Aaaaaand I'm back

Hopefully for keeps, this time.

Been a weird, weirdly awful five months, I must say. Don't know how to describe them, doubt it would be interesting to anyone who isn't me. Barely interesting to me, except that the process of straightening out my life has taken a turn.

I now have firsthand understanding of how dangerous a lifetime of "if not here, then in eternity" can be. A slow release revelation, you might say.

For awhile, I thought going cold turkey on all the woo might have made me go crazy, as well. That my fragile little mind might've been warped by subscribing to, you know, reality. Then I realized: I was always like this. I can remember being six and bored on occasional Saturdays but not wanting to play with my friends. So I'd lay in bed for hours, being entertained (after a fashion) by my moods. The happy one was very nice. If I was really still, I could maintain it for hours. It was intense--like a thousand summer days, filled with puppies and candy and rollercoasters--except it was in all my head. Little-kid orgasm.

The corresponding lows weren't very low, but usually followed right on the heels of it. It was more like being numb, but it felt low after the high.

I remember the actual lows, too. They'd hit like random bullets. I'd be standing in the subway with a parent or friends, or waiting to cross the street, and I'd think "I'm tired. I should step in front of that. Then it'd be over and I'd get to sleep forever."

As I got older, it of course got bigger. Worse. The happy times got too happy. Too nervous. Scary. Sometimes painful and angry. Sometimes I'd spend hours laughing and crying all at once, till I was too tired to do anything but sleep . . . not that I could. It was like being alive was too bright and wonderful, and it hurt just to exist in such awesomeness. And at the same time, I knew from experience, in a few hours or a couple days, I'd be numb, if I was lucky. Ready to buy a bottle of drano and find a secluded spot to guzzle it in, if I was wasn't.

Lately the mood-swings happen more frequently. The highs make me nervous, and as inclined to scream, as laugh. And I'm angry all throughout. Like . . . unbelievably, directionlessly angry. To the point where, if I had a knife handy, it'd be my wrists, or someone else's throat. And during the last low, I kept having to talk myself out of wandering off into the woods near my job (miles of it, then the mountains) and find somewhere quiet to lay down and die, just so I could finally be free, and rest.

For the past few days, thankfully, I've just been numb. I still feel things like amused, or annoyed, but it's very distant, like remembering how it feels to laugh at a joke you heard years ago, or remembering how it felt when something someone did six months ago kinda pissed you off. It's all very much elsewhere and elsewhen. I wish the numb time could last for the rest of my life, but I know it won't.

I don't blame any of this on my former adherence to woo, mind. The woo just let me pretend that I would get better on my own, or that I would simply grow out of it. Or that even if I was crazy now, in heaven/the next plane/my next life, I'd be sane. That when I died, Jeebus or whoever would fix me.

But he won't. I would have to say that's the biggest revelation I've had since coming out of the atheism closet--even bigger than the Grandma revelation of a year ago: if not me, then no one. If not in this life, then never. I'm on my own, so to speak, and if I want my life to be better, I have to take responsibility for and steps to make it better.

So, yeah. I probably need psychiatric help. Not in a facetious, narcissistic way, but gecause getting through my day takes more effort than my actual job. But then I have to do my job, too, so it's like working two forty hour weeks at once, only . . . getting through the day doesn't end till I'm dead. It's in my sleep, and when I eat. It's every moment of every day, and I'm too ragged around the edges to do a passable job of maintaining anymore. I keep cutting "extraneous" bits from my life in the hopes that that will stave off whatever collapse or suicide attempt I'm zipping along towards, but it really doesn't. It just isolates me, makes me feel ever more hopeless.

The self-medicating didn't go well at all, either. I've officially sworn off binge-drinking, and--well, pot doesn't really effect my mood anymore, just makes me dizzy, disoriented, nauseas, and sleepy.

But I'm pretty sure I've got some kinda chemical imbalance. Don't know what, yet, but I've got an appointment to see my GP next week, and I'm gonna tell her all my sypmtoms (life-long mood-swings getting more frequent, concentrated, and more intense, i.e., HIGH highs that make me happy, agitated, angry, nervous, and paranoid all at the same time. Lows that leave me lethargic, or leave me so wrecked and depressed, I can barely function. And if I'm lucky, some time and numbness in between these states) and hopefully get a referral to a good shrink. One who'll get me on some kinda meds, if necessary. Not that I can really afford either with my salary or insurance. . . .

I had a melt-down about this in my fiction journal, my friends list there were unbelievably supportive. I was too mortified to read their responses for days, wanting nothing more than to go back in time and delete that post before anyone saw it. But I'm almost kinda glad I don't (yet) have the ability to travel backwards in time. The resounding response, aside from acceptance and support, was: "sounds like you're bipolar. my (aunt, friend, grandmother, sister, parakeet) said she felt exactly like that, and it took awhile, but after they found the right combination of meds, they started getting better."

Maybe I am, and maybe I amn't bipolar. But whatever is going on with me, at least I'll be finally starting to fix it. Me. This life.

So. Dunno how often I'll be updating this blog. I don't really have the energy for much that isn't sleeping, maintaining, or writing fiction (one good thing about the lows, is that I tend to write prolifically and brainstorm better during those times, and world-building is still the best, safest distraction I've got. The numb times are good for editing. The highs are good for nothing at all, except possibly aquiring a felony rapsheet), but I will be reading and commenting in other blogs again. I missed you guys. I missed reality.

Shit, I better post this before I chickenshit-out and delete it--