On Days When Self-Care Seems Impossible #Bipolar #EverydayStruggle

This isn't a post as a cry for help, it's just things floating around in my head, and, well, I do have a blog, so here is today's bullshit.

For just one day I want...

1. Silence

I don't mean silence where I can turn a deaf hear to what is going on around me. The silence I require is the type where a particular pitch in someone's voice doesn't enrage me. The type where I can smile and not feel as if someone's laugh is pulling my skin so tight I can't breathe. Day in and day out, I spend my time with my jaw clenched and my fists tight to the point I have to shake them out to ease the tensed muscles. Noises of any kind seemingly harsher than necessary

Every day, I live with a rage so great I want nothing more than to put my fist through a wall. It's a struggle no amount of medicine, meditation, or coping mechanisms can ease. I'm just...angry.


2. No Hallucinations

These aren't grand drug-induced fantasies, where you trip balls, see other worlds, and in the end feel as if you transcended your mediocre physical realm. Oh, how I remember the days, but then I remember, I 12-stepped my ass to sobriety for a reason (Reasons suck!). My hallucinations are momentary flashes in my day. A normal occurrence, visions of harming myself. I pick up a knife to do a routine task for my job, and for a split second, I imagine removing fingers, skinning my arm, slicing my wrists. One minute there, and the next gone, almost as if it never happened. Smoking a cigarette falls into the category of self-harm, placing the glowing tip to my arm, stomach, or thighs.

Some days, a voice whispers in my head, "I want to die."

3. To be Happy

I'm a writer. Even before I had Published in front of Author, I wrote for therapy. Crafted other worlds where I belonged and the voices were constructive and not these whispers that told me how I would fail. Writer was the goal, one in the end I thought would make me happy, but, alas, I am as I always was, just here. Oh, I have my days of manic delight where my energy seems endless, and everything I write holds promise, then I crash hard to reality.

"You are a mere blip in the scenery, and I will prove it," My brain plays on repeat.

And it does, pushing me back into crueler versions of One and Two, Three is the Mistress, and she's exceptionally brutal, using my wrongly wired brain as punishment. And I take it.

4. To be Touched

I'm Touch Averse. I joke about it because it's easier than realizing the thought of someone touching me makes my skin crawl. A casual brush will send me into a rage. It's a lack of control. Permission and preparing myself for something as simple as a handshake, a hug to appear normal. I've allowed one person to touch me in close to five years, only one, and she somehow gets when enough is enough, to not push me beyond my comfort zone.

Personally, I have limitations, I've accepted, and people should never feel ashamed to have autonomy over their bodies and what's done with them.

It's a phobia with names...

Haphephobia (also known as aphephobia, haphophobia, hapnophobia, haptephobia, haptophobia, thixophobia) is a rare specific phobia that involves the fear of touching or of being touched.

Or maybe it's this one...

Philophobia: The fear of falling in love or emotional attachment. The risk is usually when a person has confronted any emotional turmoil relating to love in the past but also can be a chronic phobia.

Whatever it is, it's a pain in the ass and takes a long pep talk to even get me out of the house and to work every day. Some days I don't even notice until I find myself writing or doing any other mundane task, and realize I'm rocking. A simple, self-soothing thing I've done countless times and it still bring on the rage over my inability to do without it, even unconsciously my brain seeks that one thing to ground me.

Maybe it's a loss of control that I'll never conquer and as they say, It is what it is.

# # #

I'm a lot of things, and my Bipolar, my rage, and everything else shouldn't define who I am, but it does. It's there in every action I take, every decision to avoid passing someone in an aisle, on the sidewalk, or into a business. It's there in the clothes I choose, certain textures can bring on an anxiety attack. Certain smells. Someone coming up behind me and that momentary flash of fight or flight response, and my first reaction is the thought of swing first and ask questions later.

In times like these, with politics, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and every other assholish behavior, self-care ain't easy. It's damn near impossible, and we struggle to get out of bed, to function, and stepping away or resisting don't seem like either answer. We're in limbo, nothing is concrete, and we're going to drown in years of uncertainty.

That's where I am, the uncertainty, the depression, anxiety, the rage, and my only thought is, just make it one more day. One more, tomorrow, it'll be better, and when it's not, then repeat, maybe tomorrow.

Signed,

The Atheist Lesbain Who Writes Stuff.