WAITING FOR THE DEATH BLOW: SOME THOUGHTS ON BEING A CURRENTLY FUNCTIONING MANIC-DEPRESSIVE AND SCHIZOPHRENIC

NOTE: If I actually complete and post this blog entry it'll be a minor miracle. The idea has been gnawing at me lately. So if you're reading this and get anything out of it, even if it's just a little more understanding of me, then I am grateful. Those who know me know I am OK with being an open book, maybe too much so, but I feel I need to get some thoughts and feelings out even if they're only beneficial to me.

I have been struggling lately, for about the last 5 days. I know how my cycles work and I'm going through a depression cycle. I am almost out of it. I wouldn't be able to conjure the energy to think or write if I wasn't towards the end. So that's good. But the last week has been very dark and difficult for me.

A brief background for those who don't know. My official diagnosis, according to hospital papers I came across recently, is "schizo-affective disorder w/ bipolar and anxiety." That's a mouthful. I was first diagnosed with depression when I was 18, in 1989. I threatened to kill myself and was hospitalized for 3 weeks, the first of 5 such stays I've had in my life. They never put me on meds back then. I don't know why. Maybe my parents didn't want to, which would be no surprise because I was not raised by the most attentive parents.

I went to counselling on and off for years. I think I first went on medicine in 2001. That means I was unmedicated and improperly diagnosed for over a decade. I know this because I always knew things weren't quite right with me. Looking back I'm not even sure some of the friends and relationships I had in those early years were real. There are a lot of things I can't account for. To list them would take too long. I was hearing voices and seeing things for a very long time. In 2002 I had my worst (to that point) episode where I thought my father-in-law was trying to kill me and I locked myself in a car. This was following a particularly traumatic job loss, but more on job losses later.

Between 2002 and 2008 I was on and off medication. I got by but I was not well. It wasn't until June 2008 that I was diagnosed as bipolar and put on proper medication. I had a good job at the time and my life was going well, but I was sick. Getting the care I needed was huge. I look back on 2008 as one of the best years of my life. I was married, loved, had a great family, an excellent job, we were financially stable. And I got well for the first time in a while. Then in 2009 I struggled and lost another job. It's a theme in my life. I go through stretches where I am good and stable and then BAM I self-destruct. 

The fear of self-destruction is part of what put me in my depression this week. I'm about due for a crash and I can't afford to. I have 2 daughters that I care for, and we are going to have some financial changes in the next couple months. I need to account for these by getting at least a part time job. I have not worked since 2012 when I --wait for it-- lost another job. Luckily I was approved for disability shortly thereafter and I dodged a big bullet.

My marriage ended effectively in 2011, and the aftermath was a complete nervous breakdown. I did 3 hospital stints and that's when I was diagnosed as schizo-affective. I have always seen ghosts and heard voices. I grew used to them and lived with them. There are things that I remember from my past that I can't honestly say were real, but they are like real memories. I remember a people coming to my house that nobody else remembers. I remember doing things with women that may or may not have been real. I suffered with this before and during my marriage. My marriage ended, in large part, because of my illness (and refusal to get proper help at the time). That's not to say I don't take responsibility for my actions. I do. I knew right from wrong whether I was having a manic episode or not. I got what I deserved. The fact that she put up with me for so long is a miracle. Everyone has a breaking point.

In the years after my marriage I have experienced things like sleep paralysis hallucinations. Not being able to move and being surrounded by cats or hooded figures. I left a grocery store terrified after seeing people with tentacles for hands. I was regularly visited by a small man in a rubber devil mask and a robe. This went on for quite some time. He would tell me I was a horrible person and should kill myself, that I was going to burn in Hell. I would see children out my window at 4 in the morning, playing in the snow, and wonder where the snow was a few hours later. 

Getting on the right medicine has helped me a lot, as well as several years of therapy. I have learned techniques that help me ground myself when I am feeling an episode coming on. I recognize my symptoms. I take my pills. I still see "ghosts," as I call them, and sometimes I don't know if a person is real or not but I get through it. I do know my ex-wife is dead so when I see her, and I do, I know I am hallucinating. I don't see her as much as I used to. 

I'm rambling and I don't know where I'm going with this. I do know I want to say a few words about depression. REAL depression. What I go through sometimes, and millions of other people go through, is not simply sadness. It's not a fucking choice. It is chemical, and brought on by years of conditioning. I was feeling the weight of my life this week and I was engulfed in a dark fog. I could not see the good in anything. It hurt to get out of bed. It hurt to make food. It hurt to shave and shower. I didn't want to watch movies or even read, which is a big thing for me. I didn't do a lot of those things for several days. I was feeling the weight of every bad choice I've ever made in my life and reliving them. There was no slogan or "snap out of it" bullshit that was going to work. I had to ride it out even while I was waiting for the death blow, to quote The Cure. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't think that will ever change.

I wanted to kill myself. I spent most of these days feeling ugly, gross, unloved, jealous and resentful of other people better off than me. I was tempted to take the pills.  But it's not an option for me right now. I am a father and a provider and I am needed. Having gone through this so many other times I knew I needed to stay alive and keep going. Under all the shit there was a sliver of hope, just enough, to keep me going. Knowing that I'd been through worse. Knowing that the future could be bright for me. Knowing that I have children who need me. It truly is a sort of skill, getting out of depression. In one way it has to run it's course for me, and I let it, but I never completely let it take me.

I will probably hit these lows again. There is a lot on my plate. My struggles with the psychotic parts of my illness are pretty stable but will never go away completely. I have to work at keeping them stable, though. It takes work. I need to be well and be able to have a job and work at least 20 hours a week. I have done a good job of getting my resume out there and applying for a lot of jobs. There seems to be opportunities for me so I am hopeful. And if I don't get work in time there are other ways to make ends meet and provide. I will take advantage of what the community offers me. We will get through.

Being in a depression is like having binoculars strapped to my head that allow my eyes to only gaze at the bad things, things that are far away and things that are close. I look at myself in the mirror and I see failure and loss. I see a man who failed out of college (again in large part because of my illness), cheated on his wife and has lost endless jobs. I worry about what a new job will do to me. I wish I had changed majors rather than just giving up on schooling. I know it's never too late to go back but I'm not interested in it anymore. I just want to live a stable, simple life.

I don't really know why I'm writing this, and I don't know why I will probably publish this. It's chock full of embarrassing things. It's poorly written and thought out. I just felt like I had to say something. I have been criticized in the past for "over sharing," whether it be face to face or on social media. I can't help it. I lack a filter and frankly I don't want one. It's part of who I am. I am made up of my flaws and my successes and of my illnesses. Depression is a part of me. That devil in the rubber mask is a part of me. The hospital stays are a part of me. The failed romances are a part of me.

But I am also made up of the wonderous stardust that is my children. That I take care and provide for them despite so much going against me. And the fact that I HAVEN'T killed myself despite being very close so many times. I am made up of the fact that I made it through high school as an undiagnosed schizophrenic. I made it through a lot of my life undiagnosed and unmedicated and without help. I have made it through illness, divorce and death and I'm still plugging along. I am made up of the heartbreak and the sadness that still haunts me. But I'm also made up of the hope that things can be better, that things will be OK, as long as I stay alive. 

The future is a gift. It may have a cool Star Wars toy in it or it may have a hunk of coal, but I won't know unless I open it. There may be love and marriage and happiness, or there may be another depression or hospital stay or heartbreak. Everyday is a roll of the dice, and I can't roll the dice unless I stay alive. I talked about my self-destructive cycle, and I'm worried about another one. I will always worry. I'm due for one. But maybe I'm also due to break the cycle and enter new territory. The only way I will know is if I stay alive.

So I stay alive.

Bill, 04/14/2017