It feels like the only time I can actually write is when I feel crummy. Like now. So I guess it’s good that I haven’t written in a while?
I don’t know the answer to that question and I’m not sure if I want to.
Anyway…
I’m in the midst of another round of “what’s the right combo of meds for Kate” and I wish I could tap out. This is a game I’ve played with multiple doctors for almost 16 years. Sometimes I think that it really is all a game, that it’s all bullshit and therapeutic meds just make everything worse. But then I get on the right combination and I remember what it feels like to feel “normal” again. Normal for me is being able to go to work, hold a conversation, take a shower, and leave my apartment without having a breakdown. You forget how difficult the simplest things can be until you have a depressive episode. Plus, meds tend to minimize these episodes, which is why I try to push out some of the hippie crap that’s always in my head about being “natural” and remember that meds are here to make me better. If I had diabetes I would take insulin, so what’s the difference?
Another reason I go along with it and keep holding out that there is this “right combo” of meds for me is because I know it’s too risky to go without them. I know what it’s like to actually feel crazy; to have a very skewed and limited sense of reality. It can be both terrifying and exciting at the same time, until reality (the real one, the one you can’t see) starts to fall apart around you. But you’re too delusional to care so you keep falling until you hit the bottom. I’ve hit that bottom a few times in my life, and it’s not a place I ever dare to get near ever again.
So I call my doctor when I feel crummy.
I trust him to make educated decisions about my mental health and he trusts me to tell him when something isn’t working. I have to, I’m a human not a computer so no alert will go off if my mood destabilizes (unfortunately, that would make so much easier). I have a similar agreement with my husband; as long I never give up on me, neither will he. I can imagine being married to someone who has an illness that you can’t usually see can be quite frustrating and draining, but he makes it look easy.
This gaming is getting harder to play because the stakes keep getting so much higher. When I could withdraw from college, live at my parents house, and use their insurance things weren’t as complicated. Now I have a (super amazing) marriage, a (legit) career, and a great life that I need to keep alive. And some day I’ll (god willing) have a tiny human being to keep alive.
So that’s why I keep playing this game.
I don’t think bipolar disorder is a game I can ever “win”, but I think if I can keep the upper hand at least most of the time then I’m doing just fine. And after 16 years of practice, I have a few tricks up my sleeve to keep me on top.