That Bitch Is Crazy

It has been nearly four months since I've updated so I am definitely past due. The thing is, my life is busy and completely chaotic but in a very good way. While I feel like my world is spinning out of control often, I keep landing upright and waking up alive...both wins in my book. Life is mostly good and it's been just over a year since I last received a SSDI payment. 12 years ago when I was told that it was Social Security or risking losing my kids because I was only capable of doing one thing well, I of course chose my kids. This statement was not meant as a negative by my doctor, but rather, a gentle reminder that I was more sick than I was ready to admit. I was capable of being a kick ass employee or a kick ass mom, I was definitely not capable of both. This same doctor later told me that I am the most organized person he had ever met; he then went on to clarify that he didn't mean bipolar person but ANY person. The reality is, my world was in a tailspin but I truly didn't know it. It had been my reality for so long that I didn't know that my brain could be calm or not race every day.

The pain of knowing that I was different was often unbearable but like a rainbow after the rain, life slowly became brighter and simply better. I slowly realized that everyone deals with their own shit and it's how we deal with it that defines us and not the shit we are given to deal with. Life is hard for everyone, not just me. I've prayed, taken medicine, prayed, did the hard work to get better, and prayed. While I'm not overly religious I know there in something out there that helped give me the strength to pull myself up into a beautiful place. So on the days I'm angry at God for giving me this damned illness I try my hardest to remember He also gave me the strength to be more than this illness.

I've come to a point when I often hear, "You're bipolar, no way, I would never had guessed." "You don't seem bipolar." And my personal favorite, "You're not as crazy you think, look at that bitch...she's CRAZY." While I know wholeheartedly that these are compliments and said out of respect and love, I need to remember that not too long ago, I scared my husband, my kids, my family, my friends, and myself. I was the person who dumped five pound of homemade meatballs with marinara sauce on my kitchen floor because Dan said something I didn't like less than 10 minutes before our dinner guests were arriving. I am the girl who threw a whole bag of flour on Dan and proceeded to soak him with a hose. My point is that just because something isn't easy to see it doesn't mean that it isn't really there. Just because I am removed from that version of myself, she is still in there. That's the scary thing about mental illness, it may fade a little but it can just as easily come back full force.

I often look back in shame because I was a completely terrible person more often than I'd like to admit. I swallowed more handfuls of pills than I should have survived. The scariest part of an undiagnosed mental illness is that you just think that you are the worst person to have walked the earth. Reconciling those feelings of self-loathing are still are work in progress, not because I still do these things but more so because I feel guilt for yelling at everyone in my life and more strangers than I can count. I did and said some awful things and mental illness can only be blamed for some of it. At the time, I didn't know how to calm down and think before speaking but having a filter is a beautiful thing. And learning from your past decisions is a powerful skill.

As I walk through life 15 plus years post diagnosis I hope that I am encouraging to those are still in the throws of the worst parts of mental illness. I hope I help those with a family member to find the strength to love them when they cover you in flour and hosing you down because had Dan not loved me through the worst, I may not be alive; I'm actually fairly certain that I wouldn't be. As I say that I am tearing up realizing all the beauty that the last 15 years had to offer had I not tried every day to be more than my bipolar. I found my way to being a kick ass employee and a kick ass mom while staying the most organized person Dr. Todd had ever met. The magnificence of that was totally worth fighting for. The ability to be kind to someone to isn't being kind to me was worth sticking around for even if it is only as a thank you to those who showed me kindness when I absolutely didn't deserve it. I don't know their struggle just like those strangers didn't know mine but I know it's real and completely worth fight through...the sun on the other side is amazing.