but the angle of the camera wasn’t perfect so legally speaking you couldn’t be 100% sure that he didn’t just touch the items and move them around and then place an empty hand in his pocket. 

We were ropeable. Yes, people steal stuff, morals are in short supply these days, but after we had just discussed how sad it was that this small family run business was closing down and hardly making a big profit to then turn around and steal stuff is just plain fucking rude and disrespectful, not to mention the hide of her to do it WITH her grandson present and apparently influencing him to do the same thing!

Anyway, guess who came back into the store on our last day of trading. 

So we confronted her. She of course denied it and demanded to see the camera footage – which we showed her and pointed out how you could clearly see her take the items, but she was arguing with my boss and saying over and over again – “show me the footage of the front door, I want to see the footage of the front door”. That was when I saw red.  This wasn’t some depression related stealing thing to ‘fill a void’, nor a ‘one off’. No she clearly did this all the time and she was well aware of the laws. I was told at a security seminar once that legally, you have to have continuous footage of someone taking something and leaving the shop with it still in their possession to prosecute.

This is because they may have removed the item from their bag and put it down again before walking out, it’s not technically “theft”, even if it’s in their pocket, until they physically leave the store.
99% of your average shop lifters don’t know this ‘rule’ so when confronted with a security tape most will end up admitting their guilt and they are prosecuted that way.  

I had sort of been in the middle of serving a customer while this was going on and they had now walked off to have more of a look so despite being generally terrified of confrontation and shaking like a leaf I stepped in and gave her my two cents.

While I can’t remember my exact words as I sort of disassociated, I did say that I respected her balls for ripping off a small business who couldn’t afford it and that she could just shut up and cut the crap, the point here was that both she and I knew she’d taken the items and that she had basically admitted it by asking to see that particular section of the footage, people who aren’t guilty don’t have “I want to see the tape of the front door” as their first reaction. Ever.

I told her we both knew we couldn’t prove it from a legal standpoint and it was our last day of trading so we weren’t going to be prosecuting her but how she should have the decency to teach her grandson some fucking morals instead of how to cheat his way through life so he could hopefully grow up to be a better person than she is. 

Then I started saying my biggest issue with the whole thing, which was with the fact that she had chosen to steal from someone like my amazing wonderful boss who goes out of her way for others, always. Has solid core values and pure moral standards – that was about when I wrecked it all and started crying. Crying because it had suddenly hit me how much I was going to miss working there and how much anger I had for people who miss treat other people and don’t have the decency to admit when they are wrong.

So through my tears I said, we both know your guilty, we both know we aren’t going to be charging you so while I understand why you won’t admit fault at least have the common decency to apologise to my boss! It took some convincing but I did finally get her to apologise, then she suddenly noticed my new little tattoo, and looked up at me worried for a moment and then said ‘please don’t cry’ and then hugged me – she obviously knew what it stood for, which was extremely weird and unexpected. Maybe she lost someone once.

At that point, looking oh so dignified, balling and with snot on my face, I suddenly snapped back into myself and remembered that we had a shop full of people and at some point the theif had exited the store, apparently at my demand and my original customer had returned to the counter with his purchases and had seen the whole thing. He smiled awkwardly at me and mouthed “you ok?” thankfully R had appeared out of nowhere to put his stuff through the till while I not so silently imploded, so I gave him the thumbs up and quickly ran out the back and grabbed a sleeping Leo, our big white fluffy store cat, off the office chair and sobbed heavily into his fur.

Eventually I managed to pull myself together and thankfully the phone rang with a customer who wanted me to put a huge bunch of different products together for him to pop in and grab, which was a wonderful distraction that didn’t involve any awkward ‘has she been crying?’ looks. Providing I didn’t make prolonged eye contact with my boss, or generally talk to her about anything not related to a price or a ‘please pass me the…’ I managed to keep it together for the rest of the afternoon.

After we turned the close sign for the final time we went out to the staff room and sat down where some of the extended family had prepared champagne, prawns, grapes and a cheese platter to celebrate. We toasted 35 years of hard work, dedication and ultimately a very special and successful business. My boss bought me a big box of chocolates and beautiful bunch of flowers with a thankyou card that of course made me start crying again. 

So I left in tears, but this time they were not tears filled with emptiness or sadness for a loss but instead filled with a sense of pride and thankfulness for having experienced the journey. I had reached the end of a turbulent week and such a big chapter in my life and while I don’t know what the future holds,

My Story Isn’t Over Yet.