After reading and typing into the computer my hospital
journals, not to mention the day I’ve had, I just want to cry. It would prolly be cathartic. I don’t want to do this anymore. And by this I mean being sick. Plus, with Barb bringing up every mistake
I’ve ever made, while other people may be able to just blame that on my
illness, I can’t. I feel guilty
enough. She has no right to judge
me.
I just know how happy she is that I’m here (mindreading, I
know). She was right; I ended up back in
placement. Wrongfully, I believe, but
yet I am here. I just wish she wouldn’t
have talked to me today. It’s like
picking at a scab: It’s healing, but she
just had to pull at it.
I just want to fade away.
Imagining living 60 more years like this, going to placement every so
often, is something I can’t (and don’t want to) do. Thinking about it makes me want to make a
bunch of bad decisions. Not like hurt
myself, but do something that makes me appreciate life. It would be nice to do something that I
really enjoy.
But it doesn’t seem to matter what kind of decisions I make,
they are the wrong ones. Every move I
make ends me up back in the same place.
I hope to make it a year this time before I have to go back to the
hospital. Perhaps the Latuda and
Wellbutrin will last longer than that. I
wouldn’t bet my computer on it. Being
realistic and accepting the reality is what I’m working towards. I’m trying to use my knowledge to help those
around me to help me from falling too deep again soon.
It’s terrible how once I start thinking I can’t seem to
stop. Today the topic is
loneliness. I can’t seem to get by the
logic of my illness. My illness is a
burden, period. It’s a burden for me and
makes me a burden for others. That is
pure common sense. Men don’t want women
with issues. Nobody wants to date
someone with so much baggage they would have to haul it with a semi truck. I don’t want to date someone like that, how
can I expect anyone else to be willing to do more heavy lifting for me than I
want to do for them? It’s not fair, and
I know that. When others tell me I’m not
a burden and some guy would be lucky to have me they clearly haven’t thought the
whole idea through. I mean really, who
would jump at the chance for dating someone who has got a past (and present)
like mine? People who are not right
themselves, that’s who.
While I have a tendency to take care of everyone, especially
those close to me, I know that being in a relationship, even friendship, with
someone I have to take care of is not good for me. Sure, it seems fine while I’m healthy, but as
soon as I start to slip (which I always do) they will expect me to continue
playing mommy while I need to be taking care of myself. Not only do I need to take care of myself
when things get bad, I need someone who will be able to help me. I especially don’t need them to cut-and-run
while I have to face the music alone.
People think, “Oh, we’ll just put her in a nice place with people ‘like
her’, that way we don’t have to lift a finger or even have to deal with the
issue.” The problem is that while I have
a mental illness, which I do have in common with people in psych wards and
RCFs, I am not like them. Most of the
people in these places are not high functioning enough to realize just how sick
they really are. From my perspective
that helps them deal with their illness more easily. Perhaps I’m just more perceptive?
I try so hard to feed myself with information about what I’m
dealing with, but I think it varies in whether or not it’s helpful or
harmful. I suppose most of it is
both. I have full realization (right
now, at least) with what I’m dealing and what my future seems to hold. I just wish someone (other than Nathan and
Dr. Larsen) would have enough sense to understand. Not only that, but I wish someone other than
a fucking professional support would even try.
But yet, even when someone is willing to do whatever I wish
it is just too much. It’s like I have to
take care of those people too, just in a different way. I have to coddle them when my illness gets
too much for them and it’s like they’re scared to do anything. God forbid they do something wrong, even if
it is a trial-and-error game to find out the best thing to do. Isn’t that in every relationship? Everyone thinks they have to walk on
eggshells around the fucking crazy girl.
Either they aren’t willing to be with someone who’s crazy or they think
they can handle it, until that day…that one day when things get a little too
real for them.
After doing some research, it seems that the all glorious
Latuda is what is causing me have broken, restless sleep. Living on two or three hours of nightmares a
night is making me so emotional. Not to
mention how it has increased my pain.
Perhaps it’s the mixture of the pain and sleep deprivation that is
causing me to start tearing up at the blink of an eye. Not to mention adjusting to being in
placement again. I really don’t think
I’ve accepted that this is going to be my life for awhile. I put off calling Nathan, I think for that
reason. I am disappointed in myself for
being here, and while I know Nathan never holds my illness against me, I didn’t
want him to be disappointed too.
I’m starting to realize that not only am I disappointed that
I have my illness, I also feel guilty. I
should write a book on guilt. Being
raised by a mother who parented by using sarcasm and constant guilt trips mixed
with the guilt I feel over being a burden gives me the perfect
credentials. Maybe I should explain the
burden part. I bring it up so often
(being a burden, feeling like a burden, other people treating me like a burden)
that I’m pretty sure putting an explanation on the page would help me arrange
my thoughts eloquently enough that I can share them, eventually.
I feel that I am a burden on mental health services, my
family and friends, the hospital systems, and society. I know what you’re thinking: Mental health services are there for people with
mental illness, so how could I be a burden to them? Well, I feel that I should be able to manage
my illness better, as I am fairly intelligent and self perceptive. I have been fighting this battle since I was
a child, thanks to my home environment and, as things progressed, my
genes. I should have a handle on it by
now. Yes, it’s true that the
schizoaffective disorder is fairly new in my life in comparison to the
depression and borderline personality disorder.
The psychotic symptoms started about six years ago. I really can’t be more specific on the timing
than that. I don’t remember the first time I heard or saw anything out of the
ordinary, or having some belief that didn’t align with reality. I just remember that when I was nineteen I got
drunk, smashed my phone, and confessed to hallucinations. Not one of my finest moments, though it
showed me who my real friends were (and still are today). The depression was the beginning,
however.
As a child I always felt out of place and alone. My parents who, after their divorce when I
was ten years old, were both diagnosed with severe mental illness; my mother
with bipolar disorder and my father with paranoid schizophrenia. Abuse was rampant in my household. I remember my mother telling me sometime after
my move to a new town and school that I was not sick, that I was
depressed. That was shortly after their
divorce. At sixteen I overdosed on pills
for the first time in an effort to commit suicide. It was no surprise that shortly after I
turned twenty I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which one could
say encompasses both of my parents’ illnesses.
It surprises me that throughout that history I failed to
mention my brothers. I am the middle
child of three. When I talk about being
a burden to my family, it is them and some of my non-immediate family that I
speak of. My older brother had some
problems with psychosis after he became addicted to meth (which he has been
clean from since treatment). To this day
he takes no medication and, while he lives with some anxiety, is free from
psychosis. Though my older brother was
supportive at the beginning of my illness, his support dropped off after
awhile. I know that I feel it’s because
he’s disappointed in me for not being able to recover completely from my
illness, as he did. He helps me now when
he’s forced to, like when he didn’t have a roommate for his two bedroom
apartment and needed help paying rent.
Other than that, although he calls other family members regularly, he
only gets ahold of me when it is advantageous for him.
As for my burden-ness with my younger brother, the well is
much deeper. My younger brother was
diagnosed a couple years ago with schizoaffective disorder. I feel I should be helping him through his
problems with his illness, as I have the same diagnosis. And I do help him some. But my ability to help gets limited when I
get sick. It’s basically cut off
completely. I also feel that he has
followed my example by overdosing on pills.
While he said it was not in attempt to kill himself, I still feel that
he would not have had the idea to do such a thing, had I not repeatedly done it
before him.
