Bipolar is Beautiful

It appears that I am allergic to the antibiotic ointment I was using on my tattoo and that’s why it’s taking so long to heal and looks so bad.  How delightful…  But it’s looking better this morning now that I’m using regular lotion on it.  Most of the scabs have fallen away and the color is really starting to come through nicely.  The next one will likely be around my birthday later next month.  Too many bills to be paid out of this next paycheck.

I also seem to be allergic to work this week.  I’ve gotten just about nothing done and I don’t really care.  My “give a shit” meter is at an all time low.  Part of it is that my boss hasn’t been around much so I haven’t really been motivated by guilt.  And part of it is that I’m just that far ahead on most of my projects that there’s very little that needs to be done that’s pressing right now.

And perhaps I’m allergic to relationships right now.  I had a pretty good tiff with the boyfriend yesterday because I got paranoid and accused him of seeing another woman.  I honestly don’t know where that crap came from, but it got ugly.  I seriously need to get over my insecurities.  The one good relationship thing that’s happened is I’ve rekindled a friendship with someone I’ve been missing terribly.  It’s good to have them back in my life.  (hi!)

I found out today that my first serious boyfriend was arrested last night on suspicion of sending naked pictures to underage girls.  How sick and twisted is that!  I haven’t talked to this guy in a couple of years, and I think he’s been arrested for something like this before.  I’m disgusted.  I think I’m going to go see if he’s listed as a child molester in our community.  Creepy…

a friend of mine turned me on to this…

Last night was rough.  The boyfriend and I had a knock-down-drag-out fight because I moved out a couple of weeks ago.  I took EVERYTHING and left him with nothing but an empty apartment.  He resents me for it, rightly so.  I was miserable and told everyone but him exactly how I felt.  Big mistake.  So I left and thought I had left him behind, but we ended up back together and he’s been telling me ever since how miserable he is without me.  And truth be told, I’m miserable without him. It’s not a good situation.

See, he drinks.  A LOT.  And he’s told me that he’s going to quit at least 3 times now and every time he does, for a few days or a week, and then he’s right back at it.  I’m totally convinced that he’s an alcoholic but he won’t get any help for it.  All of my friends despise him and my family thinks I’m utterly insane for sticking with him.

Last night I told my parents that I wanted to move back in with him, and they flipped out.  If I leave before January 2010 I’ll be written out of the will (I stand to inherit a sizeable chunk of money) and I’ll be dead to them.  Not a good thing, but I was willing to give it all up for him.  He’s not willing to let me.  So we’ve talked and decided that we’ll stay living apart, but I’ll spend the weekends with him and we’ll move the stuff I have in storage back into the apartment.

The thing that I think bugs me more than anything is that my mom seems ambivalent about the whole situation.  It’s like she’s already written me off.  She says that it’s because the last time I tried to commit suicide she had to come to terms with the “fact” that one of these days I’ll be gone and there’s not a damn thing she can do about it.

I tried to commit suicide twice in December, and damn near succeeded the second time.  I spent 2 days in the ICU and another 3 on a med floor before I was stable enough to be transferred to the psych ward, where I spent another 11 days.  I have tried to tell my family that after that experience – which included having my stomach pumped – I would never attempt again.  Understandably so, they don’t believe me.  It’s part of the BPD – we either outgrow it by about age 40 or we do ourselves in.  It’s black or white for us, there is no gray area.

I want so much to have a normal life again.  But then I don’t know as I ever had a normal life.  I just want things to be good with the boyfriend and good with my family.  I don’t know that the two are compatible though.

So anyway, I’ll be spending my weekends with the boyfriend and come January we should have enough money to get a house together.  I just hope I can make it that long without going nuts.

So I got my tattoo for February last week and the damn thing itches like mad.  I’ve never had a reaction to new ink like this before.  It’s scabbed over pretty good even though I’m keeping it lubed up with bacitracin and there’s all these red bumps around it like pimples.  The boyfriend is convinced it’s infected.  I think it’s just an allergic reaction to one of the ink colors – though I’m not sure which one it would be as people usually react to red and there’s no red in it at all.

Anyway, the tat is two purple/blue daisies and a bumble bee.  It’s from the song “All I want is You” by Barry Louis Polisar – the opening line is “If I was a flower growing wild and free, all I’d want is you to be my sweet honey bee.”  It’s our song and I think it’s just a beautiful image.  Maybe once it heals I’ll post a pic of it.

I am *feeling* every bit of my mental health issues this morning.  I can’t concentrate, my body doesn’t feel like my own, I want to laugh one minute and cry the next, and my fuse is precisely this >< long.  I’m seriously tempted to tell my boss I’m sick and that I need to go home and sleep.  I think perhaps the mixed episode is coming to an end and it’s going to be followed by a lovely little bout of depression.  Which would be just fucking great – the boyfriend is going through a depressive phase right now, too.

I think I’m also feeling my age today.  I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore, though I certainly don’t think I’m past my prime by any stretch of the imagination.  I’m still closer to 30 than 40, but I do have a birthday coming up next month.  That’s another thing that’s kind of interesting/scary – both the boyfriend and I are Aries.  I’ve never dated a guy who was the same sign as me.  I think it makes our relationship a little more volatile because our personalities are quite similar, though I was born on the cusp between Pisces and Aries so I’ve got attributes of both.

*****

I had a weird thing happen this morning – my ex-husband added me as a friend on Facebook and when I saw his profile picture I damn near cried.  What’s so odd about this is that I see his picture everyday at home – my mom still has family photos of all of us up around the house because she still considers him part of the family – and those never bother me.  But for some reason seeing his face on the computer screen at 7:15 this morning sent me over the edge.  I guess maybe it’s the realization that he really is off on his own, 1500 miles away from me, having his own life and I’m not a part of that anymore.  We were married for just over 10 years so I guess it’s to be expected.  I mean, you don’t just “get over” something like that over night and we haven’t been separated all that long in the grand scheme of things.

I really loved the ex.  He was my best friend and lover through some of the very roughest times in my life.  We supported each other through all kinds of hell.  And I was absolutely horrible to him on more than one occasion and he loved me anyway.  You couldn’t have asked for a more considerate person to live with.  I think part of my problem with the boyfriend is that I keep comparing him to the ex – I’ve got to realize that they are two very different people and I can’t expect the one to pick up where the other left off.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the boyfriend with all my heart and soul; it’s just different is all.  I think that the ex and I were destined to be friends for life, but we weren’t soul mates.  The boyfriend and I seem to be.  Of course I could be 100% wrong about that.  I am fucked in the head you know.

My boyfriend gave me the nickname Pip – he says it means perfect in pink.  I don’t know about the perfect part, but I do look pretty flashy in pink.

So yeah, I’m bipolar and I think it’s a pretty shitty deal, but I’m trying to find the beauty in it.  Pretty hard thing to do when you’ve been having a mixed episode for the last three months.   My doctor is perfectly well aware of this and is trying me on a new mood stabilizer, but so far it’s not helping the episode issue.  It’s helped other stuff and I think in general I’m doing better, but I’m still just about to go nuts with this mixed shit.

I have ISSUES.  In addition to being bipolar I also have Borderline Personality Disorder.  Look it up, I’m sick of trying to explain it to everyone.  Needless to say, there’s no treatment for it per se, just coping skills to deal with the symptoms.  The upside is that people generally either grow out of it by the time they’re 40 or they kill themselves before they get to 40.  Pretty nifty odds, don’t you think?

I’ve been diagnosed bipolar for about three years now, BPD for about three months.  I take three different meds to try to keep myself stable, which is not a lot compared to some of my friends.  I see a therapist every week, a psychiatrist every month, and attend a support group for mental health consumers once a week.  It’s a lot of support, but I need every damn bit of it.

My boyfriend is also mental – general psychosis with paranoid delusions to be exact.  I thought that dating someone with a mental illness would be better for me; he should understand all the shit I’m going through, right?  Not exactly.  When you’re broken like we are, it sometimes gets tricky putting the pieces back together because you’re not sure which pieces belong to which person.  But I love him with all my heart and I fully intend to marry him someday.

So I’ll tell you just a wee bit more about me, though I’m going to keep this kind of vague because I don’t want to be identified.  I’m a 30-something professional living with my parents in a moderately sized city in the US.  When I’m not blogging I like to do things with my hands and I listen to a lot of music.  No kids, no pets of my own, not really that interesting a person I guess.  I do have a secret side I hide from most people though – I’m addicted to tattoos.  I’m up to 8 now and I plan to get one every month this year.

these will be my thoughts and ramblings on the disease that is bipolar