I wish.

I just looked at myself in the mirror and it feels like I don’t recognize myself. This happens often now but it’s a surprise every time. I feel so far away from the person I am seeing.

I don’t even analyze what I am seeing, I just don’t feel like I recognize the face in the mirror. I feel like I’m somewhere else, looking at someone else.

This thing started quite some time ago but I would only have rare moments of Woah who is that? And now it’s so frequent that I feel like it’s part of me. That combined with having the same feeling about any people that I might be in the middle of a conversation with. It’s been called dissassociating, but how do I even know that’s what it is? I remember it happening, I feel present – but I feel like I am a different presence.

I am almost hesitant to go back to my counsellor after I told my boyfriend and my sister in law briefly about what she had said to me about thinking of might not even be bipolar but that she sees it as dissassociative identity disorder. I felt like that made sense when we talked about it more but I almost didn’t want to talk about it. Like it was too weird to even acknowledge. Then I was told by those around me that it wasn’t possible. I was bipolar and nothing else.

I wish I came with a handbook that I could properly understand everything about myself. So I might be able to explain why. Why am I the way that I am?

I just looked in the mirror again and I still don’t recognize myself.

Maybe it’s that I am changing so fast, and my mind has been sick for so long that it’s finally starting to become clear. I am seeing things for the way they truly are – finally. My vision is changing because my brain is healing. Maybe.

I wish I knew the answers.

How do I live without mania?

I have been wishing for calm for so long. I have been hoping to find some balance in my life. But now I have it, and I don’t know what to do with it. The balance feels like darkness, because I don’t know how to live without chaos.

Bed seems like the best place for me, on the weekends. Like I have to force myself out of bed, and that’s after having 14 hours of sleep. I just want to stay here, because it’s safe and warm.

What’s wrong with me? Maybe this is just the normal funk of the dark season. I am not sure.

I have been drinking more coffee lately, sometimes even a cup and a half a day – after having my morning tea. Because there is so much to do. It’s like caffeine is even different in my body now that I am not feeling manic 24/7. I know that coffee is not safe though because there is that fine line between not enough, and way too much. Usually it was around the end of one cup where I would be shaking and in full regret. Spinning out of control wondering why I did that to myself. That’s gone now at the one cup point, but I don’t know where the new point is. Why do I even want to test it?

How am I supposed to live without mania fueling my every thought? I feel like I don’t know how or what to even write without mania. I don’t know where my motivation is supposed to come from without mania.

I am still sitting in bed, fighting the fact that I need to get up and go grocery shopping before I go to work. I am fighting doing my hair and makeup until the very last minute possible.

How do I live without mania?

How can I be of service?

As part of my criminology class I am required to watch ‘Through a Blue Lens.” I have no idea why this is my first time watching this, but it’s only halfway through and I needed to take a break.

I am so lucky. I am so lucky. I am so lucky. I can’t believe I am clean and sober right now. I am so lucky.

I have so many feelings right now as I watch this. That people in the downtown Eastside are someone’s child. Someone’s parent. Someone’s friend. They are people. With names. They have families.

And I remember those feelings that I am seeing right now. That drugs were everything, for so many reasons. I spent over half my life addicted to drugs and alcohol, and I used for the most part every single day.

How did I make it out alive? How am I even sitting here, in my warm bed. With my brand new laptop that I am paying for on a payment plan, in this basement suite that is furnished with things that I have been able to afford buying. I am tired because I had to get up early to attend the committee meeting for the student association that I am now a part of, because I am. University student. I am a student, who is well on my way to building a real future for myself.

But I could have easily ended up on skid row. I was literally just a few blocks away, back in 2003.

I could have ended up like these people in this video, but instead I suffered in some middle ground for 10 more years. I had rules that I would only use meth, and I would never inject it. Ever. That was my rule. And that rule kept me safe.

I am so lucky. I am so lucky.

I don’t know if I can watch the rest of this video right now. I feel like I am in shock. How did I get here? But more importantly, how can I help those who are still suffering?

How can I be of service?

Better.

I made the decision two nights ago to go back to my original dosage of Seroquel at night, because I felt like I was turning into a zombie from the new medication.

I didn’t realize how dangerous this zombie feeling was, until I thought back to my original time taking medication for my bi-polar – that was in the spring of 2013. The medication worked for me and it helped me get off meth, but I ended up feeling this huge hole inside of me. Once the pink cloud of getting off meth faded, I was left feeling like an emotionless robot. I decided that medication wasn’t for me anymore, and that sent me for a huge hole of darkness. I wanted to socialize and I was so tired of feeling lonely. So I started to drink.

I don’t want a repeat of that time in my life, because my sobriety is really important to me. My life is worth something, and I know that now.

I need to stay on top of my mental wellness and sometimes that means a change of medication. And sometimes that change of medication might feel different at any given time, but I have accepted that there is a chemical imbalance in my brain.

So the last few days I have felt normal again. I feel more balanced. But I have taken it super easy this weekend, also known as laying in bed for as long as I want. Napping if I feel I need to. Because last week I felt the realness of burnout. Spreading myself across so many places was new to me, but the exhaustion made no sense. Because I was getting a full night of sleep every night. I was taking care of myself.

But it looks like my medication just needed a little adjustment. Nothing major. I am happy to say that I feel better.

Normal.

I feel strange. So tired. Underwhelmed. Everything is normal and I don’t know the last time I felt normal.

Do I like it? I don’t know. I don’t have the answer but I feel like the fire that lived inside of me is being snuffed out. Everything is normal. Nothing is too much.

I feel like it’s mostly from the medication change and this balance is so new to me. It feels like exhaustion because I can’t quite find the spark to get going. But I am normal.

Normal makes me feel like I don’t have the words to express how I am feeling, because I don’t know exactly the answer to that. I have been drinking more caffeine than I had in almost the last three years – because I just feel like I can’t quite find my drive. Something is missing and the caffeine actually for once feels like it has no effect on me. Is this normal?

What is normal? I feel like I’m not quite myself without the mania. Who am I if I am not my mental illness? This feels like an identity crisis.

I have purpose, I just don’t know it yet. I am learning, I am growing. This is normal. Maybe this is what they call a plateau? I need to find my fire again.

The thoughts cross my mind that I should go back to Wellbutrin, even though there is side effects. That’s ridiculous, I don’t need it, the new medication is fine. I am normal. What is normal?

Maybe taking two Seroquel at night time, like my doctor prescribed for my anxiety only recently – needs to go back to just one pill a night. This is my body, and something feels not right. I feel dull. I feel like my shine is fading, yet everything is normal.

Normal.

My cup.

I think this has been the longest time since I have updated my blog. 6 days it has been.

I have adjusted to my new medication so perfectly, but there is also the stimulant aspect of Wellbutrin that is now missing from me. I feel like a part of me wants the Wellbutrin back for that, but there was too many negatives that came with taking it. I feel much less manic now, but I am finding that maybe I am missing it. 

How can I miss something that often sends me into spirals that can turn out deadly? I don’t know. I guess I am just so used to drama and chaos that I feel like that’s what I crave.

Currently I am in school full time, working part time and doing my practicum part time. I am also volunteering once a week at Nightshift as well trying to work on getting another set of steps done in recovery. My book has been well recieved and I am in the process of having it carried in Chapters book stores. I can feel myself growing. Everything is becoming something else. Everything is so full, and my time seems so much more precious now that ever before. 

But I feel like there is a but. 

Often I find myself scrolling through Instagram and not at people with unattainable bodies. But more so with pregnant women, newborn babies, childbirth, families. It hurts me so much because of my own losses, but I can’t help myself. I feel a huge hole right where they cut her out of me. I don’t want to talk about it, because she does read this – but this emptiness lives with me everyday.

But when I think of her, I feel so full. How can I feel so full and so empty at the same time. 

Patience. Have patience. Everyone always reminds me, but where does this pain go, in the process of having patience about the future?

Focus. Just focus on having the best life I can. Doing everything right. Stay on this path. Keep growing. Keep believing. Keep doing all the things that I told myself that I would never do. I will continue to be the person that I could have only ever dreamed of being.

But sometimes my cup is spilling over, and sometimes it’s so empty that I find myself spilling into it – because I am so scared of having an empty cup.

The right thing.

My life and my recovery is nothing short of a miracle. I am sitting here at work reading my psychology textbook in between phone calls and I keep getting lost in my head. It feels like I am daydreaming about the person I have become. The leaps and bounds that I have taken in the last 32+ months.

This feels like a dream as I read through my textbook and retain information. My whole life I was always afraid of forgetting everything because I had poisoned myself so much that I didn’t expect to be able to remember. I started my diary that is now my book because I didn’t want to forget. I am constantly putting things into my schedule like when I should wash my makeup brushes and check my credit report – which started because I thought I would just forget. But it turns out that my memory is great, and that having things in my schedule actually just makes me feel more accomplished and in semi-control of my life.

I can’t believe my brain even works after all the damage I caused. I often feel so broken that I am not sure I will ever feel whole – but then there is moments like this where I have to remember what things were actually like before this stage of my life. 

I was blessed to be given not only a second chance at life, but to be given it with a mostly clear mind. I know what I have to do to stay on the right path, and that path is filled with all the good and right things in this world. 

Do the right thing. Always do the right thing and life seems to unfold so perfect and beautiful.

I am free.

Every since that phonecall from my daughter two nights ago, I have felt like I am on a cloud. I feel like all the broken pieces that lived inside of me for so long, have been somehow glued back together. 

Every piece of doubt that I created inside of my own head, started to slip away from the first minute of that conversation and for the 40 minutes following everything started to make sense.

The universe and the timing of everything that has happened to me and will continue to happen suddenly just makes sense. I have found my faith and trust in the direction that my life is going in.

I am no longer feeling bitter and angry about the broken pieces of the past. I feel whole.

I feel so much right now that it’s a little bit exhausting. Like that grief that I had been hanging onto for so long, is starting to become something else. It’s changing. It was so heavy that somedays I felt like it was drowning me.

How can I be expected to swim such lengths when deep down I feel like I am drowning? Just tread water. They say, but it’s not so easy when the weight of your mistakes weighs so heavy on your shoulders every day.

The only person that was making me feel guilt about my past – was me. But that guilt lived so deep inside of me. My truth was killing me and I know that there was a solution to that guilt and grief.

The first step was to write about it. So I did. I started blogging and I published my book. The second step I had been waiting for for almost 16 years and that was to hear from my daughter, on her own terms.

I feel so whole. I can’t even say again because I have never felt this way in my entire life.
I am free.

Thank you for calling.

I want to think that I am healing, but often times I feel that I am not. If there is something happening that I don’t want to face – I will drown it by having a bath or going to sleep.

So last night that’s what I was doing. It started because I was just generally upset and emotional but it turned out that I received a thank you note from my daughter for her Christmas gifts. I opened and closed it so many times, re-reading her beautiful cursive hand writing. I was so happy to recieve that little card, but as soon as I saw it I started crying. I ran inside and I didn’t want to have to feel anything other than happiness for the sheer fact that she sent me a thank you note. But it hurt, because I was reading into every curve of her handwriting like I was forensically analyzing it. Why did she not write more? I need more. This is too much.

So I went and hid in the bathtub for as long as possible. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to eat. I didn’t want to do anything – but just nothing at all. When I got out of the bath I went straight to bed and took my nighttime medication. My boyfriend was busy reading comics with his daughter before bed and that was okay with me – because I didn’t want to talk anyways.

I sat in bed with my iPad and my phone in front of me. Switching back and forth between the two of them. I remember not doing anything for a moment when it was like the universe just shifted. My phone started ringing as it was laying on the bed. I recognized the name, and the ringtone I had never heard – because I had only ever called this number. But it had its own special ringtone. It was a robot informing me that my daughter was calling. 

It was ringing and I just stared at it because I didn’t think it would be her on the other end. But it was. My daughter called me for the first time ever and we talked for 40 minutes. Everything changed inside of me because of that phonecall. 

I feel so new. I am so thankful for her allowing me to be a part of her life – even if it was only for 40 minutes. 

Last night I received the only gift I had ever truly wished for, for Christmas or my birthday, for the last 15 years. That was to talk to my daughter.

Thank you for calling.

Who am I.

I am starving but I don’t want to eat right now. I can’t stop myself from crying. I feel so crazy.

Today I did my first 7 hour shift and I don’t even remember the last time I did an 7 hour shift anywhere. It may have been in the mid 2000’s.

I feel so confused about who I am. Who am I? No seriously, who am I?

Today I hid my true self. I tried practicing active listening. But I was nobody.

I am nobody without my past. Without my story I don’t even know how to function an entire day in the general public. How am I supposed to connect with people – if it’s not on a united front. Today was really difficult for me, because I have no idea who I am.

Everytime I connect with anyone in every aspect of my life, I consist so much of my past. Who am I without my past? I feel like I am breaking right now. I don’t know who I am.

I have no idea who Lesandra is and today confirmed that in my mind. How am I to help people if I can’t show them who my true self is? I am so confused right now.

I feel like I’m walking in circles. I am so hungry, but I can’t eat because I am too upset. I am sitting in the bath because it seems like it’s the right place to be because I don’t know who I am.

I am stuck on repeat. Who am I? So hungry. So confused. So lost.

Who am I, if I am not my past?