Wednesday, 20 May 2009

• I Chose The Red Pill, But I Think It Was A Placebo...

  I have this feeling that my life has turned into a lucid dream - there’s this surreal quality to everything and I can’t shake it.  Part of me wonders if this is me being manic but with no way to release the energy, so I feel a stranger in my own body, a stranger in my own life.  The last true manic episode I had was three years ago, so I don’t really have a vivid memory with which to compare my current state of being.

  For anyone who is bipolar and suffers from the extreme ups and downs that are Bipolar (1) Rapid Cycling, you might be skeptical of my claim to have been manic free for three years - but let me explain.  The beginning of this timeline was headed up by an emotional psychotic break, and four months after said break, I found out I was three months pregnant.  Throughout the duration of my pregnancy, and the six months afterward when I was nursing, my hormones were naturally in perfect balance (verified with many blood tests during pregnancy, nursing, and after).  After I stopped nursing, my doctor put me on a very strong birth control medication to trick my body into thinking I was still pregnant/nursing so that my hormones would remain in balance.  (I’ve tried the bipolar meds Trileptal, Lithium, Depakote coupled with Topamax, Seroquel, Lamictal – none of them worked.)

  The BC experiment seemed to be working, until the last four months.  And so I guess I am wondering if it isn’t because I decided to give “George” another chance. I was doing well:

  I had just started my last semester in college, work was going fairly well (even though I pretty much despise all with whom I work), and the kids and I had a wonderful daily routine.  I was starting to exercise again, and was even contemplating getting back out into the whole “dating” thing (even though it scared me half to death).  Then George asked me for another chance (a third chance).  He begged and apologized for three hours one Saturday afternoon while Joran was sleeping, telling me how he understood now all he had done wrong and all his mistakes and he wanted a chance to prove to me that he would do better and he would love me better. (So, in other words, no more cheating, no more lying, no more drinking.)
  

  Two years.  We had been apart at that point for two years - his choice, not mine.  I went through my entire pregnancy alone while he was out telling his friends that he didn’t think our son was his, while he was out sleeping with other people.  He spent the entire day I was in labor outside the hospital, smoking and talking on his phone.  He fought me tooth and nail on the child support issue but demanded a paternity test (which I very gladly gave him, six days after Joran was born, and relished in the results and his apologies for all the horrible things he said about me).

  But I’m a fool, I suppose.  A sucker for someone I love, the man I was so sure I would spend the rest of my life with.  I wanted the four of us to be a true family, and maybe someday have one or two more kids to add into the mix.  So when he said all those things, I guess that little girl who still believes in happy endings took over - and I said okay.

  One more try.

  “You want to prove yourself, then prove yourself.”

  …

  Four months later, there hasn’t been much that he’s proven except he knows how to cancel a date, bitch about how he can’t find a job in this economy (he was laid off last August), and he feels he’s failing at life.  He’s proven that he can spend days on end (37 hours straight at one point) playing video games, watching movies or sleeping.  He’s proven that sometimes he’s too lazy to pick up a phone and make a simple “how was your day?” phone call.

  But when I talk to him about this, then he says all I’m doing is pointing out everything he’s doing wrong, or everything he’s failing to do right.

  And I wrestle with myself about this.  Is it my fault?  Is this person he’s become all because I canceled our wedding back in 2006 because we had things to work on and I was spiraling towards my emotional rock bottom at the time?  But if we had gotten married then, would we have been able to survive the heavy drinking he was doing at the time or my emotional break later?  Would he still have had the affair with the married woman at work, even if we had gotten married?  (He says no, I’m not so sure.)

  So I suppose my current state of existence is understandable with all the emotional baggage I’m carrying - but I despise it.  I was happy not so long ago - scared about the future, but happy.  Now, I’m good just to get the dishes done after dinner and make the short walk to bed afterward.  I’ve been through the psychology wringer enough to recognize that I’m depressed, but am I stupid for wanting the depression to just be a general thing and not anything attached to George being back in my life as my significant other? [[who'd want to get involved with a single mother of two, anyway?]]

  If there weren’t an eight year old and a one year old involved, I probably would have walked away and not looked back a long time ago. As it is, though, there are children involved - children who adore him and love him and seem happiest when we’re all together. So do I keep tumbling down this rabbit hole?

  On the other hand, all I can think of these days is having another baby - more specifically, being pregnant.  So maybe all of this is some weird, postpartum thing I never experienced after Jillian was born.  They say such a dramatic time span between pregnancies can cause very different hormonal effects (not that I have the health insurance or savings to be able to go to a doctor right now to get any kind of diagnosis).

  No.  Let’s just chalk all this up to me, being insane.

  Yay! Sanity’s overrated anyway. 

  • 8:01 PM
  • 493 Views
  • 24 eProps
  • 17 Comments