Tag: mental illness

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I Feel Mad (and I don’t mean angry)

Today is really, really hard.

This mania cycle is kicking my ass. I’m trying to get things done but my brain wont slow down. I’m getting distracted by everything and my head just feels so full. I feel like I can’t even slow down enough to catch a breath and I’m sitting. I feel like I have to go go go but I can’t stay on task so I’m just getting frustrated. I just want it to stop. I want everything to just slow down for 10 minutes so I can catch up.

It gets worse with each cycle I go through. Every time I switch, the lows get lower and the highs get higher. I don’t know what I’m going to do as it gets worse. And I am not trying to be negative by saying things won’t get better because, realistically, they won’t. I will live with this disorder until the day I die unless, at some point in my life time, they find some magical cure.

The more I learn about this disorder and the more aware I become of myself, the more I feel like I am not Katrina, a person with bipolar disorder but rather Bipolar Disorder occupying Katrina. It feels like a parasite that a juice cleanse isn’t going to fix. I feel like a malfunction. I just want to push the reset button on my brain, power down, and start back up not bipolar.

I am heavy with guilt that my family has to deal with this. I am trying so hard to cope, so hard to be better. But I feel like I am not in control here and the harder I try to suppress it, the stronger it gets. I will be honest, I am scared of what this will look like in a few years. I just hope that I will have found my holy grail by then.

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Mania and Mommin’

As mania rears its ugly head again, I am reminded exactly how awful this disorder can really be. It is always guaranteed that I will creep into mania after enduring depression, and I always say “Well, at least I won’t be depressed anymore.”. But then it sets in and I am reminded that both ends of this disorder are almost equally awful.

Sure, with mania I have more energy and I’m a hell of a lot better to be around, but it has its own downfalls. I have the energy to clean my whole house from top to bottom, but I have too much energy to sit and do a puzzle with my daughter. My impulsive manic spending isn’t bad enough to land us in a bad financial position, but it is bad enough to make Mason (my SO) roll his eyes when I walk in with 4 Target bags and only one is filled with what I actually went there for.

I am constantly on edge and irritable when I am manic and it is my greatest downfall. I get angry with depression but with mania, the little things set me off. The feeling of my daughter’s tiny nails grabbing my face while she falls asleep, the whiny voice when I tell her no, watching her destroy the room I literally JUST cleaned…. it’s enough to make my skin crawl and my heart rate pick up. Ideally, I would have perfect parenting skills and I would brush it off or call upon gentle parenting techniques to handle the situation logically. But, there is nothing ideal about the state of my brain, so I too frequently resort to yelling.

It is not something I am proud of and, honestly, it rarely even works. Once it comes out, I instantly feel guilty and calmer and I hate that it takes yelling to make me feel calm. Even as I am sitting here writing this, I am getting irritated and overwhelmed. The sound of toys being thrown around in the background, the sound of the cicadas buzzing outside, the humming of everything around me… I become so sensitive to it and it drives me nuts.

I’ve been practicing breathing. I’ve been practicing waiting before reacting. I’ve been trying to remove myself from situations that trigger my anger. It is truly easier said than done. It seems like no matter how much I try, it won’t get easier. But, if it saves my daughter some tears and it saves me some guilt, I will keep trying again and again until it is second nature to me.

So, what about you guys? What are some things you do to control anger and irritability (whether you’re bipolar or not)? Leave a comment and give me some insight on what has worked for you!

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Let’s Try Again…

Now that my dishes are done and my apartment is back in order, I am ready to finally sit down and write. It has been a rough couple of weeks and now that my brain has crept out of its fog into a state of normalcy (I think), I am feeling motivated and ready to commit. Hopefully, with the next depressive episode (because there were certainly be more), I can remain committed and update in a timely manner.

Depression is my least favorite thing about this disorder. When I am experiencing depression, I have a hard time doing anything and I am incredibly irritable on top of being incredibly weepy. I’m just one big miserable mess and I wish I could countdown to when it ends. Unfortunately, bipolar disorder is so unpredictable that I never know how long the swings will last.

Trying to manage my depression without punishing my family is hard. My body feels heavy so I just want to lay in bed. This makes it so my motherly responsibilities fall onto my boyfriend when he is not working which I can imagine can be frustrating for him. I appreciate everything he does for us though, and he knows that.

I am often alone with my daughter, however, because my boyfriend works so much. I am consumed by guilt when it comes to my interaction with her in my depressed states. I don’t do as much as a mother should. I lay around and let the dishes in the sink pile high. I use tiredness as an excuse to not get up and play. I just want to sleep but that’s impossible when you’re caring for a toddler so I get irritable. Then I start yelling too much and feel even guiltier. It is a never ending cycle, I feel.

I have to remind myself that these days do not last forever. At the end of each day, I am a little bit closer to the end of the episode and things will be normal soon. Some days I find myself sobbing alone because the guilt is eating away at me and other days I just accept my “failures” and I promise to try again the next day. The key to making it through these types of times is to just keep trying.

At the end of the depression is always a break for normalcy. Or as normal as I can get. I am always so glad when the physical weight of depression is lifted from me and I can move around again without the weight of my illness on my chest. The days get easier. My family becomes happier. Everything feels better.

So on that note, I am going to say goodnight. Today was good but I will work for tomorrow to be better and I will continue updating as my days go on. If you’re here and reading this, thank you. I appreciate all of the support I receive. I can’t wait to get this rolling.