Tag: suicide

Physical symptoms of my illness.

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

We all have them and they differ even with similar diagnosis.

In the last 3 years I’ve had 6 teeth pulled and I have a partial denture for 5 of them. They are my front teeth. My teeth decayed from years of not brushing them or going to the dentist. I physically could not do it. If you are reading this and not understand how that is possible deal with untreated depression. The things you are not capable of doing is a mile long. I could go for weeks sometimes months without showering, I still don’t think it is disgusting I just say it is depression. I never washed my clothes unless my husband did laundry and even then I would wear the same clothes for days sometimes weeks at a time no deodorant or freshening up. I just didn’t care. I would cut clumps of my hair out because it was so matted you couldn’t brush it. My weight verified depending on how things were. I would either gain a lot of weight from overeating or lose 20 pounds or more from not eating. I never slept in the same bed as my husband it was always on the couch for some bullshit excuse but the reason was simple. I hated me and I treated my body like it was a garbage because I was garbage. I didn’t love myself and I stayed like this for a long time. I had a job at the bank and they tried in so many different ways to tell me that I smelled and bought me little gifts of lotions, sprays, and body wash. My boss was a Miranda Priestly (which is a completely different topic.) I would forget to iron my clothes, my hair was always greasy. My husband and I would get into screaming matches over my personal hygiene. These are moments I am not proud of. I have scars all over me from picking (which I still do) the inside of my lips and my cheeks are covered in scars and tender spots from biting them so much. I think we don’t talk enough about our physical symptoms with our illness. I have and known people to have crippling migraines, cationic (It’s been years since the last time it happened to me.) alopecia, pneumonia the list goes on and on. The symptoms of our mental illness start to go down it turns physical. Please tell your story.

We notice them now, the physical symptoms and we try to take control over them before it gets worse.

🖤Day 5🖤 Guilty pleasures… yeah I hope you take me seriously after this one.

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

Guilty pleasures: Yay for a funny post. I plan on doing a couple of these today.

1.) YouTube- I know everyone watches YouTube but I only watch a few people for the drama and pure entertainment. The more popular channels with the good drama. I follow those and will start following all of the videos to keep up.

2.) slim Jim’s and beef jerky- I can eat them all day long. They aren’t good for you but anytime I can get them I inhale them.

3.) Movies- There will be a separate post about this but I’m not allowed to watch certain movies because of triggers. When no one is around I will spend all day watching them. I know they are bad for me, but I love them.

4.) Dirty videos and websites- Do I really need to say what it is and go into further detail. Yep

5.) Music- Some of these new “artist” with their weird music and 15 minutes of fame. I love their music and jam out in my car to it. EVERYDAY! (That is a Spotify playlist you can’t see.)

I don’t believe in name dropping in my blogs for more views except that stupid bitch on E! who said anxiety wasn’t real. I took her picture from the TV and made in impulse post. I probably have more guilty pleasures I can’t think of right now.

I snorted Valium off a Bible. 2015- I have no idea how I’m not dead. (The months before the exorcism)

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

If you’ve read my exorcism story you will know that 2015 was just a complete and utter cluster fuck. Don’t worry the story about the Valium and the Bible will be included. I don’t believe in click bait. From January until December I was the definition of chaos.

January through February – I emotionally abused strangers on the internet. (The Xanax and Valium started here. That isn’t an excuse for what happened but is important to the timeline.) I cat fished people and it was for attention. I craved that attention so I joined a chat room and I saw all of these people pop on and the chat would be so excited to see them and they would give these long winded dramatic stories of “their life” I think we chat room full of catfish and the few true people there got more emotional baggage then they needed. I made the story so outrageous it was only logical in some outrageous fiction novel. I joined in with this group of people talking about drugs (that wasn’t completely a lie) overdosing (some truth there too) abusive partners, emergency surgeries. I just needed that attention and the more I got the bigger the lies became until I had to fake my own death (on at least 4 different occasions.) it was only after I completely broke someone’s heart that the attention I craved was given to me in another form. I was honest and even then so much damage was done. My hurt still hearts for her and I still have an enormous amount of guilt for what I did. If you are still here then you realize that I’m seriously not a horrible person.

March through July- I started walking because my psychiatrist said that exercising would improve my moods along with the weight loss. Then those damn Facebook ads started popping up (thanks big brother) with those weight loss tablets that are all natural and all you had to do is take them. They magically made your cellulite, carbs, water weight, freckles, credit all improve. (You get where I’m going with this) Well I started taking those and then decided they weren’t enough so I bought/stole diet pills from Wal-Mart and started taking them all day long. My hypomanic that started has now turned into a haze of pills and mania, but I got attention. It was extremely negative attention from the wrong people but it was attention.) When I would start shaking from all of the caffeine from the diet pills and Redbull I would take Xanax and Valium to calm myself down. In this period I’m randomly taking my antipsychotic and mood stabilizers.  I was itching one day bad and I grabbed the first thing I could find which was my Bible tore out a piece of the first page and snorted Valium. (I still question if God has forgiven me for this.) I got so obsessed with snorting that I would snort anything. I mixed Goodys headache powder with Valium to help with my headache and my high. Never snort Goodys it burns and I’m surprised my nose didn’t bleed excessively during the process. I was extremely angry during this period as well. There was a huge part of my past that I never talked about and it was triggered. I did everything I could to make go away. I hated my husband because he wasn’t there when it happened. He wasn’t present in that part of my life the way he should’ve been.) I was a mess and became an expert at lying to get my way and making sure I always had what I needed to make me forget. I pushed away my best friend who always tried to help. I made myself hate her because she didn’t understand and no matter how many times I tried to overdose or how high I got she was always there supporting and helping me. My husband was the same way. It was so much easier to hate them then for me to hurt because I was in so much agony over everything that was happening that had happened I wanted to be high I needed to be high to function. I wasn’t functioning though not the way I thought. I was drowning myself in pills. It is easy to feel sorry for yourself and use that as an excuse for every horrible thing you did to anyone especially yourself. When you hate yourself that much every bad decision feels like a good one. All of this leads up to the point where I try to kill myself which I document in the other post about my exorcism. As for the horrible thing that happened to me I’m sure you figured it out but that isn’t something yet I’m ready to discuss.

I can’t take back any of the things I did. I can only thank the people who stayed in my life that supported and loved me through this. If there are any doubts in my story or you think that they are in anyway not true please let me know I have receipts for all of it… trust me.

Fuck you 2015 you tried to kill me but I fucking survived.

Amy Bleuel (the founder of the semicolon project) is my hero

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

https://projectsemicolon.com/about-project-semicolon/

Thank you Amy for everything you did. I have 4 semicolons and your project and strength are an inspiration.

Project Semicolon was founded by Amy Bleuel in 2013, as a tribute to her father, who died by suicide in 2003. She was a Christian

Amy Bleuel

Bleuel lived in Wisconsin. After her parents divorced, Bleuel chose to live with her father and his second wife at the age of 6. Since then, Bleuel endured being physically abused by her stepmother. At the age of 8, she was taken into state custody by a child protective service. Bleuel began self-harming and attempting to kill herself after she had been sexually abused at the age of 10, and raped at 13. At the age of 18, Bleuel’s father died from suicide, and she was subsequently released from the system. In her early years in college, Bleuel was raped twice and suffered a miscarriage.Bleuel suffered from alcoholism at the age of 30 and had five major suicidal attempts.

Bleuel died on March 23, 2017, aged 31; the cause of death was ruled as suicide. She was romantically involved with her partner David.

Thank you to the Project Semicolon community for your amazing support. Today, although sad, we’re reminded of the reason why Project Semicolon exist. Suicide has the ability to strike at the heart of the very cause that aims to eliminate it. Today we lost a giant and from this day on, together, we’ll carry her legacy forward.

CEO – Michael Shields

–

After overcoming many obstacles in her life including bullying, rejection, suicide, self-injury, addiction, abuse and even rape, Amy has found strength and a love for others. Amy struggled with mental illness for 20+ years and has experienced many stigmas associated with it. She now shares her stories around the nation giving hope to others struggling with mental illness.

“Despite the wounds of a dark past I was able to rise from the ashes, proving that the best is yet to come. When my life was filled with the pain of rejection, bullying, suicide, self-injury, addiction, abuse and even rape, I kept on fighting. I didn’t have a lot of people in my corner, but the ones I did have kept me going. In my 20 years of personally struggling with mental health I experienced many stigmas associated with it. Through the pain came inspiration and a deeper love for others. God wants us to love one another despite the label we wear. I do pray my story inspires others. Please remember there is hope for a better tomorrow.” – Amy Bleuel

Bad Mom – my poem about my relationship with my daughter.

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

I watched a video of my daughter when she was just 5 years old carrying an oversized black backpack walking into school by herself for the first time. This may not seem like a big accomplishment to some but for her it was one of the proudest moments in her life.

I watch the video proud and ashamed. Proud that at just 5 years old she could accomplish such an enormous task, but I still fight to get out of bed I know it sounds cliche See I have bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, severe generalized anxiety and issues with psychosis.

So for me some days getting out of bed is my biggest accomplishment and I know she sees it. I know that even through heavy wooded closed doors she can hear me fight with her daddy about the bottle of pills I can’t let go of because in my mind being dead is more useful to her than being alive.

I know that in her eleven years on this earth she’s seen me go to a psychiatric hospital, overdose on pills more times than I count, has a shotgun temper breaking windows and doors out of anger and do things I can’t always remember, but I always remember her crying and saying, “Mama please don’t leave.” Every time I storm out of the house after screaming about something as simple as not being able to find the remote and I know I sometimes I can’t help it, I try to control it or maybe I could control it if I try harder. It is so frustrating after years of therapy and medication still never knowing what could possible trigger it knowing I will never be that Mom who is always comforting because I can’t comprehend your emotions. I can’t just be happy or sad or neutral. It is always one extreme or the other or a mindless zombie from the 1200 mg of medication I take everyday just to function. I am sorry Cami. I’m sorry that I possibly have you the same demon that haunts me. I’m sorry I get so mad at you for no reason, that you can’t go to school and tell your friends anything besides you worry about me all the time. I’m sorry this disease has made me so selfish that I take time from you. That I can’t remember when you took your first steps or your first words, but I remember that time I overdosed on Xanax in the bathtub. I’m sorry I’m not a good mom. Your daddy tells me I’m a good mom, but I think he doesn’t want me to hurt more, because I’m not a good mom. I’m selfish, distant, angry, isolated. I keep our relationship at a distance so I don’t hurt or disappoint you. I’m sorry that my illness has become a normal part of your life and I tried not to cry the day your daddy got my medicine and you said, “I don’t want to be like you and take medication for the rest of my life.” It hurt because I don’t want you to be like me either but how do I explain that to you. I’m not always strong enough to fight the courage to put the bottle of pills down. That your memories may consist of that was the time my mom tried to kill herself, rushed to her doctor, fought with my daddy because she couldn’t control her emotions. She ruined holidays, birthdays because of something so small I can’t even remember why but I know she loves me even though she is selfish, isolated, distant and angry she loves me. That you knowing I love you even though I don’t know how to show it is the one thing you remember most about me and I tried to be a good mom.

🖤

This is why people don’t take mental health seriously. Anxiety isn’t a fucking choice.

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

*I realize I may lose or gain subscribers for this post, but it is for the greater good of mental health this is said*

I caught the end of the segment but she said her anxiety was so bad she contemplated suicide and my heart broke and thought how brave she was to tell her story and then she said it. “I didn’t want to take pills for the rest of my life so I medicated and found what inside myself was causing the problem and then I stopped eating sugar for 3 months and I was better.” There are some people who can go without taking meds for their illness and I think it’s awesome but to make it sound like anxiety is a state of mind pisses me off. Your “emotional moment” that you used to gain views that magically disappeared makes me dislike you more. We all can’t be famous and have all of this time and money to magically become healed. If you want to talk about mental health let’s be completely fucking honest.

This is when the shit hits the fan. Anxiety induced dreams

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

So I don’t know if I was asleep or awake last night, but all I saw was a sea of people with purple faces until they ripped their faces off and held me down in the water trying to get me to deny Jesus. Then everything went quite and the man beside my bed whispered, “I’m back.”

The next thing I know I’m in a tornado trying to grab on to anything that comes in my path but everything just slips my grip as I’m pelted over and over again, but their are no cuts and bruises just gaping holes across my chest and feet. I tried to catch my breath but each time I did I was drowning in a sea blood until the bitter blackness sweeps me away and my mouth becomes a desert that I can’t escape gasping for water until a waterfall falls on me and I can’t breathe again my hand raised above my head again grasping for anything trying to hold my head above water but being sucked down by a hurricane into a black hole and then the man beside my bed whispered, “Are you having fun yet?”

Finally my eyes opened and I couldn’t breathe my chest pounding too scared to get out of bed because what if this is part of his plan and I was dreaming? What is a dream and a reality becomes a 20 question game in my mind. My lip and cheek will start to bleed soon I’m biting for comfort and hope that I’m in reality and the tornado that has just started won’t come around again and start all over. That today I can concentrate at work with visions of ripped off faces in my head. when I tell people I’m not well they don’t understand what this means. This means that I was okay but now I’m not, this means calling the doctor and praying he doesn’t put me back in but instead adjusts my antipsychotic again. This means hoping that the darkness he has created around me doesn’t convince me to slit my wrist, OD on pills, sadly this is my reality until it passes again.

🖤

The long awaited final part of Bipolar Outcast booty juiced filled 72 hour involuntary psych hold.

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

So as I’ve promised here is the conclusion to my 72 hour psych hold.

I lunged forward my clothes soaked I sweat my eyes adjust to the darkness as I look around trying to familiarize with my surroundings, my roommates snores are rumbling through the room and as I mentioned before the room is at 80 degrees. Her snores are almost deafening. I couldn’t sleep much anyway even with the klonopin and other sleep meds all I could think about was my daughter and my husband. My room is a small 6×8 room it was covered in ugly paneling, stained white tiles covering the floor. There are two twin size beds with plastic mattresses and pillows beside them is a small particle board dresser with two deep drawers, a sink and mirror jammed in the corner. We have one plastic window with a taupe roller shade that I am not allowed to open because it sends my roommate into fits. I figured while she was sleeping I could change the thermostat so I wouldn’t die of heat exhaustion (that is a bit of exaggeration.) I get up to go to the bathroom knowing room checks are coming soon and even though I am more relaxed all I want to do is talk to my husband. When the nurse comes in she is a little less of a bitch and tells me that they are turning the phone on before breakfast and she will make sure I get to use it, but I need to go back to bed to sleep so we don’t have another incident like yesterday. That made a world of difference and I was able to sleep.

As soon as they come in to wake us up I dart out of the room and straight to the phone. I think everyone knew about yesterday because no one got in my way. The second I heard my husbands voice I broke down. I gave him my patient number so if he needed to call they would know who he is calling for. I also got to tell my daughter good morning which made my day better. I think the nurses were hoping this would keep me out of trouble…..

After breakfast we went back to group therapy where we did more worksheets on how to handle stress (I still have them) and during break the drama lady got back on the phone. (She had a sheet of paper with numbers listed.) We did get the TV remote and watched part of “Bridge to Terabithia ” (I watch it every year on this day.) after this I slept through the majority of group therapy and after my spectacle they stopped trying to wake me up and let me sleep. I told them that either way I was going to sleep so it’s best to not fight it. We went to an activities class and played basketball then we made bracelets. I saw my fucktard doctor again who after I explained I was sleeping all day upped my fucking klonopin to .5 and had me take them twice a day instead of once day. That is how you stop someone from sleeping all day give them more benzos. This time he talked to me for 10 whole minutes and changed his mind again and deter,i Ed that I was in fact bipolar. He is still a fucktard who said antidepressants would be just as effective as mood stabilizers. So off I go again he upped my Lexapro and Klonopin even though it takes time for antidepressant to get in your system upping them was the right fucking idea. I called him a douchebag amongst other things. I had to fight to see him and that meant the constant threat of booty juice because he was too fucking important to see his patients and he took days off during the week without any referral to someone else while I was fucking stuck in there. I watched people go home everyday two or three people were going home and my anger kept getting worse. I was arguing and being combative with the staff when I wasn’t sleeping because I wanted to fucking go home. In this time no matter how many times I asked no one would/could tell me exactly what I did to get in there. When the candy cart came around the nurse would distribute pills she always checked your cheeks to make sure you weren’t checking them for suicidal reasons or as currency for cigarettes. I finally was taken off suicide watch (which until I was off I didn’t know I was on). We were in activities (by the way the counselor we had was the nicest and the only qualified person there.) turned on some music and told us to put our heads down and listen to the guitar instrumental he started talking about our family and friends the more he talked the more my mind cleared I thought about that day when they left me and I fell apart. For the first time since I’d been there I felt the pain in me I stopped being so angry and was ready to heal some. I also figured out this point how to figure out how to bullshit people enough to get the fuck out of there. I participated in all the group therapy started filling out the worksheets and finally the fucktard psychiatrist came to his senses and freed me from the horrid hellhole they locked me in. I remember seeing my husband shoes when I came out the door and my daughter yell mama. I was wearing green sweatpants a holy orange shirt I needed a shower a brush and food!!!!

My story from this point forward only gets more fucked up but this is how my mental health story began.

Day 3- The meaning behind Bipolar Outcasts

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

I live in the Bible Belt a small southern town filled with Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. We ourselves are Baptists, but as I mentioned in the previous post we are extremely progressive. I did go to seminary for awhile and as much as I love God and his words it just wasn’t something that was meant for me. I do enjoy theology and learning about all different types of religion. I believe there are many paths to God so I am a bit alone in my beliefs. I openly support so many things that by my faith standards are unorthodox. I openly support gay marriage, believe strongly there is a gray area in abortions, and find my illness is not a sign of the devil inside me. We were taught at an early age that we don’t air our dirty laundry because of what the neighbors would think. It is a fucked up version of keeping up with The Jones. I tell you all of this for a reason, I by definition of everyone in my small town is an outcast. My husband being a deacon at the church and part of our city council has a strong appearance in the community so every time there is a function of any kind and pop up with my tattoos people stare, they are polite in my face and speak with me even when they don’t know what to say. I openly talk about my illness on my personal social media and don’t understand the problem with openly discussing my illness. If I had any other disease people would wear pins, have a ton of copy and share post (even if I despise them) but all I get are awkward stares and uncomfortable conversations to be polite. Fuck being polite I would much rather you just stay the fuck away from me. I am an outcast because I choose to be. My husband is my biggest fan and that to me is all that matters. He tells people about my crusade to bring suicide awareness, end the stigma on mental health, to make small town America more open to people like me. I want to change the world, but at the same time never lose the weird outcast I am because then I would no longer be me. I am a bipolar outcast.

18 years with my hubby!!!

Bipolar HappensLeave a comment

Wayne,

We’ve been through a lot in the last eighteen years, but no matter what you fought for me. You fought for our relationship when I didn’t know how. You fought for my life when I couldn’t. You gave up part of your life for me and every time I asked you why you always said it is because I love you and I could never understand how or why that was ever enough to deal with someone who kept making the same mistakes who didn’t want help who gave up on everything and thought their existence was a burden, but you held my hand, and I know there were so many times you held your breath every time the phone rang hoping it wouldn’t be that call. I never understood that love until we lost everything and I watch your world fall apart. I understood this love you had for me. I understood what it meant to fight for someone other than myself. I understood how to be selfless and that this love is greater than any darkness we will ever see. For the first time in 5 years I want you to know this time I will be okay. That tomorrow will come and I won’t salivate over pill bottles, look at myself in the mirror and say I’m not worth it because I am and you’ve always made sure I knew it even when I didn’t believe or understand it. I could never have done any of this without you. You are most incredible, stubborn, good looking (with a beard 😂) guy that God made. You are a deacon at our church and you take care of our city. Youve become the man God intended you to be. I love you and to many more years together! I never knew that I would find my soulmate at 16, but couldn’t picture my life without you.

🖤