Don't fret.

That last one was intense wasn't it? I don't really want to apologize for it though. It is sort of like a backstage pass to what happens inside my head at breaking point. I don't break. I rant and I rave and I hate and so and scream, but I don't break. I write it out. And at the end there, when I said that I exhaled, it is exactly how I felt. It is like all of this pain builds up and has nowhere to go until I just let myself go, let myself feel, and then cry, and then hate, and then cry a lot more, and then it just... goes. And I can breathe again. Then I look back at what I have written and I am reminded that I overcame that. I did that. I was strong enough to do that yet again, and it assures me that I will be strong enough next time as well. It helps.

I am bipolar, this is my life. I am on medication and it helps immensely. Without it I am just a shell, a capsule of pain and I am good at nothing but hurting. Sure I am not exactly awesome now, while on the medications, but I can function. I can go to school, I can make friends, I can have a boyfriend and go to work and graduate from college. I can do what all of you can despite the way that I am wired. The only way to make the "lows" (what you witnessed last night and what I had been feeling all week) go away is to hop myself up on so many mood stabilizers, anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds that I am no longer myself. So I make the trade.

The lows seep in, I always feel them coming, there are tell tale signs: I can't get out of bed in the morning and even after I have woken, showered and dressed, I crawl right back into bed again; I don't want to go out and see people, talk to people; I don't want to eat, it takes too much effort; and I am sad... for no real sane reason. The depression just seeps into my bones and it is nearly impossible to ward off because there is no real tangible cause. How do you fight an invisible demon? How do you defend yourself against an enemy who isn't even there? You don't. You can't. And that only makes it worse, because then I feel crazy for being depressed for no reason, and then I get depressed because I am crazy and on and on and on until it all comes to a head and THERE. There you have last night's post. It all pours out, all of that oozing, sad, depressing evil, it all just slips away, the grip around my throat, around my heart, loosens; the haze in my mind dissipates; and I am me again. And I smile even though tears still cling to my lashes; I smile because I did it again. I conquered it again. I was strong. I am strong. Sometimes you just need to let yourself break down for a few moments for that realization to kick in.

What a waste

I have been depressed all week. No real reason, with me there never really has to be one. Bipolar. Awesome. Roller coaster in my head. I have been going to the gym and it helps, makes me feel good and energized. But then, at night when it is time for me to lie alone and go to sleep, I have to take at least 4 pills just to shut my head off. Is there no winning? I didn't go to the gym. I wanted to but knew that my body needed a rest. My shins and arms and back were screaming, not going to the gym for a year and then going 3 days in a row can do that to you I suppose. So I didn't get that boost. So I went to Meijer and bought 2 bottles of champagne instead. This is not entirely a bad idea, sure drinking isn't the answer blah blah blah, but when I am boozed up, when I am sad, I can write. Look at me, look at me write. I didn't always want to be a writer you know. It is just that my teachers all said I was so good at it, and it always made me feel better when I felt sad. So I thought, why not? What have I always wanted to do? To be? Since I was itty bitty. I want to act. I want to act and I know I can. But what kind of job is that? Hell, what kind of job is writing? What a waste I am. This is less of an addition to my "book" and more of a depressed/my life fucking sucks rant. Sometimes you just have to rant you know? Hold on, gotta go refill my wine glass.

Strawberry flavored $4 champagne. Yum.

So I was thinking that I would get on here all depressed and on the way to drunk and write something phenomenal. Nothing phenomenal is coming to mind. Maybe I need to be depressed sans drunk for that. I'm not all that depressed anymore actually, more apathetic, hurrah for self medicating! I just miss Jessie. Surprise surfrickenprise. And now I want to cry. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her and I want to say that over and over and over again until it is true because then I won't miss her so much. Loving her hurts so much more. She broke me. She completely shattered me, she took me with her. I've never been like everyone else, and everyone who really knew me knew that, but I was okay. I got by. Dr. Stern, my psychiatrist, even said that Jessie was the trigger to this mental fuckfest in my head. I had real dreams, solid dreams, ones that I could touch. Now? Now everything terrifies me, the future most of all. It is so fucked you know? Most people fear death right? That is pretty much the one thing that I don't fear. I fear the future, I fear getting hurt, I fear growing up, I fear feeling. Death? Whatever, it can do what it wants with me. You would think that that would give me an edge, laughing in the face of death right? Nah, to afraid to laugh most of the time.

I am saying fuck a lot in this, sorry Grandpa, sometimes you just have to curse.

You all know about Mom and Dad now. I could probably go into something deep as far as that goes but I just decided not to. You are welcome parents.

Fuck. When she first died the pain was almost constant. Then, within about a day, it started coming in waves, every few hours or so the wave would hit and drag me under and claw at me and rob me of breath and leave me wanting to die too. Then it would pass and I would be able to function again... until the next wave hit. Then the waves started coming days apart, then weeks, now months... Do they ever completely go away? This is the first real bad episode I have had in months. I am not sure if I am grateful for that. At least when those waves hit me over and over again I remembered her over and over again. Now she lives in the back of my head, crouched in a dark corner somewhere amongst the murky water, rocky walls, darkness... waiting. I stuck her in a box, she deserved it, she deserved to be shoved in a fucking mental box and crammed into a dark corner. I don't want to think about her, I don't want to miss her, I just want to be normal. NORMAL. Amanda escaped the worst of it, and Amanda, if you are reading, I am not belittling your pain or you or your experience, she wasn't right here, right in the middle, she was already growing and making her own life, carving out her own place in the world. Me? I was still a hunk of unmolded clay and Jessie's suicide punched a hole right through me. I was only 16. 16. I was just a baby. I though that I was so grown up then but I was just a kid, I was still a kid and she took that from me and it isn't fair because now I don't know where I am. Part of me still feels 16, another part feels 100. I am all over the place, shattered all over the place, broken all over the place.

I am graduating in the spring. Congratulations me. Go me. Now what? Now I keep on pretending, Keep on trying to be what everyone says I should be, do what everyone says I should do. Keep on going, growing, surviving, treading water when I would really rather just sink. I would rather just sink. I would rather just sink. sink. sink.

And that is that. Exhale. Breathe. Breathe again Dani. And I breathe. And Jessie is back in her box and I am back in my mold and life goes on. No more crying,I dry my eyes for the final time tonight because I know that it is over. For now.

Cheers.