Ideations

Today I think we will start with some definitions. Since the topic is suicide and suicidal ideations, the first definition to list is easy. 

Suicide: the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally. Seems pretty cut and dry. Suicide is one act with one outcome. However, the situations that surround suicide and suicidal people can vary drastically. This is evident by the definition of suicidal.

Suicidal: dangerous especially to life; destructive to one's own interests; relating to or of the nature of suicide; marked by an impulse to commit suicide. There's a lot of grey area there in what that can mean or when someone can fall into that category.

For instance, by that definition, I am suicidal. I think about suicide every day. I wonder if this will be the day I finally do or start making plans to do it. I am dangerous to my own life. I'm a ticking time bomb. However you want to say it, there are thoughts that I want to die going through my head all the time. But that doesn't necessarily mean I am ready to die. It does mean that the ideas are running through my head all of the time. Thinking about it and acting on it are 2 very different things. 

People like me are considered to have suicidal ideations. According to Medical News Today, here is the list of symptoms of suicidal ideation. To quote Samuel L. Jackson, hold on to your butts:

• Appearing to feel trapped or hopeless
• Appearing to have an abnormal preoccupation with violence, dying and/or death

• Being in a heightened state of anxiety

• Being very moody

• Changing personality

• Changing routine

• Changing sleeping patterns

• Consuming (more) drugs

• Consuming more alcohol

• Engaging in risky behavior, such as driving carelessly or taking drugs

• Getting affairs in order

• Getting hold of a gun, medications, or substances that could end a life

• Giving stuff away

• Having depression

• Having panic attacks

• Impaired concentration

• Increased self-criticism

• Isolating oneself

• Psychomotor agitation - such as pacing around a room, wringing one's hands, taking off clothing and putting it back on, and other such actions

• Saying goodbye to others as if it were the last time

• Seeming to be unable to experience pleasurable emotions from normally pleasurable life events such as eating, exercise, social interaction or sex

• Seeming to have severe remorse

• Talking about killing oneself, expressing regret about being alive or ever having been born.

Now of course just because someone has 1 or 2 of these symptoms doesn't mean they are suicidal. They are, however, massive warning signs. When you see someone exhibiting these behaviors, it is a definite red flag that that person might be suicidal or formulating a plan to commit the act. There are a few that when combined with others are alarming and a doctor should be consulted. They are increased drug or alcohol use, increased self-criticism, isolating oneself, and changes in personality. 

Another factor is that people who are depressed can exhibit a lot of these alarming symptoms and not be suicidal. I compare those types of people to Eeyore. They aren't happy but they aren't macabre enough to actually commit the act. They will usually be constantly critical of themselves, have trouble finding pleasure in everyday activities, and frequently be anxious or have panic attacks. But they find the hope they need and usually can recover and lead normal lives. 

All too often, the people who experience these symptoms don't get the help they need or don't find their silver lining. Typically, it will start with one or two symptoms and the next thing you know they are slipping down the rabbit hole. Depression is a very tricky disease to handle. Since it is a disease of the mind, you don't ever know how someone will react to you when you try and reach out or let them know you care.

The thing to remember in these situations is that 9 times out of 10, they will push you away. They might even get mad. You will likely be faced with tears or aggression. If you really care, you will continue to push to open them up. It could be a matter of life and death. Sometimes a smile can be everything.

Support Rant

This is the first of what I will call stream-of-consciousness blogging. Basically I am expressing my mood exactly as the thoughts flow out of my head. Sometimes I will refer to specific people in my life during one of these posts but will not name names and will try and keep pronouns neutral. Certain sections may contain specific information about that person or a situation but I will try and keep things as vague as possible.

Today my rant is on support. The support that we do and don't get. It is crucial to our survival and the thing that people grasp hardest. Trying to support someone with our illness is damn near impossible. When we don't even know what will calm us down or break us out of it, how can anyone else? It is frustrating for all parties involved. There are some nice middle ground places people can stay however.

If you know someone is having a hard time, the first step is contact. It doesn't matter how you contact them but most people that I know with this disease hate the phone. So start with a text or email. Start and don't stop. Text over and over until we respond. If we don't respond, send more messages! Something that might make them smile a little. Smiles are great and every one makes things a little better. Smile take us back to when we were little kids and the first thing we looked for in someone we can trust is a smile.

There are many moments in the life of someone with bipolar where we will feel like children again. Some people, like myself, never really stop feeling like a child. This is directly tied to the type of support system you have. If you have people around you who feel like they have to constantly take care of you, then it is almost a given that you will feel like a child. This is also where the feeling of being a burden comes into play. Let me give you an example.

After my suicide attempt in 2008, I was hospitalized from a Friday afternoon to the next Wednesday morning. There will be another post about my hospitalization earlier but this is SOC (stream of consciousness) so I'm just going to let it flow. While I was in the hospital, the doctors began dosing me with new meds to see how things would balance me out. It's an insane story that I will  place a link to at a later time. But it was a degrading and confusing place that I couldn't wait to get out of and lied to say whatever I needed to for them to let me go.
Since I had told the doctor I was ready to go home and begin my recovery in a place that didn't scare the absolute shit out of me, he signed my discharge papers and gave my husband about a million things to sign and brochures and print outs to take home. There were papers about self harm, papers about my medications, papers to excuse me from work, papers for reduced duty at work, and most of all, papers about what to expect after a bipolar diagnosis. We poured over all of it. This was a whole new world we were venturing into and it was scary as hell.
I had been admitted under suicide watch, I was required to sign a treatment plan to be released. My treatment plan included my family and how they would help keep me safe. Now we get to the part where I felt like an absolute child for the first time in my adult life, although sadly it wouldn't be the last. The most important part of the treatment plan was that I was not to be left alone. I had a 5 month old daughter that I was still nursing, and wanted to continue nursing, and an 8 year old son. On top of everything else, my husband worked nights so that was even harder to deal with. We began spending a lot of time at my parents' house. Pretty much every night that my husband worked, which would have been 4 out of 7.
My parents were more than accommodating. They took wonderful care of my daughter while still supporting my decision to nurse, which I was assured my medication was not interfering with. My dad walked to her sleep around the house every night and sang to her, which spoiled her rotten but she was worth it. They made sure my son had a lunch and got to school and back every day. It really was working well. Everything except my recovery. The first psychiatrist they sent me to was a complete asshole and could not have made me feel worse about my diagnosis. We hadn't even finalized my diagnosis yet! Just that it was bipolar and this lovely doctor informed me that I was basically being called an asshole. What an awesome thing to tell someone who has just been given the news that they will now have a mental illness to carry around for the rest of their life. That deepened my depression.
All these things combined with some serious medication side effects that I had, I wasn't allowed to be alone until about mid-September of that year. From the beginning of June until the beginning of September. My family members came together and had a plan for who would stay with me and when. It was one of the most humiliating things I have ever experienced. My in-laws witnessed a severe panic attack where I thought I was being swarmed by bugs and left huge scratches in my skin. I've cried and cried and cried in front of them all. What did it leave me with? Their pity and an undeniable distance between me and them.

Over the years, I have had to had minor rescues by friends again. A friend I got very close to and who helped me through my July 2016 attempt was the most reliable. She was there for me whenever I needed her. Until she moved halfway across the country and became inaccessible for the emergency situations. I have another friend that I've had since before the hospitalization that I can sort of rely on but she has a lot of her own issues and I don't want to burden her with more.

And there is the one point I want anyone who reads this to understand: the weight of the word burden. It's stamped on our souls. It's embedded in our brains. It becomes a large part of the person we become as this disease changes us. In my experience, it is unavoidable.

It digs in a little deeper every time someone rolls their eyes at a statement we just got the courage to be able to say. Every time we let someone down because we just couldn't bring ourselves to attend an event or even just be able to answer the phone. It cuts like a knife when your family is forced to watch over you all day and maintain a schedule of who's turn it is to watch you. We wilt, we droop, we bleed. A little bit of me wears away each time I have to be a burden to someone I know or love. It's what has affected me the most ever since my diagnosis. I know longer require supervision but sometimes I think I should. I've always managed to keep myself safe. Even the July 2016 attempt apparently wasn't enough to get the job done. Had I been alone, however, things could have been much different.

Support is everything. We have to know that someone accepts us the way we are. Even though we aren't perfect, we just want to be understood and accepted. We can't help the way we are and most of us are trying to do the best we can to get through life. People who can accept and understand can make all the difference in the world.

The Irritability Middle Ground

Irritability is defined as "Quick excitability to annoyance, impatience, or anger." Anyone who has encountered someone who is irritable might even say "Immediate excitability." To dig deeper into the subject we can further define excitability as "the state of being abnormally responsive to slight stimuli, or unduly sensitive." So it is safe to say that excited doesn't always come with a positive context. It is in this dual context gray area is where we take a look at the irritability that accompanies bipolar disorder.

Since we're sticking with definitions in these early posts, and mania is one of the hardest things for people to understand about bipolar disorder, we will look at the irritability that accompanies mania first. The definition for mania is as follows: mental illness marked by periods of great excitement, euphoria, delusions, and over-activity. There's that excitement again. If the excitement that accompanies mania is not based in happiness or good memories (dysphoric), then it can lead to irritability on a level most people aren't used to.

Dysphoric mania is defined as follows: a combination of mania and agitated depression that is also known as mixed mania. Those of us that are more prone to depression often have dysphoric mania. And it is dangerous. Because of the added agitated depression that accompanies the hard to control impulses that come with mania, people in a mixed mania state can seem over-inflated in their anger or irritability. We "blow up" at the tiniest little things, often without knowing we are doing it. The tone in our voice is different, the look on our face is different, and the people who know us best can tell. We are manic, but this is no ordinary mania. 
This irritability comes with malice and exasperation. We will say damaging things and then often not even remember what we are saying. It is only natural that the person we are irritated at right then will take what we say and do personally. If we return to our natural state and look back on the things that happened during our mania, this will be one of the first things we feel guilty for. The way we hurt others simply because we are overstimulated and our brains go into over-drive. 

Mania is kind of a funny thing when you look at it. I mean, depression is depression for the most part, but mania can start as all kinds of awesome looking fun until you realize you're curled up in a ball on the floor shaking and wondering what the hell you just did. 
Euphoric mania is described as this: wonderful, beautiful, unbelievable, fantastic and expansive. No one can understand until they've experienced it. You feel invincible. Like the best cocaine you've ever done without the drip and coming down so early. A lot of times you feel sexier, hornier, and more alive then all the depressed days combined. This type of mania normally does not include irritability unless someone is trying to boss you around or tell you that something is wrong with you. In my opinion, even though people may like you most during this stage, it is the most destructive.

To wrap everything up, let me finish with this: Knowing and/or loving someone with bipolar isn't always easy and irritability is one of the biggest complaints that I hear. Hopefully this post helps you understand a little bit more about why we are irritable and what the different causes and meanings can be. Again, please be patient with us. Most of us are trying our best.

To Be Rude or Not To Be Rude....

Before I begin telling any stories or sage wisdom, let me say this: I consider myself a very nice person. I will bend over backwards for my friends and family and everyone else's happiness generally ranks WAY above mine. The family and friends I hold dear, I hold dear af. Once that line is crossed then that's where problems arise. Once you let me know that we aren't on even playing ground, all bets are off and all gloves come off. Somewhere along the way that labeled me as a loud, blunt, mean bitch. (WTF?)

That's what this blog is for. Some of the posts on here will be my own story and history with bipolar disorder, things that I've done or situations I've experienced. Some posts will be Biblical or based in religion. Some posts will be just plain spiteful and petty. I understand that this will piss some people off or lay to claims that my blog is just a soapbox for my ranting. However, this is my blog and fuck you. I didn't make you come here and read this, unless you're a beta reader, so don't judge what I put in these posts unless you can understand where they come from.


My ultimate goal with this blog is to give a voice to all the tornado brains out there. Normalize the idea of stream of consciousness blogging. I want someone to come and read what's written here and feel like they understand the way a diseased brain thinks a little better. Or how a person with a diseased brain lives with it. Guarantee me, it's not easy. Or fun.

So have a seat, grab a drink, and let's explore the mind of someone with Severe Bipolar I Disorder without Psychosis.