The title is appropriate since I haven’t posted anything to my blog since late September, early October. It is also the title of a song from Staind, one of my favorite bands. There aren’t that many of you that read my blog, but for those of you that do, I would like to explain my absence. From Work, from life, and my general retreat into my own world.
Trouble sleeping had become so entirely consuming to me that I literally thought I was out of my mind. 2 hours caught here, maybe 3 overnight, for weeks at a time. I contacted am EAP rep from work and started to see a counselor in mid June. By July, she recommended consulting a psychiatrist to try an take pharmaceutical route to help me sleep, to control the anxiety that had now taken over my entire daily routine. I was forgetting things at home and at work. I was making mistakes at work that were being permanently recorded into my personnel file. I would have hour long conversations with friends, and not remember a single minute of the time I spent with her. I took a medical leave of absence from work.
THIS WAS NOT ME….The confusion/altercation between what I felt I knew was my true self (intelligent, together, mostly organized, happy, and self confident) and this new being that was emerging (no self worth, lack of any sort of motivation, crying all the time) was eventually going to come to a head.
It did in October. I do not remember the actual event of the self harming, but snippets of the memory come back to me occasionally. I was in no way attempting suicide. I wanted some of the pain I that was eating me up to be released. Joshua found out and the next day I was admitted for psychiatric evaluation. I spent 4 days in what can only describe as the seventh circle of hell.
Before and after my stay in the unit, my meds are evaluated and adjusted weekly with a doc I do trust. I have days when I feel somewhat normal, almost myself. But then there are also the days when I feel like that could is coming back to me.
My children and husband have been such an inspirational help and source of joy. I am trying to get better as each day comes. But, I have finally realized that this is a chemical imbalance/genetic inheritance that I must now learn to live with.
I can no longer control what has been given, but I can command it’s healing.
My mother is bi-polar, and I have 3 siblings with varying stage of mental illness. I had always thought that I would be spared “the gift” from our mother. I wasn’t, it just took longer for me to realize it.
