"Green Thoughts"

Today I realize the fact that I can’t even believe myself. I find myself not wanting to say this time is going to be different. I’m tired of saying that. How can I believe that? How can I believe myself when I say I have learned so much. I always learn something, but is it enough? Now I find myself wondering what I will say to other people. I can’t give a false promise, false hope again. My life now bleeds mistrust, fear and hollow words. I guess I can promise a fight. I have always fought for my wellness before I eventually gave up. I guess I need to show that I won’t give up, that I can keep fighting.

I feel like my life has been out of order for a long time. Like I kept going back to it, but I see the sign hanging on the door and then I have to live a parallel life, working on getting the tools to fix my life and finally be let in. I have spent time both being sick and learning to be well. And that damn sign won’t come off until I am ready to move back into my life. That door leads back the normal world where I am stable. As I near the day that door opens, I find that I am a stranger to the normal world. I’ve spent the last ten years chasing an idealized notion of what life and living may be, but when I come down to the real world, I see that those idealized notions are only part of the puzzle. Having a real will to want to live is required. Walking through that door will require a love of life. None of this, “I give up,” crap. Getting my life back requires a very simple question and answer. I either want to live or I don’t. I can’t hang in the grey area of maybe any longer because my life will continue to be out of order. I have worked through these years and learned many tools of wellness, but I lacked commitment.
 

Now learning is over. I have four years worth of therapy with Kiandra and at least ten hospitalizations worth of knowledge to get well. I also have years of learning on my own. Maybe that is why I was so angry in this last suicide phase. I didn’t understand that knowledge was only part of what I needed. I didn’t see my overall lack of commitment. I needed to want to live through anything, including my fears.

I think I was close to bringing everything together in July and August. I made it through the summer and felt like I would live through everything. My daily living skills were decent and I took my meds every day and slept at night and had a live-in friend. Then I lost it all the next month. The out of order sign stayed on the door to my stable life. My meds weren’t right and I missed the signs and didn’t go to my doctor. I was addicted to my hypomanic state. Like nails pried off of a board holding up my house of wellness, my daily living skills went one by one. Then fear set in. Fear of my job and everything going wrong, financial fear and an overall life fear and fear of going crazy. The fear eventually weighed me down and the very things I was afraid of came true. So I lost it, the stress became too much to bear and I gave up. Giving up for me is letting my disorder take over. I stink in to mania or in to depression. Then I become stubborn and I refuse to let anyone help me. Then I slowly, I let a few people reach me and I begin to rise from the ruin of my life. Of course, at that point my life is very different and I have to make something of it. My fears are normally gone and I just have to rebuild things differently. I guess I was always a drama-ridden way to circumvent the things I feared.
 

I also asked Kiandra in a letter if there would have been an easier way for me to reach these conclusions. She hasn’t answered but in a way I don’t think so. I did need to see these patients to know how lucky I a. I needed time with my thoughts to see both how distorted and how undistorted they were. I need Trileptal, it sees maybe another doctor would have prescribed something else an then I would have to play trial and error. Instead, we got the meds right on the first try. How lucky was that? This hospital has gotten me to like letter writing, especially with my mom. I am hopeful that writing to my mom will bring us closer together and bridge the gap between us. My Dad and I are closer because he visits me every night and weekend. I’ve gotten in the habit of exercising. I’ve lost some weight. Now I see each of these things and see how I could have gotten it in some other way, but not all at once. That is what this hospital has done for me- brought everything together. So now I can soon attempt to walk through that door, knowing I have both the tools and the will to live in the normal world again. I won’t be haunted by mania or afraid of another depression. I won’t be worried about various fears, but simply work my way through them so they are not too scary anymore.