The Sleepless Beast

Bipolar Depression.

When you have Bipolar depression, you know on the one hand that it’s temporary, which gives it sort of an element of being a domesticated predator; like a big cat in captivity in a circus. You know it would kill you, if it was allowed out of its cage…but it won’t, because soon the show will be over, and the clowns will come out.

But the metaphor is flawed, because I’ve seen those big cats in their tiny, inadequate cages, wearing their hides raw, pacing and stimming against trees to just try and feel alive. It’s why I hate zoos. I remember seeing that very thing, the last time I went to see the big cats at the Chicago zoo — the leopard, pacing, bumping and scraping its poor side against the tree in its cage until it was raw and bloody, endlessly in a figure 8 pattern…which is how it feels to be depressed, actually. How it feels to be bipolar, knowing you are stuck in this cycle of mania, or hypomania, and depression, one after the other, for the rest of your life.

Medication, of course, is key to lessening the symptoms, hopefully breaking the cycles down a bit, making them less destructive. The problem being, of course, no medication is ever perfect, and finding the right combination of meds is a long process, and can be very frustrating. I’ve been inadequately medicated, with only one mood stabilizer, for some time now — my insurance situation had changed, then I was unable to get an appointment with a psychiatrist for a full year because of the way the system works being on Medicaid. I’m finally going to see one, in JUNE because that’s the soonest I could get in, now that I’m in the system with a good social service agency in the city, but it’s been a long a frustrating road to get here.

I’ve been in a long stretch of depression, which was briefly lifted with a couple bouts of hypomanic mixed states, for a long time, now. I tend to get far more depression than I do hypomania, and the mixed states, which generally means depression with insomnia and other, less fun manic symptoms. Typical SSRIs tend to be only briefly effective before they send me into full blown mania, so I need mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics, and the med cocktail gets complicated. Right now, I’ve been off SSRIs for over a year, and ran out of my anti-psychotic, which I only take when needed, about five months ago, when I had my last episode. So, I know I’m skating on thin ice, just hoping I won’t need them again any time soon.

The depression is by far the more worrying piece, at the moment. It’s been getting worse, not better. Tomorrow is my birthday, and the very last thing I want to do is celebrate. I’ve been spending my days in bed, worrying about my future, my health, my stability, my utter lack of a social life…at the same time, dreading leaving the apartment for any reason. It’s pretty bad. My head hurts, all the time. I cry for no reason. I need a psychiatrist, but I have to wait for one. I think I can hold out, but it’s rough. I feel like I am on a trapeze with no net beneath me, only a pit that drops into endless blackness.

Ok, is that grim enough for you?

That’s depression — more to the point, that’s depression when you’ve lost your job 5 months ago due to your shitty health, and are living as a caregiver to someone who is graciously letting you live rent-free with them as payment, but you have no cash-flow because the freelance writing job you had, sparse as it was, seems to have dried up and you are now so depressed, after the months of dealing with living with a scary abusive addict who you had to go through a legal nightmare to remove from your residence, as well as being in constant pain from a chronic illness, that you are stuck in a rut of being unable to even get your shit together enough to even try to look for another one. Because when you do, there doesn’t seem to be a Hell of a lot out there.

That’s where the social service agency comes in. They’re supposed to help me with all aspects of my situation, including getting me a psychiatrist, applying for SSI, at home work, and even getting paid for being caregiver for the Paterfamilias (who constantly says he’s alive only because of me, particularly because of the cancer treatments I got him to, but right now I don’t feel very useful to him, to be honest). I had my first intake appointments this week, over the phone, and as I mentioned above, they got me in with a shrink pretty quickly. All it took was me calling their crisis line when I was feeling like I was at the end of my rope a couple weeks ago. And that’s the sad thing about the mental health care system when you’re indigent — if you’re on Medicaid, you can’t just find a psychiatrist that easily. I would have had to wait ANOTHER 6 months as opposed to just 2 to get back on the medication I needed had I not called the crisis line the well-researched agency I finally settled on. They sent someone out to me the following day. If I find I can’t manage the two months, I can always go inpatient.

Frankly, I’d rather eat asbestos paint off the walls, but sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. And if I must, I must. Time will tell. Inpatient isn’t always horrible, in fact it can be very restful and helpful, depending on the hospital. But, I don’t want to be away from home and my cats for potentially a week or more.

But, hopefully I won’t need to, now that I’m involved with this agency, and have access to their crisis team and a caseworker. I’m lucky I know how to advocate for myself enough to do that much — it’s one thing I’m good at. It was my job doing it for other people with mental health problems for 9 years. It’s weird, being on the other end of it, and having to take the steps to do it for myself when I’m feeling so disorganized in my head and so unmotivated I can barely leave my bed — but I managed it, and now I can hopefully hand the reigns over to these people and get some help, some stability in my life. Some kind of work I can do from home, and SSI to cover the rest. The worst part of all this is not being able to work, and have an income, because I am so not used to it. I rely on Link for food, and I’m grateful for that so I can help the Paterfamilias out at least that way. I hate feeling like a burden in any way to anyone, it’s really difficult for me. I’ve said it before, but if I didn’t have my two cats Calvin and Esmerelda, I’d really be…well, probably not here.

Losing a child makes depression a reality that is just part of life. No medication will ever “fix” that sort of depression. But the brain chemistry induced depression, that at least I can address, hopefully soon. I know which drugs work for me, and I am articulate and smart, and the doctor will have those notes from my intake appointment. They’ll hopefully listen to me, I’ve had luck in that way. I just want to start to feel better, because this has gotten to be almost unbearably bad, over the past few months. When I was taking Joe to his cancer treatments, I at least had that to focus on, but I was definitely in a bad place then. Now, it’s even worse. As is the pain from my Ehlers Danlos.

Which reminds me, I’ll be seeing a new doctor, too. Maybe they’ll have some new insight. They have a pain clinic, maybe there will be some way to manage things that will help. Non-opiate ways to manage things, preferably. I’ve been surrounded by addicts my whole life, and I want to avoid getting addicted to them myself if at all possible. I take the Kratom when I need to, but it’s one of those things that I only do when it’s necessary. Some days I take it several times a day, some days, just twice. Some days, once. But I always need to do SOMETHING, because I’m always in a lot of pain.

This post is sort of all over the place, I realize.

It’s been one of those weeks. I haven’t been sleeping at night, I’ve been thinking a lot about where my life is, right now, and how different I want it to be — I’ll do anything I have to to be able to work again, to be able to just…go out and have fun again. To have a life. Because right now, I don’t. I just spend my days in pain — physical and mental, and emotional, and it’s got to change. It will change, I know it will, because I’ve been here before.

Also, as a reminder to anyone reading this with depression who might be considering distracting themselves with romance (because I’ve unfortunately done this) — my advice, don’t. You’ll make bad decisions, and more likely than not, end up with someone who treats you like shit, and is bad in bed. Because the truth is, when you’re depressed, you’re vulnerable, whether you like it or not. At least, there is a window there where you are. That window before you reach out to get the ACTUAL help you need, and are grasping for human connection, in any direction, after you’ve isolated yourself for a really long period of time, and are just learning how to human again. But it’s the wrong move, sister. Or brother. The last thing a depressed person needs in their life is to be seeking new romance.

What depressed people need is a psychiatrist, and possibly therapy. The therapy thing is a personal decision. But meds are kind of non-negotiable, if you have a brain-chemistry disorder. And that’s what Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder are. They are often inherited, they are a disorder of the brain, and they cannot be fixed by talking, or the right relationship, or someone “loving you the right way”.

These are things I’ve known for a long time, but it can be tempting to try and distract oneself with sex or romance, nonetheless, when you’re in that stage where you might not recognize you’re depressed, or if you’re in a manic phase. Again, this is why having a regular doctor is so important. A regular doctor, and regular medication. Which is why I hope to god I never lose my insurance again. I need to get this under control, and to feel as normal and balanced as I possibly can, again. Nobody deserves to feel this sort of misery. And a lifetime of meds is far preferable to a lifetime of mental and emotional instability, any day.

I am in a group for Bipolar Disorder, and I see people complaining about having to take meds for the rest of their lives all the time, as if its any different to having to take medication for diabetes or a thyroid condition every day for the rest of their lives. It’s stupid to think there’s any difference. It’s a physiological disorder in the brain. It can be fixed with medication. So shut up, and fix it and stop being miserable (and likely making everyone else around you miserable, too — because god knows I’m no joy to be around right now).

All I want is for this shit to be overwith. I want to be better. I want to be stable, and happy. Thank god, soon things will start to improve. God knows they won’t be perfect — my life, anyone’s life with this disorder, will never be Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing On Rainbows Happy and Uncomplicated. But it WILL get better. I just need to hang on a little longer.