Huddled in my cave

I really want to write about the cruise, and I will, I promise.  But something larger has been looming and I feel compelled to write about it, if only to clear my head while also trying to help others.  Know this might be triggering for people like me, so read with care.

I can't write when I'm in the middle of an episode.  I can't do much of anything while in an episode.  And I'm not quite out of it yet, but I'm far enough from the eye of the storm to sit down and write about my experience.

I have bipolar disorder with a panic disorder.  It means that the everyday ups and downs of people without bipolar can be magnified to a trillion for me.  It means that the everyday ruminations and moments of panic that we all feel is also the proverbial mountain out of a molehill for me.

This last episode I liken to driving on the highway of life, following my GPS, using my turn signals, getting the occasional fit of road rage, that sort of thing.  Do you guys get that moment when you are driving and then you blink and go, "Where did the last 5 minutes go?" and you cannot recall at all where that time went?  That you were driving without actually acknowledging you are driving?  I think we all have that.

For me, my moment of "WTF how did I get here" found me driving in the middle of the desert, the hot sun blazing high in the sky, I'm out of water and damn near out of gas.  That's how it seems to set in for me.  However, if I could review the last few weeks for myself, the signs of me getting off the path were all around me.  I was getting tired.  I was getting moody.  Then I was numbing out for no apparent reason.  The whispers started in my head about how horrible I was at my job and that I couldn't do this and I'm a terrible mother for working and missing out on parts of G's life and how could D be married to me... and so on and so on... those voices that we all hear move from being annoying little gnats to giant bloodsucking monster mosquitoes that drain the life out of me.

That's what happened.  I kept driving, determined to get out of this desert, back on the road to get water, gas, and help.  I even phoned my doctors and therapist, desperate for any sort of help I could get. 

I was too late. 

The car broke down.  The battery on my phone began to give out and I did the worst thing I could have done: started off on foot.  I walked in that never ending, intolerable sun, losing hope, losing sight of what keeps me alive.  Nothing mattered anymore.  The malicious mantras kept on repeating in my head "you are nothing, they'd be better off without you, G would thrive under a different mother, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter it doesn't matter..."  I've tried to describe that wasteland inside my mind where I experienced such deafening hopelessness.  It was the single scariest moment of my life when I realized that nothing was tethering me here, that the whole pointlessness of existence was there in its greatness before me and all I could do was crumble under the excruciating nothingness. The only thing that really saved me was this desperate whisper on the wind saying, "This isn't real, this isn't real, you really don't want to die."

I tried to contact my therapist to tell her how far I was off the path, what dangerous ground I was walking on, but I could only get a hold of a nameless nurse who sent me and D to the hospital.  I call it the oasis in that desert, a small cave where it was cool and dim and cozy and it had water and some shadow caressing my burned forehead, my cracked lips, my shaking being and telling me it's going to be ok.  I didn't believe it for awhile; I was sure I was doomed to die. 

It's taken over a week of partial inpatient hospitalization for me to sit up and talk.  It hasn't been easy for anyone.  An out of control major depressive episode is ... unreal.  I look back on the last couple of weeks of my life - cruise included - and I wince at how real the agony seemed to be.  And I know it was agony.  I'm full of confusion now, of how to move forward.  Because I want to pretend it never happened.  But I can't ignore it.  I have to face it.

I've talked a lot of things out over the last week or so.  I have more to do next week before I can think about going back to work.  But at least I'll be leaving the cave soon and I have a clear path to get back to the road of life with a toolbox that is filling up with devices to recognize and manage my symptoms.

I won't lie: I'm freakin' terrified of relapse.  What I went through?  I genuinely wouldn't wish it on anyone.  I feel like I have come close to feeling what it is like to be attacked by a Dementor and it is as horrific as one can imagine. 

So what now, right?

I want to pretend nothing happened, that I'm okay and my brain is healthy and fine, but it isn't.  So I'm going to keep on periodically throwing these tidbits of my battle on this blog.  Writing is one of those devices that I'm compelled to use.  But it won't be all I'M NUTS HERE'S THE SCOOP.  The next entry will be of the cruise and, despite my condition, how freakin' amazing it was and I'll add in even more pictures of the grandeur and luxury of a Disney Alaskan cruise. 

Next time.  Today, I lay out my devices in my toolbox and continue the work to return to a normal life.  I must prepare to get out of my cave.