In the night I write poetry and impassioned pleas that are insightful, occasionally witty, and inspiring.

In the day I write my grocery list.

In the night I write beautiful words full of hope in the darkness.

In the day I write how I feel like I am dying by crushing sadness.

In the day I write how I am not interesting enough to have ‘crushing sadness’.

Just ordinary sadness from an ordinary person.

In the night I write how sometimes I just want to breathe.

In the day I write how sometimes I just want to breathe.

How does one start?

Simply by beginning.

Is it simple though?

No, right now it feels like the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

Sounds stupid and dramatic doesn’t it?

No, I am not interesting enough to be considered dramatic. Stupid yes. Dramatic no.

Life feels like shades of grey, like I am sitting on a slowly shrinking island whose sand is being eroded away by dark, messy waves.

My joy and creativity have abandoned me.

While I don’t feel hopeless, I feel less hope.

I still feel like I can’t breathe like there is pressure on my chest. I feel my skin crawling especially along the veins of my forearms and hands like there is an electric current buzzing along them and I am mildly nauseous. I feel trapped.

I don’t understand why I can’t just push through this, why I feel trapped in my skin, or why it is a struggle to move the mouse around and click on things to do work and why it takes ten minutes to type one f’ing sentence.

I had an anxiety attack on Monday at work and now I am embarrassed that both my Supervisor and Manager witnessed it and afterwards as I told my Supervisor today I feel embarrassed and like a drama queen.  I begin to question and doubt myself on whether these are attention seeking behaviours or real emotions. They feel pretty real at the time but afterwards I just don’t understand myself or how someone like me can be so weak. I know others would tell me it isn’t me being weak but it sure feels like it after.

I am normally a strong person and feel good about who I am but this shit makes me feel like a two year old.

It makes me worry about my job security which makes it even more frustrating that I can’t just push through it.

I have a lot of compassion for others but sometimes I just can’t feel it for myself. My life isn’t even that hard compared to others who live in opressed societies.

I feel like a failure.

Nothing feels real. I feel like I am in a bubble and things are moving around me but I am stuck. I keep forgetting what I am doing so it is taking longer to accomplish stuff. I need to get it done. The Tourette’s is acting up too. I am at my desk and it just doesn’t feel real. It feels like shifting molecules that are trying to solidify as a desk but I can feel the molecules moving and shifting. It’s like I am surrounded by sand in a sand storm. Everything and everyone is shifting.

I hate this.

Started off the work day by almost having a panic attack which I haven’t had in a long time. I took a sublingual Lorazepam but was a sobbing mess (still kind of am) and thank goodness I am working from home today. I called my workplace EFAP and had a quick emergency counselling session and have booked myself a regular session for later in the month. I felt (feel) frozen in my skin and like my skin was (is) crawling and trying to even click the mouse to try and do some work is a huge struggle, like trying charge through water. I am trying my best to not call my boss and be a sobbing mess on the phone and ask her to change the schedule so I am working from home instead of in the office. I have no idea if I am going to be like this tomorrow but I do know I am going to have a huge headache and look like shit from all the crying and from trying not to cry.

It all started with fixating on the death of my biological father who died in the parking lot of a strip club. Not sure why I was thinking about it. Arranging his burial two years ago was the first time in about 18 years that I’d had anything to do with him. He was not a good person. Do I sound overly dramatic and attention seeking there? I am always worried that is what other people will think, that I just want attention. I guess that is why I don’t talk about this stuff to my friends and online groups. It always comes around to me thinking how I am so lucky compared to so many others in this world and I am nothing but a whiner for crying over these stupid problems. 

Fuck.

So aside from being bipolar I also have bouts of depersonalization or derealization. Today I am having a case of derealization where nothing around me feels real. It is making me feel confused and anxious even though outwardly to my coworkers I am displaying a chipper attitude today. It’s like acting out a character for a play. Although I am having a hard time making eye contact today because my eyes won’t stay still which is making me dizzy.

The question ‘where am I?’ keeps jumping into my mind because it is almost like the world around me is a stage and everything is a façade for some invisible audience.

I hate this.

So this started out as a place to momentarily vent my angst during a period in my life when I was going through a very high level of stress and I was off my medication. I have decided this will be my refuge where I can be honest about the aspects of being bipolar that I don’t share with anyone.

I am generally an optimist with strong values of personal responsibility and community. Every now and then though I stop being the bubbly, cheerful optimist and sink into a murky lake of angst, anxiety, and despair. I usually try to cram those thoughts and emotions into a tiny ball and swallow them but sometimes I can’t and this is where I will seek safe haven to put into words those things I try to keep hidden in the shadows.

I don’t expect anyone to read this and will never share the existence of this blog with anyone I know. But if someone does happen to stumble upon it, please keep in mind this is only a very small part of who I am.

The daughter came home again and it was the same problems as usual. Last night she drank so much she passed out at the bar and got taken to the hospital.

I have told her she is out of our place by Friday. I simply cannot do this anymore. I feel in the verge of a grandiose panic attack or something from the stress. I don’t feel like this when she doesn’t live here.

I am stress eating like crazy especially since it was Hallowe’en and easy access to candy. Then again I have been stress eating since she moved back here in June.

I am back in counselling to help me with it and try to build up my coping tools again.

I can’t think enough to write anymore right now.