I've decided that this blog "Girl Ranting" is going to be exactly that, rantings. And HOPEFULLY daily ones. A post a day if I can, to show you what it's like living inside of me, with Bi Polar disorder, living in my head. I warn you now, read with caution and I accept no responsibilities for how your mental health is once you leave this site. I can only be held responsible for my own insanity. I own it and only it. This will be a "how it might feel to be me". I am not looking for sympathy or to have sunshine blown up my ass, I punch people for less. It's just a place to see how I live with this. How life is being me, in this crazy assed brain. Maybe some day I will collect them all and put out a book where another woman finding herself diagnosed can say, "Wow, compared to her, I am off the charts sane!" Wouldn't fucking surprise me. Oh and FYI - if you don't like swearing, fuck off and stop reading now. I am an intelligent, well spoken, talented, caring, emotional basket case and if swearing makes me feel less so or funnier so be it. Go judge somewhere else. I don't judge prudes do I? Okay admittedly I have asked a few if they get splinters when they loosen up and remove the stick out of their asses, but only a few.
Recently I posted about a funeral I attended, an ode of sorts to Dads. As is in my nature to want to give and help I was first to arrive in Buffalo for the funeral. I almost didn't. As usual at the border I got a much too handsome Border Guard and when asked where from I blurted out, "Toronto, well outside of it, Bobcaygeon, well not really, outside of it called Dunsford, you've not heard of it, no one has, hour and a half drive". His head tilts. Why are you travelling into the USA today? "A tattoo and a funeral, well a tattoo if there's time but mainly for a funeral on Saturday. I know today is Wednesday but we have organizing to do, my sisters and I, did I mention they're like my sisters, the tattoo artist *flashes arm tattoo* and the other from Arizona but originally Buffalo, well actually North Tonawanda. *Head tilts* again. It was at this point I flashed the obituary and he said, "I think you should probably just go" to which I replied, "I think so too, you probably think me crazy and it's factually correct". *Head tilt*
The funeral itself was scheduled, by my sister (of sorts) from Arizona, and was happening in Buffalo on the Saturday. It was pretty much all that was booked, the home and time. I arrived Wednesday night to the hotel in Buffalo, my sister, the next morning.
I say sister(s) because I have known these two girls my entire life. No matter where they've lived. As children we had cottages two doors apart. As late teens we travelled from North Tonawanda to our cottages or alternating between our homes. As adults they moved to Arizona and California so we would visit on holidays. So they are not sisters from another Mister or Miss's but in fact sisters of the heart. Kimmy Jane is the tattoo artist, the artist in general. A sweet soul who wants everyone to just be happy. She lives a quiet happy life of art and an otherwise relaxed life. Then there's Kathy who has always had multiple jobs in financial/real estate type of industries, has a teenage boy and all the responsibilities that go with. They are two very different yet carry many similarities. Then there's me, the oddball Canadian who adopted them both. Kimmy lives in Buffalo so I can visit her and get tattoos should I want. Kathy lives in Arizona so it's been awhile, too long a while since we saw each other under any other circumstances but family type emergencies where she has to come home.
Some time ago she was in town to visit her Gram who's health was failing and while there I decided to kick everyone out and take a night shift for them. Just let them have a break. I couldn't do much else with myself so that was my choice, "You all rest, let me take a night". I love to this day the time I got with Gram and the fact they loved me enough to trust me with the woman they loved so dearly. She's since passed.
Thursday morning I picked up Kat at the airport and off we went. She checked into our hotel and we went running. Basically for the next two days she and I got everything that a funeral needs doing. Her sister had done all up to that point, the service stuff was up to us. So I chauffeured Kat around so I could be with her as much as possible. I love her so. And I knew she didn't want to be alone with her thoughts. I shine in times like this. I make decisions, I push, I stand down, I love, and I make people laugh and that's what I did for my girl. We spent almost all our time together unless I was down for the count. I have realized with bi polar sometimes I just need to say no to the little things like, picking her boys up from the airport. I was tired, grumpy and tummy was upset so I sent my sis' off with my car which had been conveniently cleared out and parked right beside her room for her. I like doing little things like that for people, little surprises that help on an otherwise bad day.
The one thing I love about my sisters, I never feel that awkwardness you feel sometimes when you haven't seen someone in a long time. Even though you find yourself saying "oh you didn't know that, I'm sorry" you still keep talking like they were there through it all. No time has passed. No uncomfortable blanks in time. We just talk, non stop.
The funeral was beautiful and it went off without a hitch really. I tried to do a lot of the stuff a family would normally have to suffer through doing while also greeting people then I sat at the back to ensure all went smooth. Example: I rounded up the family when the Father arrived. I met the Marines when they arrived to tell them who what where with the flag. It was lovely. Kat's speech, her uncle's and the flag to Taps, my god no one held it together. The song was hard enough, the flag folding another thing, then kneeling in front of the grandson to thank him for his grandfather's service. Oy vey (not a Jewish bone in my body but it's appropriate here), Oy vey, what a moment in time I will never forget.
Afterwards we were headed off to a reception at a restaurant not to far away. There was a horrible storm that day, I was driving as I don't drink and I wanted too. I got to play a little and lighten the mood by acting like a real chauffeur by moving the car from the side door to the front door, to the front door to the side door depending on who was coming outside. They laughed.
Off to a restaurant we went. The night before I had a bad tummy and when we walked into the restaurant, while exhausted, and with resumed tummy grumbles, I took my place at center stage. My back was now screamin' "help me", but I sat and entertained anyone within earshot. My family needed me and I was there. When Kat got stuck at the bar sitting with family and catching up, I brought her meal to her so she would eat something. When Kimmy showed up to a table for just her and her BF an BFF, I moved tables to make them feel more a part of it all. I did what I do best, I took care of the little things.
This is kind of how I handle things for people when they need things. How I did the weddings I planned for a few friends, how I handle funerals when friends/family need me. It's what I do, always have. When I was at my old job I used to solve completely unrelated problems. I worked on a Trading Floor like "Wall Street", "The Wolf of Wall Street" but I was forever getting administration staffs problems solved. "Hey Nicolle I bought a TV at The Brick and it doesn't work and they won't take it back". Wanna bet I would say and think. Ta da, new TV delivered. I am every mans friend when it comes to helping, to giving, to loving that much. Yes maybe it takes from me but it also gives to me, gives me a feeling of accomplishment of meaning, and perhaps fills the gap of insecurities inside me. So be it.
I knew at the restaurant what was happening, I was peaking. The crowd was laughing, heads were turning. I was high, brought on by my environment. I wasn't sleeping, my nails were bitten down to the quicks and I was interrupting people speaking. When that happens I try to focus more on breathing than speaking to calm it down. I also know what follows a high. You have to come down sometime don't you? People seemed to be settling a bit into the bar and I don't drink so I just kept hoping someone was gonna fall asleep on their feet. Thankfully at a certain point Kat's teenage boy had enough of the long day/night and wanted to go home. During a high, there is no sleep so the earlier I got into bed the better. My body might relax a little and sleep. Nope. Thankfully I have pills for that (amongst everything else) so I am able to force a few hours on myself. People kept asking how my stomach or back was, it was known I had wiped out in the snow and had spent a night in the room with a belly ache. I just kept shaking a pill bag I carry with me and saying "I am pharmaceutically covered, not to worry". It's my own personal portable pharmacy.
The day after the funeral I had hoped for my friends sake she'd take some time off but she didn't want to. She wanted to visit with family/friends. I think a little she wanted to spend time with people and not alone thinking about the fact she lost her Dad. Some people want to be alone and not move, others want to keep moving and be around people. I took her late morning to get a rental car as I was leaving that day. Off she went to visit family. I met up with her for a little bit but I knew the toll it was taking on me. I needed to get going home. I also knew the toll it had to be taking on Kat so I wasn't going to stick around and have her feel the need to take care of me. I knew she was worried about me, about what the toll was going to be to me and my disease. She's one of those types, like me, over sensitive to others. It's why I love her so, we are very much a like. We went to visit her Mom and some family there. I didn't stay long, just enough to make my presence known, give my love and go. I didn't know who knew what so I announced without embarrassment to all that I had to get going, "that with Bi Polar there's a time you just have to slow down and that time had come".
It was only after the border, an hour later in my car, the tears started. Tears for helping and giving so much of myself but more so for missing my family. I love this girl so much and she me. I feel it, I trust it. We spent some beautiful time together that week, as sad as the circumstances were, and I was going to miss her so dearly. I cry now as I type this. I wish only we lived closer to each other. The best part of this was we hugged hard and a lot when I left, so her perfume was on me. I couldn't stop thinking of my other best friend Brenda on the drive and was crying thinking how much I loved her too. It was later I realized they both, my two longest friends in the world share the same perfume. Not the same bottle, the same brand (silly you's). Of the thousands of brands out there, they use the same one. And they both love me. It's really quite ironic don't you think?
I think part of the tears was remembering a time I had a friend move in with Dan (my husband) and I after this friend lost her Dad. We aren't friends anymore but we spent some special time together in the time surrounding his passing. I think I was probably mourning the loss of that friendship a bit. During that time, about a week after his passing we cranked on some 80s music and danced like maniacs in my living room, like no one was watching when they actually were watching. Some teenagers actually were dancing alongside us outside, again in a snow storm much like my day with Kathy's family. It's sad how life changes sometimes. I never thought in that moment of pure release that she and I wouldn't be friends one day. I was pretty sure our bonding during that time sealed the deal. But life changes. There was a lot of mourning going on. I just drove and drove for hours with tears pouring down my face.
By the time I got home, 5 hours later, I got out of the car and fell into my husband's loving arms in tears. He said, "I know you love her, I know you miss her, she's only a flight away and now you need to go to bed, you need to recover honey, we knew this was going to happen". It is no longer uncommon in our household for us to agree that "recovery time" is necessary for me after any periods of time where I am required to push my illness aside and perform as we call it. And while "perform" does mean acting it also means performance like a job, something you just "have to" do. I arrived home Sunday late afternoon and spent that evening, Monday and Tuesday in bed. Wednesday was supposed to be the "re-start" day but it wasn't. I also had PMS, add that to Bi Polar and the emotions are off the charts so Wednesday was a quiet day too. A day that included me asking the hubby to curl into bed and just hold me through some tears. He did. He's wonderful that way. Of course he is a man and we were spooning. I need not say more there I don't think.
A lot of people with Bi Polar are able to customize their days and life to it. They are able to say no to things in life maybe they cannot do or feel they can't. I don't have that luxury 24/7 days a week. While I have the luxury of being on disability so I don't have to go to work each day, I am not single and alone. I have a husband and step children so by Thursday I knew I had to grasp at any straws of a good mood and pull myself up out of the dark for them. They were coming Friday, the kids. Recovering time ends when children walk in the door. Divorce kids face enough in their lifetime, questioning the challenge they place on someone like me is not something they will ever do for me, not ever. Maybe that's not healthy for me, maybe I should allow myself that time as well but I don't. They deserve so much more than "recovery time" allows. When I have to, I stand atop my Bi Polar and push it down, until I function as if it was not there. It will push back, eventually.
Thursday I got up and headed straight to the gym in the am. I go to Curves, a women's only club. They play great remixed music because between the resistance machines customized in strength by you (it's a circuit) you have 2 minutes of cardio. I like to dance my two minutes away and I can now. There were a couple of years I stopped dancing. Due to breathlessness or sweating profusely I was too embarrassed to do it I had stopped moving for so long to save hurting my back more and fell out of shape. So much so I couldn't dance without getting winded or sweating ugily (is that a word? I like it so going with it). Not anymore, I got myself back in dancing shape again. Now dancing is fun and fantastic again, and have I gots my rhythm back. I have fun at this gym surprisingly enough, I do. I love my little 2 minute bursts of dancin'. Typically about halfway through my workout I have to remove my workout jacket and tie it around my waist which then reveals my forearm of tattoos. Now I am dancing, singing usually out loud and flashing ink. One lady asked if I was in a band! LOL I wanted to lie, I wanted to be cool and say "hells yes, look at this ink and ma' rhythm, I scream back up singer"....but I caved with a "shucks no ma'am". I figured I'd probably see her again in my lifetime and forget the lie and look a little foolish. My memory isn't what it used to be.
I highly recommend Curves FYI. The gym is filled with chunky monkeys like me either trying to lose weight or get in shape. Most want to lose weight but that's not my ultimate goal. My goal is to gain back the strength in my back/leg from an injury and be able to dance again, no matter the size of me. I have already achieved half that goal and am so pleased with myself it's no chore getting to the gym. I love the old birds that go too. They're the tattoo gawkers. Most of them barely move the resistance machines but are doing little dances between them too. Some don't even have to change their clothes, it's a place of movement for them, not sweating. It's a safe place for all women if you ask me. Not safe enough when I am really down (like the days following the funeral) but any other time, I will be there in the morning. As I said I was able to go by Thursday and Friday to help bring my mood up a bit for the kids arrival. Exercise is really an important part of your mental health, bat shit crazy like me or not. You need to get the endorphins going. They help those little endo bastards do.
A lot of times if my mood is down or low, it means I am sad. I don't like being sad. Sad to me is vulnerable. I fight the vulnerability with anger, and my poor husband pays dearly. I am so happy though that I am VERY in tuned to it. I can beg forgiveness and truly mean it. I know when I am costing the people around me energy. And my beautiful husband truly understands being me is not easy. I am very blessed. In the past my co-workers, and friends paid the price. If you wronged me in any way I would go ape shit. I try to hold that in now because it's cost me some friends. Obviously they were not as good of friends as I thought or else I couldn't have lost them and I wouldn't have felt wronged. But none the less, losing friends hurts. If I feel wronged my resulting behaviours can be very questionable at best. I've learned how better to handle it. To not express every feeling I have for the fact not everyone understands that someone else's feelings are not because of them.
I have tried very hard not to allow my husband's kids to experience this disease. To bear any of this burden like my husband has to sometimes. If I need to lie down or anything of the like it's because I am "sick" (the flu) or my "back is out" (I have multiple herniated discs down my spine). Really a lot of those times I am fighting emotions of the disease and don't want the kids exposed. This past weekend was no different. I turn off the Bi Polar and on "Nicolle" and I am as normal as a crazy person can be. My step daughter likes to say I am cray cray. If she only knew. They all went out for dinner Saturday night. I didn't go. I just couldn't imagine sitting patiently in a restaurant for food I may or may not like, it being too hot or cold, the ride over on skidoo too hard on my body. I don't often go in fact, it's more a surprise if I do go. The kids have gotten used to this, they don't ask anymore. I pull out clothes each time, but rarely make it. If I have been hiding my emotions I can't risk something setting me off so I skip it. It's happened twice before. Once, in a restaurant. I was a smoker at the time and the service so poor that night I actually had to ask the owner who we know for a cigarette and go outside and smoke it to the filter. You will notice in your lifetime that people with mental illness often smoke. Nicotine is a stimulant, wouldn't you feel it helped without even knowing why? It's almost every day when I am down I think about starting again. Thankfully I have a shit full, a boatload of willpower and don't do it. One puff and I am screwed and I know it. I don't drink (self medicate) or smoke. Another time I didn't even make it into the restaurant. We'd been driving a long time and when we got there I just snapped. I told the kids after to remember times they'd had a temper tantrum and told them that's what I had, PMS and a temper tantrum. But it was all Bi Polar. It comes out of no where sometimes and it can be violent inside your head. At least I had the strength to push it away by the time their dinner was done.
The kids left this past Sunday, and by then, I felt pretty normal. Back to normal or so I thought. I thought my down emotion, the down part of the swing of emotions was done. When your environment calls for it you do what's necessary. Not a lot of Bi Polar people can do this, I guess I am lucky, I am strong. Very strong. When the kids left I was curled up with the Super Bowl on waiting for my hubby to return. We'd bet $50 of our mutual money against each other (still makes no sense to me. "Here's our $50 honey, you win"). I was for the SeaHawks, him for the Broncos. Within the first quarter I knew I was winning. My mood was up, I felt happy, and I was twittering away funny things on Facebook. I Twitter on Facebook. I only know about 15 people on Twitter and I am limited to 144 characters. As you can tell, that's waaaaay too short for this girl. I gots a way with words and that "way" is using a lot of them. I am hysterical (and modest) so I do my commentary, running commentaries, on Facebook. They seem to be popular. At one point, late in the game I remember thinking, don't let this be the high I never recovered from or another one, please. I had typed up a few status updates that were only for others entertainment, not my own and deleted them. That's what made me think, "are you performing again?" I typically type status updates that make me laugh too, not just for others. This type of "only for others" is "performing". I make sure no one sees anything but the funniest girl in the room. Hubby came home and I "boooyah'd" all over his losing Bronco ass and then couldn't sleep. Uh oh. One of the surest signs of a high is problems with sleep.
It's funny because most comedians suffer from some sort of mental illness as well. Most actors too. I've written a stand up comedy act I just know if I go through with it, it might be popular and then I will be "performing" and coming down left right and center stage. Just like when I worked on a trading floor on Bay Street. It was daily performance work. If you don't allow the down to come it will force it's way through in time and be so drastic and harsh you may not make it out. I am not sure I can take that chance.
The Faces of Bi Polar
Monday came around and off I went to the gym. I am trying really hard to make the gym, my little workouts religion because it can only help my mind, body and soul and I like it, really I do, like I've already said. When I got in the car, my husband who had used it the night before with the kids had left garbage in it as I often do. But it's not funny when someone else does it. Especially when the garbage left, a Subway bag has onions in it. My car reeked of onions. Ohhhhh boy was I mad. Perhaps the down was still there I thought as I threw the garbage out my car window into his garage. (Perhaps!!! LOL) I sent my hubby a text reading, "you are never driving my car again" and turned off my phone so he couldn't reach me. (I'm such a biotch sometimes). I went to the gym and burnt off some steam. By the time I left I wasn't quite so mad and messaged him why I was mad and told him he'd find the evidence on the garage floor. "How to live with a bi polar woman?" Duck! That's how. I went to the bank and thought, okay I am okay. I went and got groceries and halfway through the store the tears started. No reason I can think of they just did. I threw on my sunglasses and where my cart was at was it, I was leaving the store. I was low, again. I needed to get out of there and fast. I got in the car and headed home.
If I could tell you the number of times I have been in a car since being diagnosed where all I think about is hitting a pole at a high speed or driving off a bridge or into the lake, it would scare you more than this sentence probably does. I cried all the way home. I screamed a couple of times, therapists (and the like) say it helps, it didn't. I punched my steering wheel, it didn't help either. Hurt my hand nicely though. "Son of a bitch" was yelled loudly.
I got home to hubby working way too hard outside getting snow off the roof(s). I immediately apologized to him for the car comment in hopes that he wasn't trying to burn off some of his own anger. No man at 45 should shovel snow in anger, it's a heart attack waiting to happen. He can't go anywhere. He, my best two friends and my therapist, are the only people who know how to help me during these times. My two best friends and my therapist are busy people. How draining it must be to be my husband. It's why I am the one that can and does turn it off for our little family, for his kids, and I am there 100 percent when he needs me. My needs are put aside. End of story. If he can take all this on, I can give as much as I can to him too. We spent some time together and I calmed down. I wasn't up, or normal, but I wasn't ready to kill him, myself or anyone else.
I opened up Facebook and thought maybe I could turn the mood around with some light banter, some fun status updates and instead, I faced a picture that felt like a kick in the face. The girl I once really loved (the one who moved into our house and danced with me like no one was watching), took another girl (a mutual friend of 20 years) to Mexico. I was jealous, envious, I wanted to be there with them. The sister like friend and I no longer speak as I mentioned. What's made that harder is her growing, more and more every day, friendship with two guys who were married on my property years back, whom I threw the most beautiful wedding for. As money often does it tore us apart, the couple (the "boyz") and my family. And my old friend, she's getting closer and closer to them all the time or so it appears. And now there's a third friend being invited into the playhouse. It feels like the "I hate Nicolle club" but I know deep down that's ridiculous. That they couldn't possibly have even thought about me during this vacation, why would they. They were just living their lives as they have every right too without a thought to anyone else. I guess I just wished they loved me and I could have gone so I didn't have to feel "left out". It puts a kink in the self esteem armour, I won't lie. All the same, I KNOW BETTER. I know that my old girlfriend, my other girlfriend, and these two guys all went to Mexico together and none of it has shit to do with me. Nothing. I can't lie, it hurts still. As my husband says, "they don't talk about you Nicolle. To talk about you would mean they care in any way shape or form about you and they don't. They can go to the moon and back and it has NOTHING to do with you Nicolle". It's so true. I wish I could turn off and feel that. That my not mattering has nothing to do with me either.
Someone once said to me, "What someone thinks of you is none of your fucking business". And it's not, it really isn't or better still, "SHOULDN'T" be any of your fucking business.
I am the type of person who if I think a perceived wrong could occur in someone else's mind I will bring it up first. I am overtly sensitive that way. I once said to someone, "I hope my FB (Facebook) friendship with so and so doesn't bother you and if it does let's talk about it". The girl replied with "there is no need to talk, there is no drama there don't make it so". I could see her perspective entirely, I am not an idiot. She thought I wanted to dig into what happened between them but I didn't. I honestly meant, if this hurts you in any way I would like the chance to help by talking to you about it. I am that stupidly sensitive to other people. Maybe that is why I hurt so much, I worry too much about other people's feelings. I wish we stopped hurting each other in life. I wish everyone took responsibility for what they did to others. I wish everyone was kind. I don't understand anything else. I stand up for strangers in line at a grocery store.
I really wish the energy field taking over the world, Law of Attraction, didn't basically say "be happy" and "fuck all those around you". It seems to be evolving now somewhat into teachings of "be happy but not at the expense of another" but I am not sold yet. I was so infuriated when I heard the first version I couldn't imagine being that self absorbed. I care too much. People have feelings, shouldn't we care about them?
Either way, after seeing the guests of this trip I spent the next 16 hours in bed taking enough meds to keep me in bed. All I could think was, "they all hate me". And the fact is, this has nothing to do with me even if I am the type to send a message saying "Hey, going away with so and so, please don't let it mean anything more than an easy trip away". It had NOTHING to do with me. Sure feels that way when you are down though. And that's when I know for sure I am down. Suddenly the OCD behaviour of "why me" kicks in. And I have a hard time kicking it. So I stopped trying to kick it and just rested. Obviously my brain and body weren't recovered yet so it deserved my kindness. It deserved my meditating, my deep breathing, my TV off and my favorite blanket and music on. That's what I deserved.
And that's how I ended yesterday....being kind to myself when most of me was screaming to be unkind. I win.
Please remember in the worst of times you need to be kind to you, to do things that are kind to you, to let go of anything negative and focus, focus, focus on anything you can that's positive in the world. Care to share a tale of unreasonable self loathing? Share away, I promise, I can relate and I can further promise putting it out there helps. It provides relief.
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