this is the recurring drama of my life

 today's flavor: BASELINE
anxiety : 0
agitation : 0

 
A mental filter installs itself  during depressive episodes. It really depends on how bad the depression is, but we bipolars tend to color things really bad during the gloomy days.

For example.  An ordinary nicety, such as:

 

... would morph into an innuendo ...

and therefore ...

 

I rarely ever say it our loud, but I think it.  This is probably the reason why I don't - or rather, won't - often purse deeper friendships with most people. Because the way they said hello seemed to me like a masked insult.

Then come murderous intentions.  The murders immediately turn inward ...

Thus begin my suicidal ruminations.

 

Here's another recurring scenario in my life:

Someone says to me, "Oh hey, you're here!"

I would think it was meant to say, "What are you doing here?"

And then, "You aren't wanted here".
"You should leave."

And I'd think, I shouldn't be here.

I want to die.

I should kill myself.

I'm not kidding.  I'm not even exaggerating.  I may have skipped a few steps in-between, but that's the thought process.  It may be too absurd to believe, but every bipolar would know what I'm talking about and agree.

It often if not always ends up with "I should kill myself" or its different variations.

This week, I had that sort of mental drama.  A day or two after I posted the last entry (in which I was at baseline), I started drifting into sadness.  I tried to fight it of course.  But it just so happened that someone said something to me that I didn't take so well .  It was a harmless response to a statement I said, but I interpreted it as a rejection.  I didn't have the presence of mind to react to it, so I stuffed it down until I headed home, and when I got to our bedroom I was paranoid and distraught over the imagined implications.

The following day, I was paranoid.  I was in bad shape -- but I had a lot of work to do, so I yanked myself together to function.  I needed to take breaks to cry - nay, bawl - because I was so disturbed about something that wasn't said.  The interesting bit is that I logically knew that there wasn't any malice in the aforementioned remark, but I was emotionally unable to process it any other way but as a rejection.  I was pathetic. 

My thoughts had turned spiteful, and I knew it was an overreaction. But I also knew I had to wait it out.  There was no point in confrontation over something I was certain didn't really happen.  I knew it was my own problem, and making a fuss about it would only make it worse.  The most amicable solution is really to wait it out, and then interact positively when I see the concerned persons again.  Play nice.  Choose love, joy, peace and happy things.

So yeah, I waited out the cycle. And today I saw the persons concerned again, and confirmed that it was no big deal.  Really no malice, no rejection of any sort intended.  It was all in my head.  And now I feel I'm the idiot -  again - to have been the malicious one.  Such a sap.

That's just the pattern.  It happens. It will happen again.  It sucks, but that's my life.  I just have to cope with it.

I took my yellow pill today, by the way.

indigo daze

today's flavor: D E E P  ( I S H )  D E P R E S S I O N
anxiety : 4
agitation : 3

See how crazily rapid I cycle.  Just a few days ago I was at baseline, cheery and anxiety-free.  Today I'm in the depths of dejection. Weeping has graduated to howling, and I can't blame the Benadryl since I hadn't taken it.  I don't simply wish to die anymore; between wails I found myself  assuring myself that I can slice my jugular open quickly and all will be over briefly.  I came close to building the resolve to do it.  But of course I didn't do it.  Obviously.

And I'd like to thank my husband for stowing away my craft knives.  I love you Babe, you always do whatever it takes to keep me from acting out my suicidal fantasies. 
And whoever misplaced the kitchen whetstone, thank you, that our knives can't even slice tomatoes. 
And thank you, kitchen knives - though you frustrate me when I prepare food, I appreciate your uselessness at times like these when I want to use you on my throat.

The past few days have been horrible.  Pramis.  The worst was Friday.  I cognitively knew I was nowhere near rock-bottom, but I sure felt like life had nothing good for me any further.   Until today, I can't even bother to think about betterment.  Because I really can't -- i.e., I am unable to muster enough mental energy needed to think positive.  I can't do this anymore is once again my automatic mantra.  Tomorrow, if I still feel indigo (that is, darker than blue), I shall take a happy yellow pill and hope that it helps.

Waking up this morning was unbearable, but I had to pick myself up, paste on a smile that says "I'm hunky-dory" and wear a guise of functionality. Because that's what smart bipolars should do if they want to stay human.

That's not being artificial.  It's appropriate to be presentable when having to face other people.  My love is real, and my joyful expectation for others besides myself is real; it's just that I have to wear a face that does not coincide with how I feel about ME. 




It's a tiring ordeal, constantly putting on a perception filter.  But it's necessary, so as to keep a more-or-less decent personal image, and so as to protect people's judgment-prone hearts from judging me. If I showed everyone how f***ed up I really feel inside, it will detonate the chance of gaining new friends. And I really want / need new friends.  I can't afford to blow it, considering that:

my confuddled self-esteem
my uninteresting non-rockstar lifestyle
my loud mouth and intimidating personality
my abject selfishness like everyone else's 
+ my bungee jumping catapulting moods  

----------------------------------------------------

= the least desirable option for anybody's BFF
(or plain F, for that matter)

I'm pathetic, dammit. I'm not very likable, so I have to compensate somehow.

Not that I feel the urge to change myself to kiss asses, but I do have a hunger to connect with worthwhile individuals, and it pays to be perceived as somewhat pleasant. 

New friends are sweet.  I want new friends.  Lord, I need new friends, I hunger for them, especially since a lot of the old ones have gotten moldy and sour.  Eventually I'd like for my new friends to become trusted friends, so I can have a safe place to disclose the mystery that is me, and be honest about it, and not feel judged for being so carnal, particularly during indigo seasons like the one I'm in now.

vincent

 today's flavor: B A S E L I N E
anxiety : 0
agitation : 0
No Benadryl Haze today, thank you, God! 

Over the recent holidays, I marathonned a lot of TV series DVDs, one of which was Doctor Who (2005).  In the fifth season, the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond encounter the artist Vincent Van Gogh.  I realize of course that the producers of Doctor Who value entertainment over accuracy and consistency, so I just switched off the nitpicker in me. 

The first Doctor and companion, painted in the style of Van Gogh.
Image from here.

Nonetheless, watching the Vincent and the Doctor episode reminded me that I had long ago intended to make a post on Van Gogh, and that I might as well do it now. 


Vincent Van Gogh would probably be at the top of people's minds when you ask them to name some of the best painters in history.  Art critics would bullshit about his use of color and texture and expression of emotion and blah, and his unique style and yadda.  Art historians would contrast his acclaim with the fact that he was the archetypal starving, struggling artist.   As it was highlighted - and exaggerated - in Doctor Who S5E10,  Van Gogh's talent was hardly appreciated during his time, and his work was considered rubbish.

That's the sad part about genius, we've been told by history:  it's not uncommon to be celebrated after you're gone.

Van Gogh self-portrait.
Image from here.

Van Gogh was bipolar (and a lot of other things).  Together with his talent, he had horrible mood swings, hallucinations and peculiar habits. I understand why people around him didn't recognize him as a genius.  He was dismissed as a nutcase, and even an idiot.  Some people who didn't know him so well found him unpleasant and disagreeable, but he did have a few good friends who liked him in spite of his weaknesses.

[ Just an interjection: I get why he felt the need to cut off his ear.  I want to do it too sometimes.  Auditory.  Hallucinations. ]

His biography tells us that before pursuing painting, he had trained for ministry.  Though he was passionate about it, he was deemed unfit by religious ethics-police and the doors of destiny were shut in his face. He turned to the only other thing he could do, and he was told he wasn't good at it either. From his own perspective, he would've seemed like a big, fat ginger loser - and that likely just worsened his emotional instability.

He produced his best works in a highly agitated elevated episode that spanned several months, one that followed a deep depression.  After this period of the greatest creativity and productivity, his high began to descend, and then he killed himself.
 

Sure, it was tragic that he was so mentally disturbed.  But I'm pretty certain his art would not have been so intense, and his life-story would not be so interesting if he were not bipolar. 

The more romantically-inclined would say something like he "turned pain into beauty".  No one can be entirely sure of course if Vincent intentionally took his pain and translated it into beautiful images.  What we do know is that pain and beauty coincided in the same unquiet mind.

feeding the pigeons

today's flavor: MODERATE DEPRESSION
anxiety : 1
agitation : 3
today's unwanted guest: migraines and fatigue 


I type with a strident headache somewhere above my right eye.

I am once again at that place in which what I desire most is death. Engaging in any sort of activity seems pointless.  I wouldn't have gotten out of bed today if my dad didn't need me to fill out some forms for him.  I don't even feel like eating. I eat only when I'm terribly hungry.

Things look dull and dim.  Screw my dreams. Death seems friendlier than Dream right now.

Image from DC Comics.
Characters created by Neil Gaiman.

I don't see the purpose of exerting any effort to improve the quality of life.  I only want to get out of it.

deflation

today's flavor: S L I G H T D E P R E S S I O N
anxiety : 1 
agitation : 1
today's unwanted guests: suicidal thawts 

I received some disheartening news and the rest of my year was suddenly deflated.  I began thinking about drinking every bottled liquid on my dressing table - the hand sanitizer, the astringent, every cologne and fancy perfume.  I imagined they would taste hellish in my mouth but that wouldn't matter for long.

Don't worry. I'm depressed but I won't really do it.

It would be easy to, though.  All I need to do is hold my breath, swallow continuously and hope  I don't gag.

Months ago the Hubby hid my craft knives and my knitting needles after I told him I ruminated on puncturing my jugular vein with any of the said sharps.  I still don't know where they are.

Let me explain that a bit:  death wish + suicide plot + accessibility of necessary tools = need for suicide watch; i.e., I must not be taken lightly and whatever I intended to use to kill myself must be hidden away (Something useful learned from the old mentor).

But dammit, even if the tools were made inaccessible, the depressed death wish combined with my innate creativity always finds other things to jam up my jugular, other ways to kill myself.  If I couldn't find my craft knives, I could always break the desk mirror and use the shards, a la Charlize Theron's character in The Devil's Advocate. If I was worried about not following through due to wincing from the pain, there was the option of drinking possibly poisonous liquids.

Don't worry.  I'm not really going to do it.

saddy-coated smiley

today's weather: S L I G H T D Y S P H O R I A
anxiety : 1
agitation : 1

Actually, I think this is supposed to be an elevation.

Yes, I'm currently in an elevation.

Thoughts a-rushing like a mad waterfall, neon-glowing inspiration, elusive sleep. I laugh a lot though I feel very agitated. Best of all, I have genuinely happy thoughts and a constant smile.

The thing is, all that laughter and my constant smile is mostly on the inside. No one else can see it, but it's there, I swear. I've just been having some difficulty getting my physical body to say "I'm happy and I know it", so I kinda look like I'm all saddy instead of smiley.

Here's why: I'm currently on a nightly dose of Pregabalin, and Cetirizine Hydrochloride. The Pregabalin was prescribed by a rheumatologist for the impinged nerve/s in my hand/s. The Cetirizine is for my allergies; my rashes made a comeback and I'd prefer not to have them around. I chose not to take any drugs in the morning anymore (as per rheumatologist's suggestion) because they cause drowsiness and just drown me of energy. I mean drain me of energy. Not drown.

But since I'm actually in an elevation, I have just enough energy to go through the day despite the drowsiness. I'm just lethargic, but I can afford the strength to resist going back to bed, and my mind is (semi) sharp (at least sharp enough to watch science documentaries and remember most of it). Besides, I've written myself lengthy to-do lists, I don't want to waste time in a horizontal position.

So yeah, this is actually an elevation that has been tapered by sleepy side effects similar to the traits of a depression, so it is in effect a mixed episode.

But believe or not - as drowsy as the meds make me, I still can't freaking sleep. At most I can take several intermittent naps at night. No matter how tired I make myself in the day, the depths of sleep elude me; all I can do is swim over the surface.

It's possible of course that the sleep-loss is partially due to the discomfort caused by wrist guards. Sheesh, I have to sleep with wrist-guards now, on both hands, until they heal up. Good thing Dr. Rheumatologist didn't tell me to wear them the whole day. I still have to take the Pregabalin for around three months, so I suppose that's how long I still have to wear those wrist guards.

Speaking of the Pregabalin -- I did my own research and discovered its other side effects (Notice how doctors give prescriptions without mentioning the possible side effects?). After reading on Pregabalin's description and indication and so on, I get sucker-punched by a paragraph that starts with "You may have suicidal thoughts while on this drug". Oh, great. "You may suffer from depression".

Since I already have suicidal thoughts even without the drug, does that mean I'll have them more frequently and/or more intensely? I haven't noticed a difference yet. I should have told the rheumatologist I'm bipolar. But I didn't, because I didn't think it mattered. Darn.

But aside from the suicide note I began to mentally compose the other day, I think I'm okay. Well, I'll give the doc a call if things get worse. Tsk. But so far so good.

Unlikable

today's weather: B A S E L I N E ... or so I thought.
anxiety : 2
agitation : 0


"How have you been?", I was asked earlier. Was the guy just doing small talk to fill the empty air or did he expect a real answer? I can't just say "Well, I've been in a depressive episode and I thought about shooting myself in the head or jamming a stake down my jugular several times for days on end", can I? Even if it's true, it just never is appropriate.

---------------------

About two hours ago, the Hubby and I arrived from a meeting of sorts which involved some social interaction with people we've just met. The first hour home, I spent it soup-headed and slumped on the floor.

As soon as I entered the bedroom, whatever psychological energy I used to hold myself up gave way when I no longer needed to appear in front of other people. I wasn't feeling much social anxiety earlier, but I suddenly felt shockwaves when the Hubby and I were finally alone.

I always feel this way when I come home from interacting with people I am not so accustomed to. When I reach home I go too far into my head and drown an otherwise lovely evening in messy, self-deprecating rumination. I obsess about the probability of having offended someone. I review scenes and conversations in my head and reinterpret them in several different ways. I know I often come on too strong and may be too annoying / intimidating / insulting for some people's tastes, and there is the possibility of having been unbearably unlikeable. The truth is, I don't quite know how to act. My social awkwardness can get misconstrued as bitchiness. I'd feel like I've done something wrong and get disturbed by remorse over things I'm not sure of. I turn myself into my own judge and jury and I rule guilty without any solid evidence.

Why the heck do I do this to myself? Stupid question. There is no why. I just end up doing it.

Perhaps I talked too loud. Perhaps I said too much. Perhaps I jumped unwelcome into a conversation. Perhaps my phraseology was too abrasive. Perhaps my opinions were too strong and were not wanted anyway. Perhaps people think I'm a total asshole and hope never to see me again. Perhaps I'm a genuine idiot who deserves to be shot.

And I kept calling myself that - an idiot - while I lied crumpled on the floor. The Hubby tried to boost my spirit but nothing was working. Eventually he just told my to switch my mind off. That'll have to do for now.

I just think too much, defective model that I am. I hope to get some real peace as I consult my Manufacturer tonight.

chatty chatter that makes the monophobia more monophobic

today's weather: S L I G H T D E P R E S S I O N
anxiety : 1
agitation : 1

I've had to rely on the happy yellow pills to function. They give me a bit of energy. Not too much; just enough to haul myself out of bed and get through the day.

I told the Hubby about the extermination rumination. He hid my craft-knife just to make sure I don't carry anything out. He knows he shouldn't not take it seriously.

I have another one in the art supplies box. A craft-knife, I mean. And a few cutters in the desk drawer.

But like I said previously, I'm not really going to do it. Slitting wrists is for teenagers; I'm neither emo nor cliche.

So I'm going for a stab to the jugular.

Kidding!

Like I said previously, I'm not really going to do it.

On another note, i think the happy yellow pills are side-effecting. I've been warned they're not supposed to be for bipolars, but I need uppers, so spank me.

I think they're making the imaginary chatter more chatty. The imaginary chatter has been getting chattier lately, I thought maybe the happy yellow pills have something to do with that. The chattier is getting chattier, making my monophobia more monophobic. I've been projecting slides in my head about cutting my ear off, wondering if that would make things a bit quieter.

Oh! -- So that's probably why Van Gogh did it. Cut his ear off, I mean. The souvenir bit could've just been a latter addendum.

Maybe it's time to return to the Lithium. :(

The Positivity Sublimation

today's weather: S L I G H T D E P R E S S I O N
anxiety : 1
agitation : 1

I have no idea if this has anything to do with the half-bag of Cheetos I consumed yesterday, or if this is all purely chemical.

I know I'm depressed today and not just sad, mainly because there's nothing to be really sad about. I know it's a depression because my energy is low, my mind is hazy, and I'm feeling quite anxious and agitated.

No fair. :( I was just getting the hang of the recent upswing.

This morning I had trouble getting out of bed again; not only was I feeling fatigued but I had a severe difficulty in finding a reason to get up.

I noticed the descent last night as I went to bed. For one thing, I felt exhausted and wanted to sleep earlier than I usually do. Indication of low energy. For another, I noticed I kept saying the words I'm tired and I don't want this anymore. I realized those are my usual depression reflex mantras. The contentment I had been feeling until the other day was fading.

I felt like I was enveloped by a heavy shroud of hopelessness. I had all of a sudden lost my purpose to live again - I know I had it just a couple of weeks ago, strong and clear. I searched my mind for it as I waited for sleep to overtake me, and found it, but it was all watered down and irrelevant. The yell of fervor in my heart at the beginning of the year had been muffled into a mousy whimper.

Darn this.

There was another obvious sign last night. I entertained the thought of slitting my jugular vein with my craft blade. I savored the idea, swished it around, let its various flavors seep in. I had just enough leftover manic courage from the previous elevation, and just enough decrease in wonder and hope due to the incoming depression. I felt like I could actually do it.

The pen-blade sat in a basket under my purse on the shelf, just a few steps away. I mulled over doing it in the morning. I would be alone with the rabbits, I think I should feed them first. I'd wear either my favorite red dress, or the lacy white one, for effect. I'd do it on the bed, feet toward the headboard. Depending on the angle of the blade, I might make a spatter on the bed or the nearby wall, like the effect in that scene in Akira Kurosawa's Ran. It would hurt, but I hope it would be quick. I wonder if the rabbits would notice. I wonder what the Hubby would do when he found me.

But I apparently didn't do it; I'm still alive right now.

Don't worry about me, I'm not really going to do it.

teenage death wish

today's weather: B A S E L I N E
anxiety : 0 | agitation : o
today's unwanted guest: the Benadryl haze

Since last week when somebody confided in me about how she wanted to have an abortion, the subject has been on my mind. I came to recalling all we were taught about it (rather, against it) in those years I went to a strictly Catholic private high school. To this day, I am personally against abortion - I have never had one, and will never have one - but I don't go around picketing or trolling pro-choicers. But I'm not exactly pro-life either. You'll get what I mean in a while.

So. Catholic high school. Since our freshman year, we were taught sex education on a foundation of morality and ethics. It was so ethical that our teachers refused to entertain questions that used slang terms - so we never did hear what Mrs. Dizon thought about finger f***ing. In tandem with our "religious sex ed", we were made to watch a very graphic documentary on the evils of abortion. Very graphic. Indelible. As an extra-curricular activity, our advisers dragged us to an anti-abortion rally outside our school, bearing the heat and smoke just to be ignored by most of those who drove by. Our little rally made it to the front page of a minor newspaper by the way; to our dismay our school's name was grossly misspelled.

Aside from "a fetus is a human being", and "no one but God has the right to take away life," I often heard the argument "it is unfair / unjust to an innocent unborn baby," and "everyone deserves to live". There is even the good old argumentum ad misericordiam, "What if your mother decided not to keep you?".

But even as a teenager, I managed to find something fallacious with the whole anti-abortion argument. I did not disagree that a fetus is human, or that abortion is murder. But I just had some controversial ideas that I knew my teachers and classmates would stone me for, so I mostly kept my musings to myself.

One of those ideas was a defense against the "unfair / unjust" argument. I strongly believed that it was more unfair and unjust to keep a child alive without being able to provide a good life for him. For example, I believe a self-absorbed teenage crackwhore would do wiser by terminating the life of her baby than to let it live retarded, unwanted, fatherless, hungry, underpriviledged and so on. In extreme instances like those, I believed that killing a fetus would be an act of mercy toward it; it would be better to just send it straight to Heaven.

I'm one of those positivists who believe unborn children go to Heaven, by the way. There's no definite scripture on it, but I just keep thiking about the nature of God. In second grade in Catholic school , were taught that unborn babies go to a state called Limbo, which was somewhere around the neighborhood of Purgatory. It was our Language teacher who taught us that (that's how it is in Catholic schools: every subject is a religion subject, every teacher is a religion teacher) - the same teacher who attempted to scare us into being good girls by telling a detailed story of how naughty kids get dragged to Hell by their feet. Years later when I was a high school sophomore, I had a problem with the whole concept of Limbo and Purgatory when we learned in Chursh History that those places were just assumed and capitalized on with the sale of indulgences. When I was indoctrinated in Evangelical Christianity, I got this notion that the unborn went to Hell because "only people who receive Jesus as Lord and savior will be saved". Of course that whole idea is inconsistent with a loving God. But that's just my opinion. I stick with the belief that babies who die go to Heaven.

Anyway.

"What if your mother decided not to keep you?", we have been asked rhetorically in those anti-abortion seminars as an atempt to create an emotional impact. While most of the other girls shuddered and/or gushed at being so blessed to be alive, the touchy-feely tactics were lost on me, a fifteen year-old misfit with a death wish. Disturbed weirdo that I was, I did not consider my own life to be a blessing and preferred to have never been born. You know how unnecessarily emotive teenagers can get. I imagined it would have been better to have been snuffed out and first opened my eyes in the presence of God.

I often thought, What's the big deal about life on earth? It's squalid. Nature is deteriorating. Society is detiorirating. What's so "blessed" about being alive? I tended to think that some mothers who killed their unwanted spawn in utero were doing both themselves and their would-have-been-offspring a favor.

I remember trying to share those sentiments with friends but it just went flying past their heads. Morbid, my friends called me, not knowing that I thought of it as a very delicious compliment.

Death was a secret obsession - it wasn't mainly about suicide, but more like wishing I was never born. I was not the kind of person who obstentatiously and pretentiously dressed goth (except for fun), drank blood or slept in a coffin. I was always too cool for poseurism. My thing though, was curling up in a fetal position whenever I was alone. I heard some psychobabble interpretation that it was my body's way of trying to remember the last time I felt safe. But really, I just thought it was a compact, space-saving but comfortable way of stowing myself away.

I don't remember the last time I went on one of my fetal-pose retreats; it must have been that long ago since I got over it.

Through the years I've discovered that the best antidote against a death wish is a reason for living - a destiny, a purpose. A real solid one that only God can reveal. I don't think I'm halfway to halfway to realizing my purpose in life, but I've at least got a loose framework that invigorates me every now and then. Apparently I managed to stay alive and productive.

The first step to finding your purpose in life and realizing your destiny is to contact your Manufacturer. He can take calls about your questions and complaints too, if you have any. You might have some difficulty adjusting the settings (and there is no "restore factory settings" option by the way), but you'll get the hang of it.

Bullets

today's weather: SLIGHT DEPRESSION :(
anxiety : 1 | agitation : 1
today's special but unwanted guest: muscle pains and flu symptoms.


I admitted to myself today that for the past several days I've been obsessing about putting a bullet through my head again. I thought about it over and over several times, so I suppose I should be saying bullets, not a bullet.

My musing is as follows:
I take a shiny, metallic-ash gray pistol and hold it to my head.
I give a brave squeeze.
The round-point bullet make a neat hole in my forehead or temple.
An expression of peaceful bliss comes upon my face.
Black ink splotches roughly in the shape of ravens exit the other side of my head.
The scenery breaks up like cracks spreading across a breaking windshield, with the bullet hole as the epicenter
Repeat over.

I kinda see that going on a music video for an emo-song or a punk-pop one, with maybe the gun and the raven-shaped splotches in different colors.

Maybe I can make an animated gif.

It's not because I want to die - at least I don't think I do; life has actually been quite good these days - but because I think I'm a pathetic idiot who needs to get a life but deserves death.

settle for that for now

severe elev. | high elev. | moderate elev. | slight elev. | BASELINE | slight dep. | moderate dep. | deep dep. | severe dep. || anx: 1 | agit: 1

Another first post.

I know I'm supposed to be all gung-ho at looking forward and setting goals at this time of the year, but the truth is I just want to resign from existence altogether. Oh sure I've set a number of goals for 2010. But they're just for maintenance actually, because I have no other choice but to carry on; I have no visions of my life improving. I give up. I don't know what to do next, and I don't need more advice.

Sadly I'm not looking forward to anything this year. Things are pretty much veiled, and I don't know what to make of it. I'm living a moment at a time, finding little joys in day-to-day things and having to settle for that for now.

a practice in figures of speech

severe elev. | high elev.| moderate elev.| slight elev. || BASELINE || slight dep.| moderate dep. | deep dep. | severe dep. || anx: 0 | agit: 1


DISCLAIMER: Though the notions expressed herein seem overly sentimental (of the hopeless variety), I'm not actually that depressed. Cheers!


Chiasmus:

Rhetorical Question:
What happened in the past ten years?

Aporia:
I really can't say.

Aposiopesis + Metonymy + Personification:
What the -- ? I met with the real world and suddenly I find myself old yet unfulfilled.

Personification + Hyperbole + Correctio + Epanalepsis + Antimetabole:
The whole past decade swept by without my taking notice. Or rather -- I never took notice while the past decade swept by.

Metonymy + Hyperbole + Parenthesis + Paradox:
I slaved to work to earn (to invest in my future) but still have nothing.

Occupatio + Rhetorical Question + Synecdoche + Metalepsis + Juxtaposition + Irony + Periphrasis + Alliteration-Consonance + Parenthesis + Antisthecon + Polyptoton:
I'd hate to admit it - but I laid down my laurels - worldly wisdom, wonderments, wanton wonderlust - for this wonderful plan for my life?

Congeries:
The case renders me hopeless, trapped, despondent, devoid of will.

Tautology:
My simplicity made me foolish.

Paradox:
I changed my direction but still ended up in the same place.

Oxymoron + Anthimeria:
Insightful ignorant that I am.

Adynaton + Pleonasm + Paragoge + Periphrasis:
I can't even begin to describe how idiotically imbecillic, how sordidly wretched this is.

Anapodoton+ Metaphor + Litote + Metonymy + Polysemy + Metalepsis:
Ever the sophomore, never the graduate from the University of Life.

Metonymy + Personification + Understatement:
Responsible adulthood has overworked and underpaid me.

Onomatopoeia + Epizeuxis + Scesis Onomaton + Antanaclasis + Hyperbaton + Prosopopoeia + Synecdoche + Ellipsis + Isocolon + Alliteration-Consonance:
Tick, tick, tick, the clock over my head, ticking me off as it makes ticks on minutes gone. I detest you, clock! Why so impetuous?
I detest you, reality! You drain my youth, douse my passions and dull my dreams.

Metonymy + Personification + Alliteration-Assonance + Apocope + Zeugma:
Year after year ease into its end, I to mine.

Rhetorical Question + Metonymy + Personification:
Where the heck did the past ten years go?

The Weather Within and Without: Tropical Depression Labuyo

severe elev. | high elev.| moderate elev.| slight elev. || BASELINE || slight dep.| moderate dep. | deep dep. | severe dep. || anx: 1 | agit: 0


There really is a storm named Labuyo and it's been raining and cloudy the past few.


I've quite given up on life. I'm not about to kill myself, but I don't even want to try to live anymore. I just don't see the point. I feel like things are getting worse instead of better.

And i want to shoot all those "prophets" who said I'd be better because they thought that's what I needed to hear. There's one lady in particular that I want to maim so she wouldn't have to open her mouth in manipulation again.

I can't even get out of bed most days. I don't even want to. But I have to, because I feel like I'm turning into cured ham.

I've ditched on some stuff. Been giving the reason that I'm tired - which is only a partial truth. The entirety of it is that I'm badly depressed, I'm lonely, I'm in despair and I'm not much to be making an appearance anywhere right now.

The current living situation is making things worse. I have no idea how to better it. I just need to get away. Soon. Like now.

what's the point?

severe elevation | high elevation | moderate elevation | slight elevation | stable | slight depression | moderate depression | deep depression | severe depression || anx: 1 | agit: 0


One of the hardest things during a depression is the oppressive state of aimlessness. It's difficult enough not to have the energy or the desire to do anything; finding no reason to do anything compounds it all into a double-edged Todeswunsch*.

e.g. -

What's the point of the coping mechanisms in a crapfrak existence?
What end do I hope to accomplish from taking mind-dulling meds?
Fine, I take the Lith. So it helps me stabilize a bit. Now what?
Why should I seek a job I can't keep anyway?
What do I need the money for? What's the point of acquiring stuff I can't enjoy?
Why the heck do I have to get up i the morning?
Why do I have to watch my health? So I'm healthy - and then what?


I've always loved asking Why particularly when I'm interested in learning more.
But these days I've gone beyond Why - the banner on my mind lately has been What's the point?
I don't even see the point of knowing why anymore so I've quit asking.

Aimlessness thus begets aimlessness begets aimlessness begets aimlessness ...

Finding a good enough motivation for anything seems so impossible. I don't even see the point of staying alive.

*Death wish

seven sorry squatters in my slee-deprived mind

severe elevation | high elevation | moderate elevation | slight elevation | stable | slight depression | moderate depression | deep depression | severe depression || anx: 2 | agit: 1

I'm not sure where to start.

Fine I'll start anywhere.

1. Enter, sleepless nights, sleepless nights.

I've recently made it my (bad) habit to sleep in the morning. I hate waking up alone and would much rather wake up when the Hubby is already home from work. But I think I already mentioned that in my previous post.


2. Four-letter words are resounding in my head.

Four letter words. Like love, or Lord, or cake or juce -- what did you think?

But seriously, I'm on volatile, rub-me-the-wrong-way-and-I-will-unleash-my-arsenal-of-explicit-cusswords mode, F*ckit.

But I won't do that of course, because I am an educated, well-mannered individual capable of restraining myself from appalling behavior. Ha!

I'd really rather just avoid people right now. But that poses a dilemma ...


3. I'm disintegrating into an overwhelming sense of loneliness.

Like deathly so that I constantly crave worthwhile company and a meaningful conversation. Not sure where I can get either.


3. I realize that my mind hasn't been as sharp as it used to be ever since the last severe depressive episode.

Either that or when i started taking Lithium. Darn you, Lithium.


4. I am wading in an utter sense of nostalgia.

Has-beens and could-have-beens and should-have-beens are go!


5. I have an extreme hate for this depedency.

Dependency goes with Bipolar; in my case more so during depression. Darnit, I hate that I can't do anything or go anywhere without someone right now (there is this hauting paranoia that something wrong will happen when I am alone), and I hate even more that I can't do otherwise.


5. There were so many things i wanted to do and attend this week, but never got to.

Not to a freaking single one. See above.


6. That porn girl on Sen. Jamby Madrigal's blog has fake boobs.

They say it's Maui Taylor, but I think it doesn't look like her. Anyway, I just can't help noticing. They aren't natural.


7. I think I had a nice time at worship today.

Even though it was a bad hair bad skin day and I wanted to be invisible as plankton.


8. I keep seeing myself pulling a Pvt. Pyle.

Every few seconds, various tools. Given that my judgment and my restraint is impaired by my severe lack of sleep, I at this time feel brave and psychotic enough to actually pull it.

But I won't.

Hey. at least it isn't a Jeremy this time.


7. The color i chose for this font, when placed against my site's dark background, would make it look like something from one of those old-skool green-screen monitors. eh.

gray cookies

severe elevation | high elevation | moderate elevation | slight elevation | stable | slight depression | moderate depression | deep depression | severe depression || anx: 1, agit: 1


Down, dooby-doo down, down.
Comma, comma, down, dooby-doo down, down.

I am a slave to colorless, cookie-cuttered days.

I've reverted to waking up after noon. I like it that way - for now, at least. I actually prefer to stay in until the time the Hubby comes home from work. It saves me the energy of preparing breakfast and lunch, and spares me the agony of desolation.

And then at night i stay up as long as i can, watching or reading to keep my mind from swirling down into the murky backwaters of my distended consciousness. Just keep things surface, shallow. No delving deeply into Khazad-Dum, no discovering unwanted Balrogs. I stay up until I am definitely exhausted.

Because I just don't want to face another day.

For that matter, there are a lot of thingsssssss I don't want to do anymore.

I don't care about reading.
I don't care about making money.
I don't want to eat.
I don't want to go to sleep.
I don't want to take my meds.
I don't even want to pray.
I don't want to believe in anything.
I don't want to work on anything.
I don't care about any dreams or plans or anything of the sort.
Screw fighting for my life.

I don't see the point since I'll be pishing everything away anyway.

Every day is a bland, gray cookie cut from the boggy dough of what is supposed to be my existence, destined for the compost heap.

the illicit affair

severe elevation | high elevation | moderate elevation | slight elevation | stable | slight depression | moderate depression | deep depression | severe depression || anx: 1, agit: 1


Life is simply on maintenance mode these days. I have no desire to improve, no desire to strive or survive.

I've begun another illicit affair with Suicide - part 1,896 of my on-again-off-again romance with my heavy-handed lover. It's nothing serious yet - I mean, not this time. At least it isn't anything I can't slip away from. Just a bit of flirting here and there, obsessing in and out, escaping into his arms after midnight when my corner of the world slumbers and I have no one else to talk to.

It's nonetheless dangerous.

I wrote a poem entitled Dear Suicide some time ago, in which I personified him - er, it - as my unwanted but very welcome paramour, steamy words and authentic death wish very much included. It gave me goosebumps as i wrote and read it - the kind that feels like you are being watched by something evil and invisible, probably the way horror flick heroines feel just before they get an appendage lopped off. It felt seriously twisted thus I had second thoughts about posting it in my Humble Voice Gallery. And then, much to my regret, I lost it.

But I'm thinking of rewriting it. A more intense version this time. If I can.

wish i were

severe elevation | high elevation | moderate elevation | slight elevation | stable | slight depression | moderate depression | deep depression | severe depression || anx: 1, agit: 1


There's so much I can say about it, but I'd rather not blog about it. I just don't want to do this anymore.

As a way of coping, I slip into schizotypal mode and retreat into a unreal world where everything is pink-and-white tulips and classical guitar music. But i can only employ so much coping mechanisms. Especially when I am needed in the real world.

Oh, I hate you Real World. Screw you for not being pink-and-white tulips and classical guitar music all around.

Someone please just pick me up.

Or give me a quick, clean, painless death.

------------------------------------------------------

EDIT: Four days later.

I read this entry just now (July 16), and .... Hahahaha, that's embarassing. My pride says delete but my lack of it says just leave it alone. Idiotic whino. It looks like something a sixteen year-old would write, only without the sloP tXt spelng.

Been trying to be pleasant these past few. I just don't have enough energy for controversy. Smile like an idiot when I don't know what to say, blink like a sleepy doll when I don't know what to think, mushy up all randomly and kitten-like with the hubby when I don't know what to do.

I've actually been feeling like a zombie, you know, in a consistent state of sleepwake. I'm never really asleep, never really awake. When I am dreaming, i don't know if I am truly asleep or if I'm awake / When i get up, I don't know if I am truly awake or if I'm still dreaming... * Like Edward Norton's character in Fight Club.

I still haven't caught up on rest from the recent ordeal. I don't think I know how. Neglected my meds and my tracking, and I don't know ... wait, what was it I didn't know?

I feel like a slab of raw pork forgotten and fly-drawing on a slimy kitchen counter, sticky and slothlike in my head. I think I think like one now too.

* Lyrics from Dream, Forest for the Trees

broken glasses and crashing plates

severe elevation | high elevation | moderate elevation | slight elevation | stable | slight depression | moderate depression | deep depression | severe depression || anx: 1, agit: 2


Thanks to a series of unmanaged stressors and numerous insensitive people, I melted into a mashdown the other night throughout yesterday morning. Broken glasses and crashing plates while moaning over soapy, soiled dishes; pleas of I can't do this any more.

It seems I've shifted into a depression. Or maybe it's just nearly that insufferably despicable time of the month?

Maraming salamat.