I have to apologize for the recent silence and lack of progress in my various projects. My mind hasn't been wired properly for a while now and going to difficult and troubling times. I mentioned before that I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline but my symptoms have reached their peak in somewhat recent times. I was promised that my illness would be a prodrome to grow bigger and bigger and they were absolutely correct. My onset of thirteen years ago never hinted at me that I'd be battling a monster that vies to be victorious over my frailty.
This is a very sensitive and personal subject for me and it's guaranteed to make me vulnerable and a target for all sorts of missed opportunities. However, I'm at a breaking point where I just can't hold in the tears anymore. I have to spit everything out in the most embarrassing of places, my blog. At the end of the day, I'm a human being who's going through some tough challenges and if this is a point of judgement for you, please move on and don't waste my time. At least I'm brave enough to put this in public for everyone to learn about.
The subject is graphic both emotionally and physically so I'm going to throw some massive trigger warnings here for those who hold trauma or are so neurotypical that thoughts like these never entered their minds. If you fear seeing a drop of blood coming out of your body or the most painful thing you've ever had was broken nail, this is not for you. In other words, if you've never suffered and take everything for granted, we're just not going to vibe.
My account starts with something in the present. Permanent marks and cuts on my arms that will never heal. I'm not ashamed of them nor do I regret committing the act. It has become part of my story giving a glimpse into who I am and the pain that I had to endure. I've had the bravery this fall to wear short-sleeves for all to see and had people courageous enough to ask me questions about it. It doesn't take much to explain other than admitting that it's self-harm and that 80% of my kind engages in activities like these.
A select few have asked me why I would do something like that. My answer was always the same: because I had to. It's impossible to feel emotional and physical pain at the same time, so this act provides me with consistent relief and distraction from what's going on inside my head. Never has blood looked so tantalizing to me seeing it flow down my arms spoiling my blanket. In my naïve years of teenagerhood, I though that something like that was just so stupid, but now I have total respect for it and fully understand how necessary it is.
Last weekend, I developed a panic attack because I knew I was about to have a psychotic break. No matter how much I was trained to recognize them, they still scare the shit out of me knowing that soon, my reality will melt and I'm going to be in a strange world. The delusions became so real and the paranoia started to hunt me down. I watched the world getting foggier and foggier and losing track of the real world becoming derealization. Imagine yourself not being able to trust your thoughts anymore and everything fading to obscurity revealing a new existence that even a bad trip on psychedelics can't recreate.
That night, my delusional self was keeping me away from my treatment. I thought that something mysterious took over me and that magic will banish it to eternal suffering. However, I had to do what they call opposite action, a very difficult technique that is ingrained in your psyche so deep learned in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy. I struggled to convince myself to get off my couch with all the colours swirling everywhere and swallow giant doses of antipsychotics. It took five hours to regain my consciousness, so to speak, and end the day with bedtime. I was still afraid.
So that's what happened recently, but the cocktail of symptoms has been presenting me with surprises and put me on the path of relapse. A mixed episode out of nowhere collapsed onto my taking me over along with the dreaded short shots of emotions from borderline personality. However, this one wasn't going to be covered by massive doses of Seroquel, it was going to last and for the past few months, I've been in it. The darkness is seeping in dimming even the dimmest of lights, I just can't anymore.
My functioning and cognition took the biggest hit, the thing that I value the most in my mind, is starting to fade away. There's no trigger, it's just the genetic switches that keep being turned on, one by one, and it seems like it's still growing. Every night, I dissociate because of how hopeless I feel and realize that I just had another empty day of nothing. It hurts, a lot.
Throughout my career of mental challenges, I would get lapse of relief, thinking that whatever combination of medications has settled me down. Sometimes it was relief but other times it was just a hypomanic episode giving me the illusion of a cure.
Where I am now is a painful but empty existence. There's nothing inside me, I feel nothing but a void. There are emotions but I can't feel them except through the filter of borderline, and my mood swings are just something to witness through the state of the world around me. Every morning, I start hallucinating and it ends when I go to sleep. However, my symptoms still haunt me in my dreams because the nightmare is both when I'm awake and when I'm asleep.
But, I'm trying to be hopeful and care-seeking. I want to get better and resume my life, but it won't be an easy path. The expression 'live day by day' is insipid and an extreme insult for me, because you can't plan a mental illness like that. The episodes last weeks and months, with no end in sight even if you are aware that there will be finality, but only for that episode. Because, another one is lined up for me.
My condition has taught me to be strong and forced me to become resistant of the ramblings of my mind. I can't get them out of head, or even ignore them, but just let the demons live inside my head and have the party they so badly want. I've brushed death and literally met it a few times so I know what it's like on the other end. I've learned to keep myself safe but the thoughts will never leave me, not even for a day.
On the other hand, I can't let myself submit to my circumstances but I have to cope with them in the best way possible, even if it means hitting the pause button for a while.
