Never Underestimate the Power of Love

Hey, y'all--

I'm sorry I haven't posted. We've been so busy with launching the Inner Circle and another project (secrets, secrets!)--don't worry, you'll love it! :)

Anyway, I have the most wonderful news, and couldn't wait to share it with you! Bill proposed to me the other night! It was so special. Even my son who lives up in NY flew down for it, so all 3 of my sons were here when he did it. It was the happiest day of my life! Incredible, in fact, since I am in this depressive episode, so every moment of happiness that I can grab between groups of moments of depression, hey, I'll take.

I've been going up and down as far as moods go. Just trying to stay calm, stay above the bottom line depression, stay as stable as possible, and try not to expect too much from myself, trying to keep the stress level as low as I can.

I can do good in the morning, pretty well in the afternoon, but by dinner time I'm getting depressed, and by nighttime I'm tearful, and by the time I go to sleep, well, I'm pretty much gone. It's like as long as I have energy I can control the episode (along with meds and a very good support team)--but as the energy starts wearing thin, the depression gains in momentum.

It helps me to keep in mind that I really have no control over it--and that this is not something I can stop on my own, that it is chemical, and not me. I am doing everything I can do, everything I am supposed to do, everything in my power to do. But I cannot do anything about the chemicals in my brain deciding to do their own thing and party while I'm trying to carry on this stable life here!

So I will have to go back and have 4 shock treatments in June, and I'm ok with that, because increasing the meds to fix the situation instead of shock treatments to fix it would be like taking the longer back country roads to get somewhere as opposed to taking the highway.

Oh well, enough about me. I read something in one of the readings this morning that Bill and I read together (Don't Sweat the Small Stuff in Love) that I wanted to share with you:

"You can transform your relationship forever by utilizing the power of love. If you can respond with love instead of reacting with frustration--if you can remain loving instead of acting defensive--and if you can keep your heart open, even when it seems uncalled-for, you will have discovered the power of love and the most effective way to ensure lasting and nourishing relationships in your life."

Remember that God loves you, and so do I.
Love, Michele

Bipolar Inner Circle

Hey, y'all--
Well, the Bipolar Inner Circle has been launched! It's at www.bipolarinnercircle.com and it's got every topic imaginable to do with BP, where we can go now to "talk" and hear from others having the same problems that we're facing, and some that may have the solutions we're looking for--just anything having to do with BP! Plus it's real intimate--not like this whole huge cyberspace of the internet, where you get lost and can't remember how you got to the page you're on! I hate when that happens, don't you?

Anyway, I've been on the bipolarinnercircle since it opened at 1:00 today (it's 3:22pm my time right now), and just broke off long enough to post on here to let y'all know how fantastic it is and to invite you to come over too! I think it's gonna help me to get thru this episode I'm in. Just like I'm always telling you that you aren't alone, I guess this format is going to help me to remember that I'm not alone, either. And I need to remember that. Just like I said yesterday, it happens to the best of us. Even tho I'm cycling in and out, I'm still able to be high functioning, so you'll find some posts from me on there. I'm still hanging on! :)

Just a little tired right now, so I'm going to have to take it easy on myself, and not push it to the limit like I usually do (don't we all, when we're manic??), and take a break for awhile. I'll try to stay in touch more than I have been lately.

Hope to see you at www.bipolarinnercircle.com!

Remember, God loves you and so do I!
Love, Michele

Happens to the Best of Us

Hey, y'all--
Sorry I haven't written in so long. And, sorry I have to disappoint you. But, as always, I have to be honest. Like the title says, "Happens to the best of us," I have been cycling again. Yeppers-- I am a rapid cycling BP, and have been cycling in and out of my bipolar for the past few weeks. And, kicking myself in my own butt so you don't have to do it, that was exactly when I should have been writing, but instead I just holed up in my house and didn't write at all, and for that I'm sorry. So now I'll have to play catch up.

Last post I wrote what was happening at the time, and said how every day something new was happening. Well, that just kept continuing, until I just "went off." I got really depressed, because of that helpless feeling--you know, the one all of us are familiar with--the one where you want to be able to control things around you, but you can't. Like that line from the Serenity Prayer: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..." Well, I just wasn't getting that serenity, no matter how many times I prayed. And just when I would start to climb back up out of the depression, something else would push me back down.

The last day was that my girlfriend drove her jeep into a ditch. Yeah, just a couple days after I'd been told that my brother-in-law (my sister who killed herself) is going to die--3 weeks, 3 months, 3 years, don't know. And that came right after that episode where my son was almost arrested. And right after my own ER episode where they took stomach biopsies to see if I had cancer myself. Nothing but fun, for almost a month, every day something new, like I said. Until finally, it was too much, and I gave in to the depression, and I called my psychiatrist, because I knew I was in an episode, because I know my triggers, and the behaviors that follow. I knew my meds were failing.

My psych wanted to up my medication, but I didn't wanna do that because then I would be on an institutionalized dose--I may as well be a walking zombie for the rest of my life! So I asked, instead, if I could go for a maintenance dose of the ECT, just 4 treatments instead of 8, and he agreed. Like I've always preached to y'all--you need to get a psychiatrist who will listen to you and will work with you as part of your treatment team. I am so lucky I have such a good one. So I met with the ECT doc (another part of my treatment team), and I'll be going back for ECT in June. The only reason I'm waiting till then is cuz my middle son is coming down from NY to see me this Thurs and staying for a week. So, I'm excited about that (altho that news did send me into mania, but I'm back stable right now).

Anyway, I'll try to write more thru this episode, for honesty's sake, and for your sake, especially for those of you who are supporters to loved ones who have bipolar, so you can see for yourselves the real, moment-by-moment, ins and outs of someone actually going thru an actual episode. Also, you can click on my articles section, and read the two articles I wrote the last time I had episodes--one while in a depressive episode and one while in a manic episode, and that might help you see into the mind of someone with bipolar as well.

Until next post then, remember that God loves you, and so do I.
Love, Michele

BAD Week

Hey, y'all--

This has been a particularly bad week for me--one of those Murphy's Law weeks, where everything that can go wrong will, and at the worst times. I did something I thought was the right thing to do at AA, and the whole thing blew up in my face, and what I learned was this: "You can do something with all the best of intentions, and still have the worst possible outcome, sometimes even with disastrous consequences." In essence, I spoke up for someone and I was the one who got emotionally beat up for it--got my butt chewed off by someone in the worst way. So I'm back to crawling inside my own self and my own little hole, licking my wounds, so to speak.

Then my little angel, my baby, my 16-yr-old son (the one with BP), almost got himself arrested by going to a party at a motel and getting caught for underage drinking, and where his girlfriend had to be rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. What fun at 4 in the morning. How many of you have gotten a phone call in the middle of the night that begins with, "Do you know where your son is?"

Also, Bill (my live-in BP fiance) has been waking up during the night, having coughing fits, and throwing up.

Also, Bill (my sister who killed herself's husband) just found out he probably has stomach cancer, too late to do anything about.

Also, my Bill's mom had to have surgery on Fri., fusing 3 vertebrae in her neck.

And, I have had to stay clean and sober thru all of this. No nice, cold drinkie for me to numb any of this stress, no way. I don't get to take a pretty little pill to make all this overwhelming frustration go bye-bye. All I want to do is SCREAM!! I can't take this! I want a day off! I want to run away! I have had enough! But then there's more. And more. One thing after another. I can't even get a good night's sleep.

But enough about me. What about you? LOL

Oh well, if I don't laugh about it, I'll cry about it. And that won't accomplish a darn thing. Well, it would at least lesson the knot in my stomach, I guess. Oh, well.

Anyway, I'll share with you what I wrote in my journal this morning:

"Sometimes I ride with God in the chariots over the clouds and storms that darken the skies of my life. At those times I feel spiritually strong, and "All is well." ("God is in His holy heaven and all is right with the world.") Other times, unfortunately more often than not, those storms and clouds that darken the skies of my life ride over me--those are the times I feel like a woman in a darkened room, feeling around blindly, hands groping the air in front of me, searching for the light switch I know must be there, but I just can't seem to find."

Here's hoping that today will be better than yesterday! Don't give up until the miracle happens. I know that I won't!

Remember that God loves you, and so do I.
Love, Michele