A tiny bit of space

So the last 2 months have been very dramatic.  I spent 10 days in the BHU (Behavioral Health Unit) and 3 weeks in PHP (Partial Hospitalization Program).  I am back on a medication that I have been on before I've tried medications that didn't work again and they still didn't work and yet I'm still here.

There are still moments of suicidal thoughts there are a lot of moments when it feels like my mind wants me to be in a constant state of misery or dead.   Yet I still put one foot on front of the other and move forward it's not the progress that I want and I have moments when I beat myself up unmercifully but I'm learning to stop fighting myself.

A friend told me recently that you can't hate away the parts of yourself you don't like you can only love them away.  I can't make something go away until I accept that it is a part of me.  There are so many parts of me that I wish that were different and so many ways that I wish things were different.  However, I'm learning to trust the people around me who tell me that this too shall pass and there is a purpose to all things.  I don't want to trust that things are happening I want things to be different then they are.   But all I can do is put 1 foot in front of the other and trust that what I need to know is being worked out in me and I can't make it happen any faster all I can do is figure out ways to distract myself until more information is revealed.

The Radio Station from Hell

The other day I had dinner at a friends house for dinner and meditation as I do every week.  Another acquaintance was there and she and I were discussing depression which is often a topic among this group because we all suffer from it to one degree or another.

This acquaintance used an analogy I hadn't heard before that her brain was constantly tuned to the same radio station and she couldn't change the channel.  She practices ignoring the noise but it's always there this constant hum in the background.  This particular analogy really resonated with me because that's what depression often feels like, this scratchy old broadcast that you can never get rid of that you're sometimes able to turn the volume down on but other times it's so loud it's the only thing you can think about because the thoughts are so blaringly loud.

Fast forward to today and I had a very good appointment with my psychiatrist.  He's giving me hope.  But what does that have to do with the radio station?  Well, I told him the story about the radio station and a little while later we were discussing something else and he said yea when you're depressed that radio station is always tuned to Hell.

So that is a new description to have in my back pocket when people don't understand depression.  Depression is a radio station from Hell that you can't turn off on your own and if you're bipolar the volume fluctuates between almost silent to ear bleeding loud.

Faking It

This past Saturday I had the privilege of participating in a really fun event in Seattle.  There is a community in which I am fairly well known and I go to these events often.  Often these events are really fun and they bring me out of my funk and I feel liberated and I have fun.  That happened to some extent this weekend but I still felt like I was experiencing the event through the veil of depression and I couldn't truly be me.  A big part of the day I was just faking it and putting on a brave face while inside I was wanting to be at home in bed.  I really did have fun but it still felt like so much work and at times I just wanted to lay down.

I hate faking anything because when I fake things then I have to remember to keep up a charade and most of the time it's just easier to be open and honest and be myself.  But sometimes you have to try and fake it until you make it or at least until you can go back to being the depressed person that you are.

At least I got to talk to some people I consider my heros and they seemed to be engaged in the conversations that we were having.  That was a really big win.

What's accomplishments are Real?

One of the things that depression does especially for a self critical person like me is make it difficult to distinguish between the depression and character flaws that should be worked on.  My inner monologue often includes things like lazy, selfish and stupid.  The problem is that often these things that I get down on myself for are things that I really have no control over because the depression makes everything so difficult.

Tonight I've been very aware of my negative inner monologue and I've been trying to think of positive or at the very least neutral things to keep my mind from going negative and it's been very difficult.   I had all these ambitious plans of what I wanted to accomplish today and I got almost none of it done and so I've been beating myself up.  But actually I did get stuff done today.  I went to the gym, I got several loads of laundry done, I wrote a couple of different blog posts and I worked on a project that involves people.   I did accomplish things today and I have to give myself credit for what I do accomplish and stop beating myself up for what I don't.

Forgiving Myself

I think one of the biggest contributing factors to my depression (besides biology) is my inability to forgive myself for things I think I've done wrong.  I still feel guilt over things that happened years ago, like somehow by punishing myself for things that happened when I was 25 or 18 will somehow make me a better person.  But the reality is it will just continue to add to my negative feelings about myself.

I'm not entirely sure how to forgive myself but I'm reading up on it. I guess the first step is realizing that forgiveness is not the same as forgetting and forgiving myself for the things I think I've done wrong does not mean I won't grow and improve as a person.   It just means I'll stop torturing myself over things that I've done wrong.

It's okay to be Bipolar

I am bipolar and that means that I have severe mood swings, trouble controlling my emotions and suicidal thoughts.  Sometimes the depression gets so bad I will subconsciously pick fights with my husband in order to feel anger because it's better then the severe emotional pain I'm feeling.  I am feel anxious all the time and I am constantly analyzing how I feel and what I can do to fix it.

The reality is I can't "fix it" all I can do is learn to live with it and minimize the impact it has on my life. No pill is going to suddenly make the negative thoughts about myself go away, it's something that I will struggle with and it's probably going to be hard work.  Sure I can be jealous of the people who can easily feel content in their own skin but I'm guessing there aren't nearly as many of them as I think and the ones that do exist are probably not going to make much of an impact on the world.

It's okay that I'm bipolar there isn't anything I did to cause it.  Given my family history I had a 70% chance of developing the disorder. I have to forgive myself when the emotions get to be too much and I can't control them because from what I understand they are so much more powerful than most people would ever experience in their lifetime.

I'm not defective. I am challenged, but never defective.  I have to learn to live with the challenges and figure out how to structure my life so the challenges don't derail my life.  I will learn to live with these complications and I will not let it run my life.

For now the mood swings are really bad and I don't know from one minute to the next how I'm going to feel and so that makes planning anything very difficult.  So for now I need to give myself permission to not have a plan and my goal is to focus on keeping my thoughts neutral or positive even when my mood is at it's worst.

I love my nose

A couple of days ago I came across a Tiny Buddah post that lead me to the article Silencing Your Inner Critic: You Don’t Need to Torture Yourself to Grow.  I realize that yet again I have allowed my inner critic to rear her nasty head and take control of my life.  She is a relentless bitch who at times will not let up on the negative thoughts about myself and what I have done wrong.

In the few days since I found the article I've been trying to think of things that I think are positive about myself and I've been drawing a blank.  So tonight when my brain was full of horrible thoughts about how I can't work and I'm horribly lazy (because depression makes everything so hard) and I'm a terrible person because I spend money I remembered one thing that I've always liked about myself.  I've always loved my nose, it's small and symmetrical and I've always liked it.  So tonight my mantra became "I love my nose" and I will continue to repeat that to myself when my thoughts go negative until I can come up with other things about myself that I like.

I'm going to have to rebuild my positive thoughts yet again.  How come I keep forgetting these when my mood gets so bad?  I guess I can't worry about that I just need to do it.