between the broken places

Sorry, I haven’t been writing.
I’m feeling a bit out of it and it’s causing me to sleep a lot though not well. This leaves me tired and confused and really pretty useless most of the day. I’m supposed to return to work in a couple of weeks, been on medical leave since April. Going back is both stressful and something I look forward to. Yes, I know, don’t end a sentence in a preposition but it sounds so strange to say something to which I look forward…just not the way I speak.

So, what’s been going on? I started working out a couple of weeks ago, this is really important for both my mental health and my physical health. I tend to start out too fast and hurt myself thus stopping too soon. Part of the reason I get hurt…

I broke my neck in 2005…a compression fracture that came along with a ruptured disc. This caused a great amount of pain and took the military doctors 5 (count them…FIVE) months to figure out what was wrong. The military sent me to physical therapy, luckily the same day I had an appt. with a Neurologist. The Physical Therapist didn’t even look at my MRI and told me that I would be fine in a couple of weeks. The Neurologist told me that it was the largest ruptured disc he had ever seen and that I need to see a Neurosurgeon immediately. I had an appt. with the surgeon the next day and was told that I could not go back to work, had to come off my meds and was having surgery in 4 days. As for PT? The remark that I got was…”Christopher Reeves, that could be you!”. Alrighty then! I now have a cadaver bone and a titanium plate in my neck…No, I don’t set off airport alarms.

I hate the insipid cycle of feeling like crap causes not working out, which can cause eating badly which makes me feel like crap…the friggin circle of my life.

Because it’s never too late to be who you were meant to be.

At the age of 44 (45 is next month, thank you) I have found myself wondering the age old question, “Is this all there is?” I know that there can always be more to life, that it’s just a matter of going out and getting it. But it seems I typically have just enough energy for what I’ve got and nothing more. Well, I want more.

My mother used to tell me that I never finished anything I started. That’s true most of the time – so maybe I’m just trying to prove something. On the other hand, if it’s the journey that is important am I supposed to finish? Ok, yes, I know I am but in my own defense most of my hair-brained schemes have begun to the wild beating of my manic drums. However, this scheme, idea, true calling has not been forged in the fires of mania. This dream has been stirred, added to and simmered in my life’s cauldron for many years; each experience bringing new spice to the elixir that makes up the delicious concoction of me.
Bipolar Disorder is but one ingredient in the mixture. I have survived emotional and physical abuse, childhood molestation and rape at the age of 20. My physical ailments include obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and high triglycerides. I have taken up to 26 pills a day to treat these maladies; spent endless hours and countless dollars in the effort to make myself “normal”. Thank God, “normal” continues to elude me.

My family influences include not knowing the truth of my birth until I was 28 (I’m the product of a one-night stand) thus growing up with an emotionally repressed mother and a step-father who took to causing me pain to hurt her. I married young and subsequently divorced eight years later. I then explored new territory by becoming a non-custodial mother to my two young daughters. I am the mother, sister, daughter and granddaughter of those who have survived and succumbed to cancer. And still I go on.

So why a Blog? Can’t you tell? I’ve got lots to say and the story is boiling over to be told.

I’m having a problem blogging. I’m not sure anyone will want to read about my ups and downs with bipolar disorder but I do have things to say about it. I’ve been home; stuck in the mud; going to the doctors; and trying to regain a sense of normalcy for two months. I love to work, so two months is a long time for me to be home. My head hurts all the time and I haven’t been sleeping but I think the increase of anti-depressant and the addition of a mood stabilizer is finally having an effect. I’m scheduled to return to work on July 1st. Problem is: work caused this depression episode in the first place. Ugh. If I go back it has to be in a different job but I don’t think they have anything open so then what? I don’t want to have to quit but I can’t even drive by the building without feeling uptight. You know the definition of crazy: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I’m too old for this crap. I thought I had this under control and yet the one thing I’ve learned about life is that we can manage outside forces but control them…ha! I hate when I feel this way. It’s so counter productive. Like I said…stuck in the mud…it gets you no where. Uh oh…starting to get visual disturbances…freaky flashes of iridescent waves, this usually means a migraine is not too far behind. Great I could really use that! Just piling on the crap. Ahhhh!