My tribe.

Everything is exactly how it should be. My heart feels full, my mind is at rest. My body feels rested and my pulse has not raced unnecessarily once today. Everything is in the exact place where it needs to be.

I have been sitting here wondering what on earth I did different to be finally feeling so good. I have been going through the lists in my head of what food I have been eating. What time I would take my medication. What time I woke up. What time I went to sleep. How much sun I got. How much sun I didn’t get. 

It finally occured to me that I chaired the recovery meeting today, and went to two other meetings this week. This is why I feel at peace with anything and everything that is going on inside of me. Because I have reconnected with my people. My fellows. 

I may not be able to change the fact that I am bi-polar but I can help ease the daily blocks in the road. Just one simple thing changes the way that I process even the smallest of tasks. Going to meetings and sharing my story and listening to others stories works like magic. Connecting with other people who are the same as me. I feel like I belong to something safe, real and pure for the first time in my life.

The truth is that everyone in this world, wants to feel like they belong. Somewhere. Anywhere. So we tend to find the people with the same habits, desires, hobbies, music interests and so forth. My whole life has been about drugs, and illegal activities and suffering. So I always found my people who had the same interests as me. I stuck with them like glue. When I decided to remove drugs from my life, I felt abandoned. Each time I would try quitting the despair of being alone would by far outweigh the darkness of addiction. So I always went back. I went back to the addiction and I went back to the people I felt like I belonged with.

So now, I have a different place I belong. I have found my tribe. We are a group of like-minded people who have all suffered this same sickness through our lives. Our stories are all different, but the similarities that we find in our differences are striking.

I know that my feeling of normalcy and calmness right now and all through today was not magic. It was the plain and simple fact that I returned back to going to my recovery meetings.

My tribe has helped heal me.

Organic crash.

This is the first time in a very long time that I can remember feeling just normal.

Just plain old lesandra. Everything inside my head is quiet. Which makes it nearly impossible to have anything to write about. When I write it’s because my mind is streaming thought after thought in all sorts of directions. The only way to let it go, is to write it.

But right now my mind is absent of thoughts. I wasn’t even going to post because it is so absent. But I think it important for me to be able to look back and see that it is possible to be calm, after the mania. That I don’t need to have a huge breakdown to come down from the high that mania puts me on.

For once I didn’t feel scared about crashing. I just let myself go through the motions of madness and let myself write as much as I needed to. Talk as fast as I wanted to. And be as loud as I knew I could.

Looking back on most of the times I crash, it appears that I self sabotage. I am afraid of the crash, so I make a huge production so that I trick my entire self into crashing. Because crying in hysterics is a really good way to exhaust myself out of mania.

This feels so different now. So fluid. So natural. Maybe my bi-polar brain is finally starting to heal.

I hope all my crashes are this organic. 

Coming down.

The mania has subsided. So much that as I was driving home, I almost felt like I was floating. Exhausted from being on a high, that probably wasn’t helped by introducing caffeine. I feel like at this point my brain has just completely shut down.

The gloves have been removed and I am done fighting my own thoughts in my head. This crash actually doesn’t feel too bad. Considering it’s a crash. Normally I would somehow pick a fight with my boyfriend or just have an all around complete meltdown in order for the mania to subside.

There was a few minor cries and a mini meltdown, but nothing too major. I feel like there is success in this.

A woman I met a few years ago told me that she was also bi-polar. As she was much older than me, she told me that when you get older the mania subsides and you are only left to deal with the lows. I hope that doesn’t end up being the case for me, even so I take medication to combat the lows and I can see myself taking medication until the day I pass. 

As I left the parking lot of Save on Foods I saw a man staggering the direction I had just come from. He has scabs all over his face. He looked like he had been crying. I slowed down because something seemed so familiar in him. It turns out that I did know him. I have known him since he was a kid, but the last time I saw him was when we had relapsed together. We had become reacquainted about 4 years ago, and we were both clean and sober at the time. Something happened and we both fell back into what started out as drinking. We were toxic for each other but I thought we were just having fun.

He doesn’t appear to be having fun anymore. I wanted to stop the car because my heart was sinking and I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to fix him. I wanted to give him all my money and drive him to detox. My heart wanted to help, but my mind told me to keep driving.

Thing is he has been clean and sober before. He’s been down that road and the glow of his skin, the light in his eyes. He was happy. That’s what drew me to him. Now there is just emptiness.

What on earth can be hurting him so much that he keeps going back? Does he not really understand how much better life is without the drugs? Without the pain. He didn’t look like he was having any fun. 

It’s like the partying is fun, until it isn’t anymore. And sometimes when it isn’t fun anymore – it’s too late.

I really wanted to stop my car – but I didn’t feel safe. I wanted to give him everything and I have no idea what state of mind he is in right now.

I just pray he makes the decision to be done. To go seek help. Because nobody should ever have to suffer in addiction. 

Allergy or crazy?

Something is happening to me and I have no idea if it’s allergies or a mental thing. 

It’s much like the nervous thing I used to do when I was in my early years of elementary school. I used to make this gulping/burping noise in the back of my throat. But with my mouth closed. It became such a horrible habit I felt like I could not breath unless I did it. It was so embarassing but I couldn’t stop myself. Soon after that was my hair pulling out phase. I would pull out chunks of my hair, hair because I could. I remember showing my best trick to my classmates.

So this new thing is that I can’t stop clearing my throat. When I do stop it feels like I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m suffocating right now and the allergy spray I bought is only for nasal allergies. I am at work and I want to die right now. Every few minutes I pop a fisherman’s friend in my mouth, which is causing me very temporary relief. I took an allergy pill this morning, but it appears to have worn off. 

My throat hurts so much from clearing it. When the clearing becomes too much I start coughing to try to get up whatever is stuck in my throat. This has been going on for months. It really acts up when go outside.

Though its starting to feel like it’s all in my head. I am actually going insane right now.

Nothing to say.

Woke up just after 9 this morning. Had an appointment for one of the final steps of funding for school. This whole process actually started almost 4 years ago when I started my life skills and career exploration. There was many classes, workshops, and hoops that had to be jumped through. Not to mention it took me a long time to even figure out that I could have a career.

So that went well, but on my way home something happened to me. It’s like complete exhaustion just fell over my body. So I came home, did the dishes and now I have been sitting in bed. Just sitting for a few, then laying down for a few. It’s easy to get lost in bed when my cat wants to snuggle.

I feel exhausted just thinking about how I will have to live on basically a instant noodle budget for school for the first little while. I have to buy all sorts of things for school supplies, and I’m not sure exactly what my funding will cover. I am going to school full time, and working two 5 hour shifts a week. That covers all my basic expenses but what happens if something happens to my car? What if my cat gets sick? What if, what if, what if. I know I have no control over what happens, but I hate not being 100% prepared for any possible thing. That’s why I like to be early for everything. I try to be at least half an hour early, because what if something happens along the way. There are so many what ifs and they are way to stressful right now.

I am just mentally drained right now and I have nothing to say today.

The ghost in us.

There is a ghost that lives inside of me. She is the person I used to be. She is a whole seperate entity from who I actually am right now. She occupied the space of my body for 34 years of my life. I cannot get rid of her, as she still lives here. She is the ghost of me.

Quite often when I am going through the motions of my day to day life, I catch myself getting angry with the air. I find myself muttering complete nonsense under my breath. When approached by anyone in regards to anything the chance that she will come out, up in arms is very great. She is the defender of the new me. She will protect me from ever having to feel like I let myself be taken down. She is the ghost of me.

She knows me better than I know myself. She knows my limitations and will constantly be the reminder of where I was. Where I came from and where I stayed for 34 years. She watches patiently from behind my eyes. She waits. She waits for the most opportune moments to remind me that she’s still there. She is the itch I cannot scratch. She is the tickle in the back of my throat. She is the nervous biting of the spot where my lips meet. She is the nervous licking of the lips. The shake of the leg. The twitch of the body. The biting of the nails. The picking of the face. The coughing when there is nothing there. The rub of the pinky finger against the ring finger. She comes out in all these nervous ticks of mine, because she is the ghost of me.

So many times I have wished her away. I have pleaded and prayed to be released from my past. To let go. To move on. But the universe has something in store for me. The universe needs for me to remember what happened. Where I came from, where I am going. The universe needs to be able to speak to the ghost in me, so that I can help the ghost in you.

Unburdened.

I feel ten thousand times better. I just left the recovery meeting and I feel new.

I’ve been avoiding going because I feel like they won’t understand. They couldn’t understand that I am going through this awful pain – not because of failure in my life, but because of success.

Because for once in my life everything I have ever dreamed of has actually come true. And that is so terrifying that I feel like I am falling apart.

This last month I had abandoned my recovery program and all the people in it, yet I was the one sitting at home feeling abandoned. Somehow I was ok with emotional relapse. How did I not see the next step was relapse?

I had a dream last night that I had been using or drinking. I can’t remember clearly. Usually when that happens I wake up in a panic and feel like I just fucked up my entire sober time and would have to start over. I would be upset. Then to realize when I wake it’s just a dream. This morning was different though. There was no panic. There was no relief. It just felt so seamless, as though it was actually my everyday life.

It’s like a snake is making its way into my mind. Emotional relapse leading to actual relapse. Do it so that you don’t have to go to school. Self sabotage so that nobody will ever expect anything more from you.

I need to stay connected to the fellowship. I need more meetings. I need to carry the message. I need to stay positive. 

Today felt like I was the best meeting of my entire life. I cried so hard when I was asked to share but it was like an entire months worth of thoughts and emotions just rolled off my chest.

I feel unburdened. I feel healed.

Nothing nice.

There is nothing nice about being stuck in bed until almost 11 am. There is nothing nice about having over 12 hours sleep and it never being enough. There is nothing relaxing about being stuck here.

This is not where I want to be. I am fucking paralyzed by everything right now. I can’t even make a decision about whether I should open the window or not and I’m sitting here sweating. I have to go pee and I can’t even get up to do that, even though I am already sitting up.

So when you think I’m being lazy because I am still in bed, think again. This is actually killing me. It feels like I’m being eaten alive by my own fears. But what is this other option? Absolute mania. So go to the doctor’s you say? Sure, then I will become a robot.

Almost everyday it’s something. Why am I so fucked up? Why does the idea of my life becoming better, only just now become so god damn paralyzing.

This entire time I have talked and talk and walked the walk wanting to change my life. Wanting to go to school and have a career and now how can I do that if I am too scared and fucked up to get out of bed?

And yes my day will eventually get better and I will wonder why I ever felt this way in the morning. But why does it feel like I want to die, so many mornings these days? I don’t want to feel like this.

Thank you.

These feelings that I feel are normal. I am not alone. Though they seem to often be enhanced because I am talking about them. I am writing about them. I am putting them out there for everyone to read.

Often I have people messaging me thanking me for writing. For my honestly. For telling my story and being brave while doing it. Thing is, this story needs to be told. I need to be honest. I need to write this down and put it out there, not just for me. But also for you. 

I feel alone until I press publish on the top right corner of this page. Because once this is out of my hands, once this is viewable by other people – it becomes our journey.

I don’t have to feel alone ever again so long as I continue to write. So long as I have an audience to connect with, on a deeper level than just liking my Instagram pictures and thinking my cat is super cute. Which she totally is. This connection goes beyond any soul sucking social media outlet.

Because when I write and you read it, its like a silent head nod between the two of us.

Thank you for being a part of my audience and being a part of our journey.

Food for thought.

I cried for about one minute, as I lay in bed. The thing about my crying at this stage in my life is that generally it’s just because I’m over emotional. I’m super sensitive.

Years ago I would often find myself crying because I was in absolute dispair. So I guess there is that.

I lay down, sat up, lay down, then finally got up out of bed. I walked into the bathroom and started running a bath. Then I walked outside and stepped into the light for only a second. Just long enough to look up at the sky and be able to make a decision about my clothing choice for today.

I came back inside and started folding the clothing from the laundry basket that has been overflowing on a chair in the livingroom. So far I feel like I’m progressing.

My mom sends me a text right after she reads my last blog entry. What she says is something I have been thinking about and wanting to do for a long time. Switch my medication. Because I shouldn’t be feeling like this. This rapid cycling is pretty crazy.

Thing is, I don’t want to be treated for the mania so much as just trying a different antidepressant. When they treated the mania before, I was like a robot. And when I was like a robot I wanted to drink so that I could feel like I was me again.

Changing medications is a very scary thing to even think about. Also will I go through withdrawal from the one I am on? I guess there is no better time than now to try to sort this out. 

But what if it’s not the medication? What if it’s just me processing all too much, all at once? This is crazy. Like what if my personality is just this way, and now I am trying to find a different antidepressant to calm down my personality. To make me more bearable?

Is this me? Or is this the medication? Perhaps this is just the past feeling like a blanket and the future feeling like an open door, but with a very complicated lock on it. Maybe the meds are fine and I’m just going through my own personal little hell. Change and me don’t mesh well.

I guess I should put my phone down now. I need to wash my hair.