Progress

I'm happy to report some improvement here. We seem to have finally found a med combo that is working for Jeff. That's the first thing, but it's affected everything else. We're getting along better, he and the kids are getting along better. Dinner time is becoming more predictably pleasant, instead of being our daily exercise in falling apart as a family. This is a great relief.

On the less-happy front, I had my first episode of can't-wake-up syndrome today. This is really typical for me in winter, and I was sort of hoping it wouldn't start this year. But, blessedly, Jeff not only ran the household and got breakfast this morning, he also fixed the clogged pipes under the kitchen sink and did the dishes. When I finally dragged my ass out of bed after 11, he told me he'd been hoping to get more done. I was overwhelmed. I still am. For months now, we've been living lives of bare civility and occasional angry outbursts, also occasional affectionate outbursts. Between me being ill and untreated and him being ill and ineffectively treated, things were not going well. But my hope for the future of our family, which never died completely but needed life support at times, is now getting steadily stronger.

It's a good time for it. Because the feeling we've had for a long time, that there is something off about Allie, is getting stronger as well. It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't live with us, because 90% of the behavior that concerns us happens at home, with only our family around to witness it. But here's some highlights:

Allie asked us the other day, out of the blue: "why do some parents hate their children and kill them?"
She has started hitting her siblings again, and seemed poised to choke Eva with a jumprope the other day (put it around her neck and started pulling the ends in opposite directions), although I intervened before the actual choking started
She screams inconsolably when I leave the room until I return
She is becoming more defiant, lying more, and refusing to listen to Jeff or me in most instances
She has out-of-control screaming tantrums, where she is mentally unreachable (but obviously terrified) and cannot participate in calming herself down- we have to wait them out, sometimes for a half-hour or more

She was an extremely intense baby, and she has always had periods like this ("difficult stages" is our family nomenclature), but as she gets older, not only are they getting worse, but they're getting more and more out-of-sync with expected, normal behavior-for-age. She reminds me of my brother, which is a very scary thing. Since her preschool screening was A-OK, I think our next stop is a referral to a behavioral specialist for evaluation. Hopefully they'll take our word for it, because she is still her normal, bright, charming self when not at home. I wish I could see inside her head and know what is going on with her, because I know what a wonderful girl she can be.

The days pass

I've been struggling, ever since I posted last, with whether or not that last post should remain up or not. Not so much because I swore (I do, occasionally, and we have a rather liberal attitude toward "bad language" in our house), but because I was so open. I have trouble being vulnerable. But in the end, it remains up, and will remain up, because I decided if I can't be honest here, I'm in a whole heap of trouble.

I'm not angry all the time. Right now, I'm not angry at all, just anxious to get started with treatment...to start getting better. Such is the dualistic nature of this disease, I guess. Daily doses of evening primrose oil (suggested by a friend) seem to be heading off my descent into depression for the time being, but I'm wondering if that is also the cause of the low-grade mania I seem to be dealing with on and off. But for now, I'll take the low-grade mania, even though it's only in fits and starts, because I know when I detour into full-blown depression I will slip from finding it difficult to get daily tasks done to feeling overwhelmed at the thought of having to make lunch. It's hard to describe what it's like to be completely paralyzed by contemplating simple, routine tasks- except to say that I dread it immensely, and while I love autumn, winter to me is a sinister season that sucks away everything I am and everything I love, until I'm left with only the memory of life and enjoyment.

But there is a silver lining, even now. Being aware of my cycling has helped me immensely in managing my emotions. It doesn't help me manage my moods, but that's where drugs come in, I guess. To explain what I mean, differentiating between moods and emotion: sadness is an emotion; depression is a mood. Fear is an emotion; anxiety is a mood. This may not be how a psychologist would categorize things, but it is aiding me, so I'm keeping it. A mood, for me, has emotional manifestations (crying while depressed, biting nails while anxious, talking fast while manic), but in itself, it is not an emotion, and it is not necessarily responsive to emotional triggers...petting a puppy probably won't make me happy while I'm depressed, nor will talking about our atrocious financial situation bring me down when I'm manic. The more I think about it, the odder it seems how completely disconnected my moods are from my emotions. And how disconnected my self-perception is from reality (or, if not reality, at least from others' perceptions...but if you tally up enough people's perceptions, and they agree on the whole, I think it's fairly safe to call the sum "reality"). I think part of the reason this diagnosis in general has been such a crushing blow to me is that I'm a type 4. For someone (in this case, a doctor) to tell me that my perception of reality has some serious flaws was basically telling me that I can't trust my perceptions. And if I can't trust my perceptions, what *can* I trust?

So I'm lucky beyond words to have Jeff. For now, I trust him more than I do myself. And thankfully, he trusts me enough to tell me when I'm full of it (like when I question the validity of my diagnosis). A lot of the time, he can see my mood shifting before I can...example: when I'm getting manic, I start to talk pretty fast. And interrupt people. And talk over them. And almost shout (which I don't realize I'm doing). I don't notice the change until I'm literally stuttering because my brain is running so far ahead of my mouth (which is struggling to keep up). He can hear the change in my speech way sooner than that. It sounds like a small thing, but with something like manic depression, even a small warning that a shift is coming can head off a minor (or not so minor) disaster. Oh, I'm getting manic? Perhaps I should postpone that shopping trip until my mood settles a bit (of course, once I *am* manic, convincing me to postpone *anything* can be a major undertaking...which is why I end up scrubbing the bathrooms down at 4 in the morning).

Small victories, but victories nonetheless. It's not all doom and gloom here...but there are definitely good days and bad.

Since I probably won't be posting again before Friday, happy birthday Michelle and Chico!

Thank God, I'm not Crazy

Or, rather, I am crazy...but not uniquely so. For the past month, I've been confessing to Jeff almost every day that I don't really feel sick. I know what depression feels like, and it's easy to classify that as illness. But I'm not depressed. And I've ranted about how what is pathology for me (mania and hypomania), in people who do not suffer the depressive side of the coin is not considered pathology- and how damned unfair that is. They're not sick- they're your tireless leaders, your undauntable explorers, your unflagging visionaries and reformers. So they came with a thermostat set a little higher than the average- they only sleep 5 hours a night, say, or can come up with fresh ideas for saving the world when everyone around them is dozing off in exhaustion ("It's 5 am? Wow, time flies!"). They're not sick.

It's incredibly. Fucking. Unfair.


******

"I'm honestly not scared - yet - of the diagnosis. It's not a complete surprise. What I am nervous about is the medications...But it's more than that. I don't feel bipolar. Good moods don't feel like mania or hypomania to me - they feel like - good moods."

Quoted from this article, but I could have written the exact same thing. And I think it may be harder for me right now, as someone who has never displayed a lot of classic psychotic symptoms (hallucinations or grandiose delusions) with my manias, to frame mania in terms of illness at all. Yes, I understand this is a progressive disorder, that without treatment, I will deteriorate until I die (from either natural or self-inflicted causes, self-inflicted being more likely without treatment). I understand that mixed episodes, like I have been experiencing ever since my second week of Zoloft- these will become the norm for me. The giddy, pure mania that I'm trying desperately to reclassify as something other than illness will disappear almost completely. But it's not enough. I don't know if "enough" exists to make me comfortable with permanent medicated status. Did I mention that I don't like taking drugs? Not even Tylenol.


******


So, anyway, I tell Jeff I'm not sick. And he always responds with this totally priceless look...it's the look our kids are going to get when they ask if they can stay overnight at the hotel after prom, or have a kegger for their underage friends at our house (ok, so it's probably wishful thinking that they would ask if they could have the kegger). And that helps, because to be brutally honest with you all (and I think I can do that, after dropping the f-bomb on ya), if it was for my own sake, I would not seek treatment.

Oh, ok, I love being in therapy (c'mon, what could be more fun for a type 4 than having someone listen for an hour while I talk about myself and how I feel?)...so I'd probably do that. Mood stabilizer? Forget it. I'd rather ride the waves than blunt them. When I'm not in the thick of depression, it's easy to convince myself that there is romance in the crushing despair. When I'm not in the grip of mania, it's easy to convince myself that it's just Stacey 2.0...me, only better- smarter, more creative, more interesting, more energetic. It's easy to forget the frightening loss of control...the things I have said and done that were an excruciating embarassment months or years later, the risk-taking, the overspending, the frightening rages, the eventual crash-and-burn.

But regardless, I don't have the option of complete selfishness. I have children who need a mom who isn't incapacitated for 1/3 of the year, who doesn't rage without warning, who can provide some consistency and predictability and structure. I have a husband who needs to be able to trust me with the finances, and trust me with myself. None of that is happenin' without a friendly little dose of lithium (or depakote, or whatever they end up picking for me). I love my kids to death, and I firmly believe that that fact balances out a helluva lot of crap they might otherwise carry, but it doesn't cancel out "my mom's bipolar". This is a case where love isn't...can't be...enough. I have to cooperate. Be a good girl. Take my meds.

And I resent it, intensely.

What a ride

If you all read Jeff's blog, you know that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few weeks back. At the time, I was had just started taking a small dose of zoloft for depression, and it made me nuts...I was constantly bouncing from very high to very low, and thankfully, the psychiatrist had me stop taking it right away. Unfortunately, she wasn't comfortable prescribing a mood stabilizer (that's what's generally used to treat bipolar- lithium, depakote, etc) because I am breastfeeding. So while the pendulum is swinging less quickly post-zoloft- every few days instead of several times each day- it's still swinging, and with the year heading toward fall and shorter days, the lows are starting to get lower and longer, while the highs are disappearing completely.

Season is a big influence on when mania and depression manifest in me, although obviously not everyone with seasonal affective disorder should be diagnosed bipolar (you could, however, make a pretty strong argument that SAD is itself part of the bipolar "family"). Pregnancy wields a lot of influence, too- I wonder if a lot of the reason I have been so much "healthier" the past five years is because I have had very stable, mostly uncycling hormone levels thanks to pregnancy and lactation. Which begs the question- does that mean that when I am no longer breastfeeding I will rapidly lose ground to this illness? I doubt that the influence of hormones and lactational amenorrhea on bipolar women has been studied (heads up to any research psychiatrist or psychologist who wants to break ground!), but I think it's likely that they have therapeutic effects. I know that it has been found that buildup of hormones during late pregnancy makes bipolar women manic, and that it usually lasts 4-6 weeks after delivery (then we tank). Jeff's comment: no wonder you feel so good when you're pregnant! My response: yeah, and now that I know that, I don't think I like being pregnant as much as I used to...being in a good mood is a wonderful feeling. Knowing you're in a good mood because you're getting manic kind of kills it, at least for me.

I also think that if you go through my archives, you could probably get a decent idea of where my mood was at by the length of my posts. I don't have the energy to write as much when I'm down (right now I would characterize my mood as "headed down"...but not there yet).

Oh, hey, if anyone needs to get ahold of me, your best bet is to either email Jeff or call our house...I probably won't be checking for comments, and my response time for emails right now leaves much to be desired.

Back in the saddle?

I can't tell you how much I don't feel like blogging. Yet, I'm also troubled by how long it's been since I last posted. I'm not even going to look at the date of my last post, as it would only depress me. I have plenty of good excuses- Jonah, illness, Allie, Gabe, Eva, moving, unpacking, and Jonah. Yes, he's supposed to be on there twice- poor kid is sick, so he's been on me (nursing or sleeping) literally 21 out of 24 hours each of the last three days, and on top of it, I've been feverish and miserable. Thanks, kids, for bringing home this latest little bacteriological pet.

Speaking of pets, we're about to get more, temporarily. Maddy got herself knocked up about a week before Jonah arrived (we think)...I was certain I had kept her out of trouble when she was in heat, but apparently, I was mistaken. Three of the kittens (available sometime in August) are spoken for, but if you're interested, let us know...we're pretty happy with just one cat. If we get a hankering for more animals here, I've already declared that we'll be getting a pair of rats. But that's a long way in the future- we had a pair when I was pregnant with Gabe and Eva (females, I'm guessing I don't have to spell out the reason a same-sex pair is desirable), but found ourselves completely unable to give them the attention they needed once Gabe and Eva were out of the hospital, and long story short, they were kindly adopted by another couple at the Porch. I think they've both since died- one advantage to rats is that they're a fairly short-term commitment as far as pets go- 2 or 3 years, usually. And unlike most other rodents, well-bred rats (from a breeder, not Petco) don't bite.

I'm still in vocational limbo...I just can't seem to decide what I want to do with myself. Do I go back to school? Find a midwife to apprentice to? Become certified as a doula and pursue that as my calling? I love birth and babies, but more and more of the birth stories that are shared with me are painful to hear- not that the outcome was awful, but the experience itself women too often falls criminally short of what it could and should be. The cesearean rate in this country is approaching one in three- that in itself is criminal. Vaginal birth after cesearean rates (VBAC) - have been dropping for about a decade, and aren't likely to rise anytime soon, since most women choose an OB/GYN as their provider for pregnancy and birth, and their (OB/GYN's) professional organization's requirements for allowing VBAC are such that most women won't meet them (this wasn't a reason that I chose homebirth, but it is a reason I was glad I wasn't dealing with an obstetrician). So I hear these stories, and I grieve for these women who are being subjected to care that is not evidence-based, who agree to procedures that put them at risk when the risks, or even the fact that there are risks, have not been explained to them, when they come out of childbirth feeling that it was traumatic or excruciating or not how they imagined it. There are a few people I can talk to about it, but most of this stuff is so taken for granted that people look at me funny, like, "what's the big deal?"

Suddenly the light bulb is going on...I guess that this is a clue for me that I will be working with women and birth in some form for the rest of my life- I can't think of anything else that upsets me as much, that makes me cry or smile or bitch as often, as this. I guess that means my vocational dilemma is, to a large extent, solved. Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to deal with having my heart broken on a daily basis for the rest of my life.

I've been thinking for a long time that I should do a class at church on childbirth options and sharing stories- most of what American women know about birth is learned from their doctor (who has a vested interest in things being done a certain way) or books- usually the wrong book (yeah, I read it when I was pregnant with Allie, but there are at least a dozen I would recommend over that one for various reasons). So I'm going to do it, sometime. I don't think I want a class so much as a discussion group, though (I think...maybe have a couple sessions of "educational" content followed by an equal number of discussion/debate). My opinions on this are (obviously) very strong, and it's an emotionally charged topic, so I'm going to have to think long and hard about how I can make it happen without driving myself or anyone else crazy.

Enough for tonight. Someday when I feel like it, I'll put up Jonah's birth story. Until then, a big shoutout to the many lovely women who played a part- Rachel L, Colleen W, Brynn, Sarah, and of course, Rolla. I could not have done it without all of you. And anyway, it wouldn't have been as much fun!