SchlegelRock

I went yesterday to get my blood drawn at Kaiser.  I’m supposed to do this regularly because of the bipolar meds I’m on but this time it had been a year and a half since my last draw.  I got a call from my Psychiatrists nurse a while back gently reminding me that he had reminded me to get it done months ago.  Fine.

Everything went pretty well.  There was a fifteen minute wait on the first floor so I went up to the second and waited maybe 5 minutes to get called in.  The lady drawing blood had trouble finding my vein so that hurt a bit but other than that, everything went fine and now I wait for my results to make sure everything looks OK.

The reason I’m telling you this is because every time I get my blood drawn I get flashbacks to when I was pregnant with Max and got it drawn for the first time. You see I had started having panic attacks only I had no idea what they were so I thought something was really wrong with me.  I was also throwing up everything that I ate that wasn’t ice-cream so I was pretty depleted and tired and I thought I was losing my mind.  And my bipolar hadn’t been diagnosed yet so I really had no idea what was going on.

So I show up to get my blood drawn and I’m starting to hyperventilate but I’m trying my darndest to keep it together.  But that doesn’t last for long.  The lady puts the needle in and starts the draw and I start crying and hyperventilating at the same time.  I just wanted to run out of there screaming and crying and curl in a ball somewhere to hide from it all.  I was not in a good place.

Then another Phlebotomist walks up behind my station and says, “She shouldn’t have got herself knocked up if she couldn’t stand to be poked.”  Great.  Thank you so much for your kindness and compassion.  I can still remember what that felt like to sit there and hear her say such an insensitive thing.  Of course it made me feel worse.  I felt like not only was I falling apart but medical professionals viewed me as weak and had no compassion for me.  I felt hopeless.

All she had to do was ask me if I was OK or say something soothing to me but she chose to be cold and calloused and make fun of me.  She had no idea that I was bipolar, and that I didn’t know it yet, and that the pregnancy exacerbated my condition and that the panic attacks were still unknown.  Maybe she thought I was on drugs or just afraid of needles but does that really matter?  I was clearly in distress and she had the power to make me feel at least a little bit better or shut her mouth and not influence the situation at all.

Needless to say I went home and got in bed and cried for a good long time.  I’m amazed that I’m even able to get my blood drawn anymore but I am.  I flashback to that experience every time I go and hope for a better one this time.  At least I know how to deal with a panic attack should I have one and my meds keep the rest in check.  So far so good.  Even if they can’t find the vein the first time.  Nobody’s perfect, right?

Do you have any horror stories that still linger when you go see the Dr?

Scott was watching TV while getting ready for work a couple months ago and happened to stop on the Today show when they introduced Carrie Fisher (Princess Leah from Star Wars).  Among other things she spoke about being bipolar.  I loved hearing her speak about bipolar because we share a lot of the same views.

She talked about the stigma of bipolar and said she didn’t understand it because to live with bipolar “takes balls”.  Amen to that sister.  Why should I be ashamed of people knowing I’m bipolar when I’m living a functioning, adult life?  Sure I have my hiccups and my bad days but I’m taking care of my husband and raising three healthy, happy children.  What more could you ask for?

Matt asked Carrie about bipolar being a daily struggle and I feel like my last episode is still so fresh and raw that I do deal with it every day.  Every little change in my body sets off alarms that make me hyper vigilant to what’s going on in my body.  So I’m not changing from manic to depressed on a daily basis but I do deal with bipolar daily.

How beautiful is it that she describes bipolar as the weather.  As moods that happen independent of the person feeling them.  They just come on and you have to deal with them even though they are not who you are or necessarily how you are feeling.

It took me weeks to get this video off of my Tivo and formatted right so YouTube would play it correctly.  I really wanted to share this with you because it spoke to me.  Mostly because I saw someone else who wasn’t ashamed of being bipolar.  My gosh, we didn’t ask for this but we sure as heck are doing the best we can.  What is there to ashamed of?

So when I sat down on Tuesday and wrote about Oli going to school I was a little lonely but totally in control of myself. That started to change when I picked him up from school and he was totally distraught. He looked like he had been tortured for 2 1/2 hours rather than playing with new friends. I asked him if he had fun and he said, “No.” We talked about going back to school on Tuesday and he said he didn’t want to go. He spent the rest of the day in between pouting and throwing fits. It totally threw me for a loop. Majorly catching me off guard. I felt like I had made a terrible mistake sending him to school. My poor baby!

Well, that set me up for panic attacks. I made it all the way until 7pm before the first one hit. Luckily (or unluckily), I have a lot of practice dealing with panic attacks. So I sat on my bed and let the waves of panic wash over me. I can deal with the physical symptoms of a panic attack pretty well. For me, that’s the easy part. The hard part is when Satan jumps in and tries to get me to hurt myself. What a jerk. Totally kicking me when I’m down. Telling me, “This will never end. You’re never going to get better. You’re going to feel like this for the rest of your life so you might as well end it now. Scott’s better off without you anyway. You just bring sorrow and pain to him. Someone else would treat him much better than you possibly can. They could take care of your kids better too. They wouldn’t have to deal with all of your episodes. etc, etc.” He just goes on and on until I feel like I’m losing my mind because there’s a really stupid, gullible part of me that believes him. Then on the other hand Scott has told me before that he would lose it if anything happened to me. And I think of my kids and what it would feel like to grow up with a mother who killed herself. How it would give them an opening I would never want them to consider. The icing on the panic cake is that I have flashbacks to my hospitalization when I have an attack. It makes me want to vomit how real it feels. In the end, I win. But not without suffering a great deal.

So I’m sitting in my bed having my third panic attack and I lose it and call my mom to come sit with me. I don’t know if it was just having her in the house, or what, but I didn’t have another panic attack after she got here. Thank goodness. I felt really fragile all day Wednesday but in control. I even made it out to the bakery to get myself a pick me up. There’s nothing like chocolaty baked goods to help ease the pain.

Now we made it to Thursday and Oli still didn’t want to go to school. He went though. I talked to his teacher when I picked him up and she said he had a great day and was shocked when I told her he was reluctant to go to school. That’s a huge relief. It makes me think that given a few more weeks Oli will be a pro at going to school. Then I wont have to feel guilty about sending him and enjoying my time to myself. And truth be told this is why we wanted to send him to school at 3 in the first place. We had a feeling he’d have a hard time with it. Which is silly because it totally caught me off guard when he did. I know, I’m ridiculous. But what would you do without me writing about my ludicrous experiences? Seriously, what would you do?

So you all know that I love the Twilight series and I’ve been blogging more about it to tell you why. Well we’ve hit the jackpot. New Moon means more to me than either of the other two books and it’s because of the journey that Bella takes. Let me get a little personal to explain why.

Most of you know that I’m bipolar and about two years ago I was hospitalized because of it. That was the darkest point of my life. I had a week leading up to my breakdown where I kept feeling like I was losing control of myself. I would find myself crunched in a ball on the ground trying to hold myself together. Then the breakdown actually came and I vividly remember lying in the ER at El Camino Hospital shaking from head to toe thinking I was either going to die or go insane. I remember when they took me to the psych ward and asked Scott to leave. That’s the last thing I remember for about 3 days. One day I woke up and fell into the routine of the hospital (group therapy, art therapy, meals, etc.). Then I got released into the outpatient program which is where the hell really began. I literally could not handle being out of my bed huddled under the covers. Any stimulation whatsoever would send me cringing back into my shell. I couldn’t take care of my kids. I woke up in the morning and went to the hospital and then came home and went to my room. Oh my gosh, just remembering it is awful, but I promise there’s a happy ending. Time went on and I eventually started going to church and interacting with people again but I was totally dead inside. I was so scared of losing control of myself again that I refused to let myself feel anything. No love, no happiness, no tenderness, nothing.

A little more time passed and I finally was able to reach out to Scott and my kids again. I can’t even explain how scary or painful that was. Another thing that happened that may seem strange is that I lost the ability to breathe normally. I couldn’t take in a deep breath for fear of opening up the gaping hole in my soul. It felt like a black hole had taken over my chest and threatened to suck me in if I wasn’t vigilant at guarding myself. So every step I took closer to Scott and the kids, was a step closer to that hole. It was like recovering from a horrific car accident and having to do extensive physical therapy. It was really hard and it hurt like hell but with their help I did it. I finally brought them back in.

That’s where I was when I found Twilight. Well on the road to recovery, but still a long journey ahead of me. So I get to New Moon and Stephenie paints this beautifully, horrible picture of Bella suffering and the hole in her torso that rips and pulses at the edges. I love that when Edward leaves all we get is October, November, December, January. That’s exactly what I felt like. The time passed but it didn’t mean anything. Then when she goes to the zombie movie with Jessica and realizes she’s the zombie I realized that I was the zombie too. Totally dead to the world. Going through the motions with no real feeling. Then everything changes that night. She’s not totally dead anymore. Some of her defenses come down and she can’t bring them back and it’s scary as hell to feel so vulnerable.

Then the best thing happens. She makes the decision to be reckless. The healing begins. Every day she feels more vulnerable but she’s loving it. That’s what New Moon did for me. It touched me so deep down inside where nothing else touched me. It brought me to life. That’s why I’m so obsessed with these books. They literally changed my life. A teen vampire book changed my life. It woke me up and made me realize that I needed to put forth more effort if I wanted to live a healthy life again. As Bella started smiling without effort and laughing without realizing it so did I. I relished in her recovery, I drank it in and let it fill me up.

So when I say I love Bella it really means I love that Stephenie so descriptively wrote about a pain so awful it tears your soul into tiny pieces that takes years to put back together. Well I guess for Bella it only took Edwards return, but in real life it takes a long time to recover from that kind of hurt.

I know you’ve all probably felt that way. I know I’m not the only person on the Earth that has experienced this. I just happened to find Bella and really felt like she was a “kindred spirit”. Her pain was felt so similarly to mine that I couldn’t help loving her. So if I run around on Twilight related trips wearing “I am Switzerland” t-shirts it’s not only because I’m crazy, which I am, but also because I’m reveling in my recovery.

I guess I should mention that I’m doing great. Not 100% yet but I have every hope that I will be. Every day that passes brings me closer to myself. In fact, I would say I’m a much better person now than I was before the episode. Much stronger. I’m totally trying new things that I never would have dreamed of before. I appreciate my family and friends more. I appreciate God more. Life is good.

Sorry for the long post, I just really wanted you to understand how deeply I love these books. I can honestly say that these books have been a blessing in my life. Corny, I know.

I totally ordered a great t-shirt from Zazzle.com and it came yesterday!!! It has a “conversation” between Jacob and Edward and they banter back and forth like this: “leech.” “dog.” “bloodsucker.” “pup.” “parasite.” “mongrel.” and then both say, “you smell funny.” I fell in love with this shirt a couple of months ago but just got it because I’m going to Forks!!! That’s right. My friend Laura L. invited me (that’s her in the picture). I don’t know why but I just felt like I needed this shirt on my trip so I got it. As you probably know, I already have my “I am Switzerland” shirt, but this one is just so fun!!

Also, I am reading The Host. It took a while for me to get into it because I’m not big in to aliens but It’s really picking up now and I find myself totally drawn to the main character Wanderer. I did hear Stephenie say that some early readers were routing for the aliens but I’m not with them at this point. I’ll let you know how I feel when I finish the books.

Scott built this nifty little blog for me so thanks a bunch hon. I feel like I reached deep into my feminine side with this one. The other theme I had picked out had a skull and cross-bones on it. I think I finally picked this one because I thought people would be more comfortable looking at it. Hope that’s true. So this should be my home for a good long time. Scott got us our own domain name and everything. He’s really trying to turn me into a geek. What with all the comic book movies and the kids being obsessed with Star Wars I’m wandering in that direction already. Pretty much got all the same features plus new ones. For instance you can click on Twilight in the Categories and it will pull up all the Twilight posts I’ve made. Pretty cool. The other bit of news is that you don’t have to register to make a comment. Well, welcome. We’re glad you’re here.

btw From what I can tell my bipolar episode is almost over. Yippee. It hasn’t been fun but it sure feels good to be on this side of it.

ps We’ve lost the ability to get emailed when new comments are made on your favorite posts, but the option is there to be notified of new comments by RSS feed. If you look for small green type that says RSS 2.0 feed in the comments window it will set you up if you have a feed reader already. See my post below if you need help setting that up. Happy commenting!

Well we’re having one of those weeks.  I’m having a minor mixed state episode of bipolar which in this case means racing depressed thoughts.  I also feel extremely agitated and restless but with a strong desire not to move a muscle.  Hence the name mixed state.  Luckily I’m on medication so this is very minor but it still doesn’t feel very good.  So on top of that, and Scott says it’s because I’m not feeling well, the kids are on another planet.  We haven’t had accidents or spills in a month or so and we’ve had a spill every day and three accidents this week.  In fact, Max was standing on a chair and just dumped the contents of a pencil sharpener all over the place.  There have been screaming fits from all.  Everything that normally runs smooth is now bumpy.  Aaaarrrgh.  Luckily, I’ve learned that everything gets better with time.  Just ride it out is my motto.  And ride it out I will.  Anyone else feeling this way (not the bipolar stuff, just the normal stuff)?