Sleep Is For The Weak!

“You need sleep.” They all say it. The Doctor, The Guru, The Better Half.

YES I KNOW. I KNOW I NEED TO BLOODY SLEEP!

I am fully aware of the fact that if I am too high to sleep it makes it worse, but It’s just not that EASY to sleep. I mean it’s not like I don’t try. Apparently according to regular people all you have to do is lie down and sleep comes. *poof* Just like that.

The guru actually said in our last session she simply can’t understand how people can go without sleep. I told her to go do a line of coke and then try – it’s a fairly accurate comparison, so I’m told.

You see, a couple of things happen to me when I’m hypo/manic and lie down to go to sleep:

1.       A beat that has been playing quietly in the back of my mind all day decides it’s quiet enough around the place and it must be karaoke time. The tune rises and comes forth with great gusto, unrelenting until I give in to the urge, slip in my earphones and play it. At least once, sometimes 20 times…

2.       I can’t turn off my thoughts. Now these aren’t life changing thoughts or worries at all, they are really fleeting random things or images which lead off into other silly things or images or notions with lead on again and so forth, eventually one of these gets the better of me and I have to write it down immediately, google it or act on it.

3.       I get irritated REALLY easily when I’m trying to stay still. My head is usually 100 miles an hour and so trying to stop thinking/ jittering usually just pisses me off, the sheets make me itchy, The Better Half snoring grates me (even more than usual), I hear the kangaroos creeping around the garden, undoubtedly eating more of my petunias and that really pisses me off.

4.       I need to pee.

5.       I need a drink.

6.       I NEED to clean the linen cupboard/ unstack the dishwasher /sort out the photo album from 1997.

7.       I start writing that biography in my head again.

8.       I finally think of an awesome tune to go with those lyrics I wrote in 2003 and HAVE to go and nut it out on the guitar before I forget it again.

9.       I think of a BRILLIANT product idea, think of a name, create a Facebook page, Gmail account, web address and blog site even though the chance of me ever looking at any of them again is slim to none, even if I do remember the password...

10.   I figure out how to save the government millions of dollars by doing something that will take 20 committees 5 years to consider thinking about but start drafting a proposal to send to a ministers department somewhere anyway.

Basically it simply boils down to IM JUST NOT FUCKING TIRED. OK?

I do understand that people who are not on a natural speed like high must find this inability to sleep difficult. Hell when I’m depressed I have trouble NOT sleeping, my mind runs on turtle speed and I will quite happily stay in bed for… well until I am manic again.

Meanwhile Its 2:30am (again) the coffee table is dusty, I need a “to do” list for tomorrow, I need to write a shopping list for the school fundraiser and that spare room could sure use a tidy up…

 

Today

When I decided to write this blog, I had it in my mind that it would be a combination of narrative therapy, inspiration, education and eventually maybe something to live for. I have written blogs before, they have waxed and waned with my moods and sometimes given me a chance to explore and explain who I really am, but I have never been able to be truly honest. Until now.

I have discovered the need to vent, to say what your heart is thinking, it helps you survive. Unfortunately you can't always tell these things to the people you care about and you especially can't tell the people who care about you.

When your best friend and husband look you in they eye and ask how you are, and you simply fake a smile and say 'fine.' I mean, how can you possibly say to them that all you can really think about is how when and where to die?

How can you say how desperately hard it is to simply breath and exist in a world that you feel so isolated from, even though you are surrounded by people who love you and there is no reasonable reason to even be sad?

You can't.

So, instead I will tell the world, whine to you all out there how fucking awful it feels to have no control over your emotional self and how hard it is to even care enough to want to any more.

Today, I spent the day semi- paralytic in bed while my friends and family had a fun filled barbeque in my house without me. A day I had been planning and looking forward to for a week. Instead I spoke to nobody drifting in and out of consciousness, the guilty aftermath of a semi-intentional drug overdose.

 I wasn't trying to kill myself, I just wanted to sleep, NEEDED to sleep. So I took too many pills.

I told them I had a migraine and vertigo, passed it off as heat stroke from spending too much time in the sun the previous day.

They believed me.

After the nausea, dizziness and hallucinations finally dissipated at around 8pm this evening, my brain was unfortunately still completely wired and so I calmly took my meds again, and chose to simply double the dose instead of times it by 5 this time. I clearly don't learn. But alas, apart from some marginal nausea again and the vision in my right eye not being quite right its now 2am my brain is in overdrive and I'm not sleeping but sitting at the computer, still not even remotely tired.

A large part of me wants to go and swallow the rest of the bottle, a hundred or so tablets. Then I can sleep, and I never, ever have to wake up. A thought that fills me with such a sense of calm clarity that it takes every ounce of will power not to do it.

Tomorrow I have to go and see my psychologist (aka 'The Guru') and then I am expected to turn up at work, another normal day in paradise. I'm sick of lying to everyone, but I can't tell the truth either.

This, is fucked.

Hello

Well this is my first post and as you may have guessed by the title, I am yet another one of those manic depressive types they all warn you about. I am an Aussie chick, married with kids and this blog is going to be a candid and sometimes very confronting look into my life with Bipolar Disorder.

I have to assume you are reading this because you either have bipolar disorder, know someone with bipolar disorder, are worried you may have bipolar disorder, you are studying psychology or you are just very, very bored and this is what your random google search spat out today.

This is going to be a sacred place where I will write the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth (including the stuff I cant tell my shrink about). I will share with you random stories about my life including my highest highs and my lowest lows and the stupid and some times not so legal things I get up to and often regret later. I warn you in advance that the content may be upsetting or triggering to some people, if you don't think you can handle it, please don't read it.

*mandatory disclaimer* I am NOT a health care professional (no matter how much I may think I am when I'm hypomanic) and any advice I dish out is purely my own opinion and to be taken as such.

If you are currently feeling suicidal PLEASE stop reading my blog right now as some posts may be triggering. Instead go to THIS page where you can find some contact details for services in your area that CAN help you (Don't roll your eyes, just click the link!)