Off and on the wagon

After a couple nights back to imbibing, I tapered off last night. I love the feeling in the morning when I abstain. But I think it is that "can't get used to life without the bipolar guy in the picture" that I sabotage myself with.

I can go to bed thinking "I did everything right, so catharsis, here I come". Then I don't get it so I lay in bed not getting up because the depression is still there.

Only a little suicide ideation this morning. That is a relief. I should be grateful. Then again, everybody says, "Be grateful you aren't so-and-so, or dead already". What kind of life is it, and what kind of person am I if I go around with my reason for living gratitude? Gratitude to whom?

Tainting the experiment

I had a glass of wine last night. About four hours before bed, with dinner out. Since everybody is espousing the virtues of red wine, I stuck with that. Still feel pretty good this morning although I slept in. No mania yet. Dreary sky. Spelling still terrible.

Bipolar and NOT drinking

When a day without drinking is like a day without dusk....I abstained last night. Do feel better this morning. Still hard to get up but "cheerier" if that is possible.

It's hard to let go of the depressed, desperate character I am so used to facing every morning. Some of bipolar is habit. You're so used to it that you create it if it isn't there.

Has to be a few days before anything concrete can be drawn from this experiment.

Presenting new work to client at 10:30am.

Too much sleep

Slept in again. Why can't I get motivated to get up and fight off this depression? God, I hate myself right now. Can't even type. Must be some therapy in here somewhere. I so want a catharsis. Wake up happy, eager. That's the main thing, eager for something. When I was a kid, just being outdoors was a goal. Now, I need a reason. Something dear, like bike riding to some destination, an errand or a "ride" as in a Mtn. bike ride, completing something.

So I take my meds. Wish they brought some kind of instant up, like an aspirin for a headache. That feeling of knowing it will be ok soon and I can go about feeling relieved. This is what really gets me (further) down.

Noticed my sleeve was wet, probably from rinsing dishes. But I subconsciously said, "Where did all this water come from?" which was the question that alerted us to the fact that our first daughter was on the way. Now that memory brings tears. Of joy? Some cosmic sadness that the kids are gone, grown, not really needing us anymore?

Then comes suicide. Meds taken, third espresso. Training dogs, washing dishes. This is all helping somewhat. Then I think of how mundane it all is and is this what I want on my headstone? "He was a good housekeeper" or "He always keep the lawn nice" Shit.

Still this aching of having let myself down. Sleeping too late. Can't let the past go, not even for a minute. Can't move on, carry all this stuff with me. It just piles up. It all seems equal, that class I flunked, Sleeping in, letting the office yard go to seed, everything has the same weight and it is on me.

Christ I wish I could simply file it all away as "Gone forever" and move on. Get a life.

Then it's all so embarrassing. Weakness showing. Didn't cut it. Let everyone down, or worse, nobody was depending on me anyway. Maybe that's it. The loneliness.

The peaches are ripe.

WTF

So I am a little woozy this morning after a friend's birthday party last night. I try to banish regret but I regret drinking so much last night.

Got in 9.5 hours sleep which is toxic to me. Wish I could end it, but I stay on for some reason. I say it's the kids, and of course Liz. But it occurs to me that it's selfishness. Thinking of myself and my precious emotional state all the time. Measuring everything by how I feel. Why does that matter?

Liz says I find things to be unhappy about. I looked at the little soap dish Sarah gave us. It had hen and egg soaps in it. It was very sweet but one of those things you wish you didn't own. Using the soap destroys the cute hen and eggs, etc. I look at it and tears well up. Missing the kids I say. Or is it just making myself sad? Then I think, "well, maybe it's really the bipolar and I can't help it." Not knowing where I end and bipolar begins is a constant question. Then thinking it's really all one big thing, bundled together into my fibre, as it were. That doesn't help either.

So the salty tears are drying on my cheeks and I'm going back to work. Work interests me but doesn't occupy my consciousness full-time.

Then I write this. Always hoping some email, or twitter post of something will change my life. Of course I hear all the well-meaning self-help books saying, be positive, head up, get exercise, blah blah blah. I could go to my counselor and work on "tools" that offer a short-lived sense of relief.

Or I could write this. I hope this works at least as well as some new self-healing tome.

less sleep

Before the wave of suicide imagery began this morning, I got up to let the dogs out to pee. We're trying to train them and this is step one in setting them up. How long I can do this I don't know.

My psychopharmacologist told me I am sleeping too much (what a surprise)—more than 12 hours a day. I don't even sleep really, just lay there, turning over again and again, avoiding the day. The suicide thing just gets worse while I burn up the hours.

When I did get up early, after three days I had a catharthis—mania set in—to a minor degree. I would rather have mania now than this depression.

I fueled the mania with espresso and roared along until about 2pm. Then things settled down. Needless to say, I got off the sleep program pretty quickly. I thought if I felt great, I could get away with "sleeping in." The pillow was warm and the lounging was deliciously decedent.

So here I am, ten to seven, espresso number three, hoping the caffeine doesn't push me into the awful, driven depression I go through when I am depressed and power the coffee.