Life with Bipolar Disorder

There are demons that lurk, and laugh behind our backs. Those who suffer from them can't get away. The demons cause death and destruction with those in whom they live within. They even have the capability to flush away
marriages, destroy families. They are a quiet evil.

What are they called? Depression, manic depression, bipolar, those are their names. And the only reasons they have of doing this to their victims are "chemical imbalances in the brain." Why? Why do they do this to us? Why to me? What have its victims done to deserve this?

I have its victim for about 10 years. Well, at least that's how long I've been being "treated" for it. It seems like I've not felt myself since my son was born. No, I don't blame him. He's a victim of it too, as well as my husband. They suffer from it too, in the sense that I'm not as active as I used to be before this monster kicked in.

I'm always tired. I have no energy. I feel like I'm sleeping my life away. Bipolar is robbing me of my life. Medications help keep it in check, but there's only so much it can do to fight back. My job as a wife suffers, and my job as a mother suffers. So, they suffer. I've been asked, "What do you have to be depressed about?" "Why can't you just change?" I've tried to explain that it's a chemical imbalance in my brain; I can't change that besides take my medicine. I'm depressed because those chemicals being out of sync won't let me be happy.

Bipolar is a complex illness. There are many different symptoms - and several different types of bipolar disorder. The main symptoms of the disorder are dramatic and unpredictable mood swings. The various types of bipolar disorder range from mild to severe.

I've been through both, and every extreme in between. I've even had suicidal thoughts. The things that kept me from acting on them range from not wanting to put my son through losing his mother to not wanting to put my
parents through losing another child and not wanting to put my baby sister through losing another sibling. I had one sister that died when she was two days old due to birth defects and another sister that died a little more than four years ago at the age of 31. And she left behind a daughter that turned 10 years old twenty-two days after her mother died. But sometimes I wonder if the only relief I'll get is to just end it all, and other times I can feel the old me, the one that existed before this evil kicked in, wanting to come out.

As of right now, I'm taking 100mg of Zoloft a day, and a grand total of 1,350mg of lithium a day. All of this helps, and keeps things at bay to an extent. But my advice to anyone who suffers from this is to keep up with your medicine regimen, keep in touch with your physician, keep a healthy diet...believe me, that makes a difference, find a good therapist, and keep in touch with family and friends, even friends whom you've went to school with that you haven't seen in a while.

Memorial Day Sadness

Memorial Day is different things to different people. It’s a day off from work, fishing, boating, and drinking it up…whatever it may be. When the government decided to put it on the calendar as a national holiday, they intended it to be a day to recognize our heroes such as our military, firefighters, police and other rescue personnel for giving their lives to help others.

These intentions are great; I’m all for recognizing these people. But for me, it was an especially bad time for me and my family. On December 3^rd, 2005, my middle sister was found dead in her room.

I have to back up a little bit. Lena somehow knew for a long time that she wasn’t going to see her golden years. And because of this, she had told our mom that if anything happened to her, she wanted to be cremated and buried in Ohio with our sister that died as an infant.

So, this takes me back to the year 2006. At the time of her death, Ohio’s winter weather was in full swing. So our parents had set it up with the management at Brookdale Cemetery to open Joy’s plot to put Lena’s urn on top of her casket. The arrangements just so happened to be Memorial Day weekend, which is something I see fitting, since we’ll always remember her.

It’s about 450 miles from our sleepy little town to Elyria, Ohio. It’s a long trip anyway, but the reason behind the trip made it even longer. And the weather, being the normal rainy spring time weather didn’t help any. My husband couldn’t get out of work, so our son and I had to ride with my parents. My baby sister, Lisa, her daughter, Lena’s daughter, and Lisa’s soon to be husband followed behind us. After almost 7 hours of driving, we made it to Grandma and Grandpa’s house.

Let me just mention that my grandparents are elderly, grandma is now 87, and grandpa has been deceased for almost 6 months now. They of course took it very hard. Grandpa just broke down crying when he found out about what had happened to Lena. And since he and grandma’s health hasn’t been in good standing for a while, they weren’t able to attend the graveside memorial, which was officiated by the Salvation Army chaplain.

It was wonderful to see family again. It had been since January 1993 since I myself had been there. And that was to celebrate Grandma and Grandpa’s 50^th wedding anniversary with them.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been back to Ohio. I wasn’t even able to go to grandpa’s funeral. I felt so bad, because when I was there to bury Lena, I had promised him that I’d be back to see him. Mom said that it was ok, grandpa understood, and that he wanted me to remember him the way he was. But I’ll go back again one day, hopefully before grandma’s passing so I can see her again. After all, she’s my last surviving grandparent. I have to see her again.