Mixed up!

I'm tired. In the past approximately 36 hours, I have slept maybe 6 hours. No, I haven't been extremely busy, no crazy parties (well one, but that's neither here nor there.), no insane work schedule. My brain has just decided sleep isn't a necessity. Now I know I explained the ups and downs of bipolar before; tonight you get to enjoy the ultimate joy of bipolar disorder: the mixed episode.


Mixed episodes are pretty much exactly what they sound like; a blend of the beginning stages of mania (also known as hypomania) coupled with depressive episodes. People's experiences vary in length and severity, but most have similar issues during a mixed episode. Problems such as odd thoughts that randomly zoom thru the brain. Ideas, like a big spending spree, or racing cars, or yelling out loud for no reason, may seem absurd but in the moment it feels perfectly natural and you might even feel forced to do it. Interspersed between all this sudden joy are depressive thoughts. Remembering past regrets, old mistakes, or even things that weren't your fault intrude on the overly happy slightly crazy ideas. The result is a brain that will not stop, it will just keep shooting from thought to thought. One minute you want to start running again, the next moment movement isn't an option.


Basically, the brain hits this permanent spin cycle, up, up, and down, down (or maybe up, down, up, down). The brain is tired but won't stop. A person experiencing this can run through a whole cycle of emotions, happy, sad, angry, frustrated, joyful, in a short time. When asked what is happening, some may not be able to explain the way their head feels. When my brain hits that special type of over-drive, it sounds like a nest of angry bees getting louder and louder, I find myself either starting to talk over it (over course it is in my head so I end up yelling for no reason) or just getting so frustrated that I can't get the right words out.


This is difficult not only for the person experiencing the episode but for the people who live, work, hang out with them. My poor girlfriend has had the joy of trying to make sense of some of my crazier ideas, like living in an RV with no income, to trying to get me out of bed after two days of not moving or speaking. I'm incredibly grateful to be with someone who I can have bad days and not have it held against me.


Mixed episodes can be brought on by a change in medication, or not taking your medication, and sometimes they just show up. Many people with bipolar are more affected by significant weather changes, such as fall to winter, spring to summer. Almost every year I find myself starting to soar up, up, and away, from about Halloween to February. After around the beginning of February, my brain and body decide to start another mixed episode turning into a more depressed spiral. It's frustrating to know what my brain is doing and yet be slightly powerless to stop it. Continually taking my medications certainly helps, it usually stops the hypomania from turning into full-blown mania or the depressive thoughts from turning into living death. Sometimes the fight to just take my medication is the only fight I can handle. So if you run into me in the next few days, hell maybe couple of weeks, and I seem a little more weird than normal, just realize I'll be back to my only kinda crazy self in a short while.

Why you?

Recently, I got my medication dosage increased. This higher dosage has left me with a wonderful new side effect that I get to add to my repertoire, constipation! Don't worry I'm not about to delve into any vivid description! But I was thinking today as I chewed on some bran and prunes, why me?

Why am I one of the few people picked to have a mental illness? Why do I get to have the joy of feeling invincible coupled with the depth of depression? Who decided, "Hey Heather, sometimes you're going to have so much energy that you annoy yourself, you're going to have weird ideas and thoughts that you can't help but blurt out. Oh and by the way, sometimes you will be so low that you can't even think a single thought let alone speak, you'll be stuck in you bed until your mood shoots back up again. Good luck and enjoy!" I'm not whining (well maybe a bit), but I'm actually wondering, why? Why does there have to be such an illness at all?

How about you? I'm sure you've had the same ideas too. Why do you have to have a terrible divorce, a sick child, a history of abuse, rape, or another illness? What deity (I'm not getting religious, I promise) decided that YOU were the person to have this issue? Was it some cosmic joke or something deeper than that?

What if it was because at some point, a higher power (or fate, if you prefer) knew you would need more strength than you currently have and by going through the trials of life, you would gain the strength you need? Maybe it's fates' way of sanding down some rough spots? I used to think that a lot of mental illnesses were just a persons way of trying to get attention. ADHD? Nah, you just need to spank the kid, they'll get it. Bipolar, depressed? Nope, again spank them when they act up, and force them to move around, they're just being lazy! It wasn't until my own brain cracked from stress that I realized how hard some people are trying to be "normal." They can't or don't know how to explain what's going on in their head, so they just do what it tells them to, regardless of how embarrassing it is. And yes, many of them realize they are embarrassing themselves, they just don't know how to stop their head. Maybe fate is giving you strength through hardship, so when you are confronted with life's storms, you can look back and say "I made it through that storm, I'll make it through this one too."

What if you will be blessed with the opportunity to be a mentor? Maybe someday, someone will look up to you during their life storm. When they think no one will understand, or their pain/shame is too great; there you'll be, someone who will show them life is tough, but you can make it through, I did so can you. You can teach them to lift their head, push back against the storm, and help them fight on.

So for now, I'll continue to take my medication and live with the side effects of shaking hands, odd forgetfulness, and the god awful constipation. Why? Because I want to learn to live with my weird brain, and I want to take from life all it has to give. Maybe someday I'll be able to help someone else is asking, "Why me?"

Floor 5-Lockdown

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Average Greatness

When I was little, I used to play pretend. I was Jesse James for a whole summer, right down to the faux cowboy boots! Now in my world Jesse James was more like a Robin Hood figure, not the slightly crazed psychopath. As I got older, I started pretending to be a soldier who, with my friend, we would re-fight the whole Vietnam war and win it. Now I know most of you are thinking, "so what?" I promise there is a point! It hit me earlier, what if my life is never more than average?


Now, first let's clear up something, when I say average I'm implying the definition-usual, typical, or normal; not to be confused with mediocre-moderate to inferior. I mean just average, regular job, good family and friends; nothing that sticks out. What if my whole life is just run-of-the-mill? What if I never am called on to be a national hero, Supergirl, or find a cure for some disease or poverty? What if my single greatest accomplishment is a series of ordinary daily activities? Follow me here, I'm not going through an existential crisis, I promise!


Is average bad? One could argue that average in our American mind is a utopian paradise to some third world countries.  Maybe greatness is found in the ordinary things we do everyday. Maybe the simplest of things reap the greatest change. Maybe your life is simply to be an average person, good parent, hard worker, mentor. What we as individuals view as average may change another's' life. Maybe giving 5-10 bucks to that person who needs money for gas is the sign they need to keep on in their struggle. What if talking to the cashier, receptionist, or hell any other person is the 30 seconds or 5 minutes they need to carry on for another day? Would that make it worth it to you, to have an average life never knowing that maybe you made a huge difference in someone else's?


Many people have had this effect on me, possibly unaware that they were doing it. A work friend dropped off a little card and poem in my work box, a completely ordinary thing to do. What they never realized is because of that simple show of caring, I decided to get help for some of my issues. As a teenager, another friend, talked with me on the phone and just chatted about life, school, and stuff. They had no idea I was fighting with idea of attempting suicide and their average phone call changed my mind. So is being average worth it?  Is deciding that your regular, humdrum day-to-day maybe not so average? Maybe greatness is found in average living, maybe it's all around us.


I may never be on the Ellen show, maybe no President or world leader will thank me for saving Metropolis, but I'm ok with that. I'm fine with never being tested in the water's of the worlds' greatness. I'll take my average life, normal job, good family and friends. I will take my average greatness, and love my life!

Fort Wilderness

This last night I was watching The Patriot, the one with Mel Gibson. Now if you haven't seen the movie, you really should! Plus you will understand a little more about what this post is about. So in the movie, Mel Gibson's character is this badass dude who during the French and Indian War had earned quite a name for himself by doing something (but we don't know what for a while) at a place called Fort Wilderness. Fast forward a couple decades and now the beginning of the Revolutionary War is happening and he is actually quite outspoken against going to war. I don't want to give away the movie for those of you who haven't seen it, but we come to find out that Mel did something really awful at Fort Wilderness and he fears that his misdeeds will come back to haunt him. This idea got me thinking, everyone has a Fort Wilderness.

Think about it for a second, everyone has done something that they deeply regret. It might not be as intense as Mel's but it's the something that keeps you up at night. The something that sneaks up on you whenever you least expect it. I will share with you one of mine. On my last deployment, my job was guarding suspected terrorists at an internment facility. The first day I started working there, I knew this place was unlike anything I had yet experienced and I knew at some point I would have to draw the line as to what I could live with doing and what I couldn't. I decided that I would just turn off any nice emotion until I left to go back home. No empathy, no weakness. I would do this and then when I left the area, I would turn it back on and no big deal. How wrong I was! Now to be clear, I'm not saying I did anything illegal, I'm saying what I had to do for my job and to do it effectively I decided I would just never "feel" bad about it. After the deployment, everything would be fine! I would go home and leave all the difficult stuff behind. That was almost 10 years ago, and it still isn't behind me. It pops up when I least expect, at night, watching a movie, at a wedding, whenever, wherever.

I'm finding that the way that works for me, is when the memories start, don't stop them. Get them out, talk to someone, write it down, hell post a blog! By getting it out, I find the power of the memory is lessened. It still surprises me at times but not as often and it's less intense. I still work at turning on my emotions and it really is hard work. But you know? It took hard work and determination to turn it off, it's fitting that it takes the same to turn it back on.

Now yes, both Mel's issues and mine had to deal with war, but Fort Wilderness doesn't have to be that. It can be a divorce, lying to family/friends, an addiction or the actions that happened during addiction, bad financial decisions that harmed your family, or even gossip. Fort Wilderness is what you make it out to be. So the question is what is your Fort Wilderness and what can you do to move past it? Remember Fort Wilderness was simply an action in your past, you don't have to let it rule your future.

Sacrifice

I thought of something early yesterday evening, what is it that makes military members so committed to each other? You hear it on commercials, movies, TV shows, and songs, it sounds so pretty, so wondrous, and patriotic. He/She gave their life for their brothers and sisters; some beautiful song slowly humming in the background. But have you ever really thought, why? I'm mean where else can you find a group of strangers smashed in a small living area together, who without a moments thought would run to save you or take a bullet/grenade for you. Imagine you're in Wal-Mart on any given busy day, and a gunman (I am not advocating any violence or even liking the idea, just used for thought material) starts lobbing grenades  and shooting people. How many people do you think would jump on a grenade to save you? Or better yet, could you honestly say you would do it for someone else?




Of course, people in the military don't usually deploy down range by themselves (Some Reserves and National Guard people do, and that takes balls to deploy without knowing anyone), so they know each other. I mean they aren't best friends with everybody but they kinda know some people. Ask anyone in the military or any veteran, and we will all say it isn't because we are better or more noble than anyone else. Every branch, every deployment, has that one shithead who nobody likes, maybe he/she doesn't shower or do laundry; maybe they just don't work. But if the time came, you know (deep inside) you would bust your ass trying to make sure Shithead stayed alive.


Most of us could honestly say it's because we're are a weird, insane little family. Families stick up, fight, and die, if need be, for each other, even Shithead. I think it goes maybe a little deeper than that. I feel it might have something to do with the fact that it's not because all military people have this beautiful self-sacrificing attitude (I am in no way implying that there aren't those type of people, just saying not everyone is), I think it's because we get to truly see each other at our worst. On deployments there is little to no privacy, yes eww, bathroom, farts, other things. But also things like, watching your buddy cry because he missed his kids birth, or kids/adults graduation, a family members death. No privacy. At the end of the day, Shithead has a family at home, he is you, you are him. His family thinks the world of him, just as yours does of you. They miss him, yours miss you. And if you're faced with that terrible decision, suddenly maybe you see him and you also see yourself. Maybe in saving him, you're also saving yourself.


Now please don't mistake me for being insensitive to those who do lay down their lives for others. Far from it! I know many people just can't understand the phenomenon that it is. I have no other explanation than I believe it's as selfless of an act that one can make. And yes they do deserve all the music, TV, and movies out there. I have never been faced with such a difficult decision, so I will be the first to say that a decision like that seems overwhelming. And to those who have lost family members and friends, I salute you for your daily sacrifice and for theirs as well. You all have a special place in the heart of every true American.

An Experiment

I saw a TV commercial the other day. It was the one where the daughter has these terrible migraines and her mom doesn't know what it actually feels like other than it hurts. So the medicine company ( I can't remember what brand, but that's not the point), gives her mom a set of goggles that causes the poor woman terrible dizziness and double eyesight so she could "feel" how her daughter felt. At the end of the commercial the mother and daughter cry and hug and thank whatever company for helping them. Now this whole roundabout paragraph was to simply say after the commercial I had this idea for trying to explain how my bipolar works by letting someone go "through" the feelings.


Let's start with the downside, the depression, the crash, living death, whatever you want to call it. It's starts simple enough, but you will need at least one other person to assist. Begin by laying in your bed. Now while you're laying there, have the second person begin tying 5 to 10 lb. weights on your feet, and hands. Lastly tie (gently!) a 5 pound weight on your chest. Now try to sit up, it's hard huh? Not impossible but just sooo difficult you don't even want to do it. Once you reach standing, flip on the light, again the arms struggle to lift. Now you have one of two options with the light-1. Turn on the light, it does nothing, maybe flicker but it's not bright. Or 2. Turn on the light-and make sure you have about 10 to 15 lamps all wired to that light that switch on as well. The brightness is overwhelming! And you lift your hand to turn it off or cover your eyes, but remember that weight? Now it's a ten pounder. And your feet are 15 pounders. Ready to seize the day yet? Jump in the shower? Run down the stairs? How about work? At this point, your "buddy" will begin asking you questions, faster and faster. No pause for your reply, no waiting at all. And the suddenly, he or she slips into another language! Now their asking questions that you can't possibly understand. And when you try to reply, your buddy can't understand a word you say. Your mouth must move 20 times slower than normal and by  the time you say one thing you can't remember what you want to say next. It's easy for many people to say depression is just a mental thing, but once you put physical attachments to it, it's amazing how people feel differently. Yes depression is mental but it's also physical too.

Alright, now that we are done with the ugly side let's go to the "fun" side, mania! Because manic people are fun! They are happy all the time and just loooove life! Again begin in bed, now this exercise will still take two people but it will take some imagination on your part. You're laying in bed, bam! your eyes open! Imagine the best day of your life, or something you have always wanted to do. For me it would be waking up to find I'm going to Harry Potter world, like for real not the entertainment place. Keep that feeling in your head, that awesome right before I do the best thing ever feeling. Now your buddy start a radio with YOUR song on it (we all have the one song, don't try to deny it!). And now when you get out of bed there are no weights, you feel oddly light. You dance downstairs because it's gonna be an awesome day. All your best friends are meeting up and going to your awesome place! Now, buddy this next part is for you, while the testee's jam is playing use another radio and start playing another favorite song, keep them both playing at even levels and the same songs over and over. Back to you, testee, you're eating a great, awesome, amazing, everyone of your favorite foods breakfast!! Coffee to boot! You notice that the music is kinda annoying cause you can't seem to hear either one for  the other. Oh well, who cares! Now before you go you do have some chores to run but no big deal. Go to the car, bring both radios, turn on your car and have that radio playing as well. Now start talking to your buddy, you will yell over the radios, they will reply in normal conversational tones. It's now starting to get more and more annoying that damn music, but still awesome day with the buddies!! At this point, buddy, you begin to talk slower and slower, like how we all do when someone doesn't understand us. Ok, testee, this is quite aggravating and now maybe your fun day isn't shaping up like it should and God! someone turn off the damn radios! But they don't turn off, actually they seem to slowly get louder and louder...Once you meet up with your buddies, you can barely hear them over all the damn noise but you try to stay in the conversation. After awhile you would give anything for the radios, TV, movie or whatever else can make noise to just be shut off forever! And since you can't hear your friends, you slowly start to think that maybe, just maybe they are using this time to talk about you. I mean how would you know? You're in the same room and you can't understand a thing they are saying. Your awesome great spectacular day is now crap and you just want to go home. End the scenarios.

That is just a taste of the inside of the bipolar mind. Some people are more on the depressive side, others fall into mania more easily. But one almost always feeds into the other. Once the depression lifts you are so happy you want to run, shout, scream to the world that you did it and you beat depression once again. Same goes with mania, everything is amazing, brand new, never done before! Until your mind gets too scrambled by so much overstimulation and then bam! the crash, the living death.

Sorry if this got too deep...I'll leave you with this, because of medication, and lots of work, and an awesome support system, I normally live my life on the balance. I may waver up and down slightly from time to time but I haven't had the bar at a straight up or down in quite some time. It takes work to balance but most days, I do.

Welcome all!

Ok, so most blogs have an initial post about the writer and the topics they will be most commonly writing about. Well the first part is simple enough. My name is Heather. The second part will be a bit more difficult because I simply plan to write some of the stuff zooming through my head down so I can put it to rest and get on with my day. Topics currently running in the brain are quite varied from work stuff to different types of dogs. Ahh, the perks of being bipolar, I can have everything and yet nothing to talk about!

Ok so how about mental health? As some of you may know or then again maybe not because I might not know you, I have Bipolar. I was diagnosed a couple years ago after a severe breakdown. I mean, I thought everyone could sleep for only 45 minutes a day! It's funny now but it wasn't then, I was literally sleeping for about and hour and a half at time...For months. I began to think that I was supposed to check stores security systems by "pretending" to take stuff. And I mean random stuff, fruit, toilet paper, socks, just to name a few things. I started driving off to random places because I didn't want to be at home (that's a whole other story!) . I would sleep where ever I parked. I walked through parks and rec areas at all hours of the night. Oh, I also worked full time and had an additional part time job as well! So I was as shocked as you are that the doctors labeled me bipolar!

For the most part I can say I have bipolar, not I am bipolar. There are days that I feel I am sick, but they are slowly getting less and less. I have an awesome network of family, friends, and an amazing girlfriend, who are willing to ask me questions and aren't terrified by my answers. I really wouldn't be here without them. Especially a certain one who answered a phone call and drove through the whole of Phoenix (a story for another time.), you know who you are and I am forever grateful even if I wasn't at first.

Oh, and I'm also an Air Force veteran with 2 deployments, a juvenile detention officer (can't tell too many of those stories out of privacy for the kids), a cat mom, and a dog mom! I have a feeling there will be plenty of things to talk about! But until later, y'all have a great life!