The truth comes out

During my months of thinking about doing this I stopped so many times because I was afraid of what would happen when I had bad times. In 4 years I have had one 9 month period that was solidly good, and the rest of the time goes up and down a lot. During my bad times I usually shut myself off even more than I already am from things that are fun, social, or interactive. I don't trust myself to be nice, and I have no energy. And my focus is firmly on fitting in to the "real" world, to keeping anyone from calling me the mentally ill one, and to refusing to let my illness win.

The problem is that sometimes I am sick, and I still do have a real life during those times. I am teary and irritable and angry and often whiny, and I hate being those things. I only let those who are very close to me see these things, and I fear anyone else seeing them. I've been bitten seriously by people I did not tell about my illness finding out about it, and by the misconceptions of those I did tell. I am terrified that if anyone sees what I am like when I am sick that I will face more rejection and humiliation.

What I want most in the world is for people to see that I can be and in fact am seriously mentally ill and yet I am capable of doing all sorts of things. I'm pretty good at the "doing all sorts of things". I am not good at the seeing I'm mentally ill part. So that is the next function of this blog, to be open when I'm sick and yet anonymous. This would probably be more meaningful if I had more than one reader who knows already that I'm not doing well right now, but someday someone may read this.

So, for this week, it's not been the best. I made myself manic by accidentally drinking tea I thought was decaffeinated but was full of caffeine. Thanks to taking large quantities of lithium, which is sort of like ingesting daily doses of pure table salt, when I refer to drink I am not talking a dainty glass, I usually refer more to a pitcher. And so I lost a night of sleep. This is dangerous for me, and since my moods have been out of kilter for many months lately it was even more dangerous. Then I was upset by something at work, and wound up taking a day off to recover because I was too angry and emotional to deal with people. Sleeping for a day helped, but I'm still highly emotional and tired. All this because I didn't read a label.

There will be times I just stay quiet, keeping my not feeling well to my select group of victims. But for today, I feel bad. The end.