Underneath the Mask

In thinking about the things I've written over the month this thing has been in existence, I'm realizing that I'm presenting mainly one side of the story. Six months ago when I began to feel this was something I was ready to do (be public with my experience, not write a blog) it was because I was becoming aware that I had truly learned to live with my illness. At that time and straight up through now I had been cycling a lot and had been through some miserable experiences. In the last year I have had a rather difficult time with meds because I took a new one last spring and soon after developed severe hypertension. I stopped that med, but the hypertension continued. It was not possible to know if I just had developed hypertension, or if it was a reaction to another of my meds, and if it was a med, it was hard to know which one. I went through a lot of trial and error as we attempted to sort that out, trying lower doses, being off a suspect med, re-starting it, having my blood pressure skyrocket and going off it, and then having my blood pressure continue to rise. All the while my mood swings are miserable and I couldn't have my meds increased, nor could we easily try anything else. It was bad, but suddenly I realized that I had developed a new ability. I was unhappy and tired and symptomatic, but I was not losing control. I wasn't on disability leave, I wasn't having random temper tantrums, I wasn't suicidal. I was holding it together and doing well at it. Later I realized I was getting worse and on my own began to plan for disability leave, which I never needed.

At this point in time I am experiencing some difficulties in my life. I don't want to name them specifically as it would be identifying to some people who know me, but there are some real issues in my treatment team, and I rely on my treatment team. I've been horribly upset and unable to hold down medication. I therefore have been more or less off my meds for about a month. I've taken what I can, but that hasn't been enough to maintain blood levels.

I have had trouble even admitting that on here; I want to be the totally together person I wish I were. I wish I were able to say I'm the perfect model of medication compliance. But at this point I have failed. Except that I was trying to take them all along, and I am now re-starting them gradually, and I was in communication with my doctor all along, instead of being a more typical non-compliant patient who just does not take them. Considering I currently have a low level of lithium and no other med levels whatsoever I'm doing extremely well. But the difficulties I am having, including the simple fact that I am upset about something and it affected me to the point I was throwing up everything I ate for weeks, remind me that I am still bipolar. I have a problem and have resorted to the worst thing I could do to solve it: risking illness.

So, in the spirit of honesty, this blog is devoted to talking about functioning with bipolar disorder. But so far I have read it and thought "wow, the confidence in those thoughts", and while it's true that I'm quite confident in how I handle this illness, I also am fumbling through it. I'm past the dark days when it hurt unbearably and stole my coping skills. I know a lot about my enemy and even more about how that enemy and I interact. But even so, sometimes it seems the enemy is in charge. There's a lot of the time I have no idea how to get through something or that I feel like the illness is winning. There are lots of things that separate me from "normal people". Little things, like having no social life, an inability to go to church, few friends, incredible difficulty with things like paying bills on time (I get a utility shut off about every 6 months accidentally), and much of the time I need help to do simple things like clean my house.

I just don't want to seem like Miss Bipolar Know It All 2006. It's a lot easier for me to talk about how I have conquered this or that and how I have done something despite the illness. But it's another story entirely to admit to the really hard parts.

But all things are fair game. Sometimes at this point I'm not talking about things I'd like to because I've not figured out how to do so and protect my anonimity. As time passes I may be able to that more and demonstrate that sometimes I'm totally clueless. It really would help at times to be able to answer questions because that helps me think about things I'm less confident about. So if a day comes you're sick of confidence, ask a question.