Ugh. It's been a trying week. I've gone through a few swings...very strongly down...but I think now I'm holding pretty steady. I watched the documentary by Stephen Fry "The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive" and found that I identify fairly strongly with the last girl interviewed. I like to think of myself as creative...I have gobs of little projects going at the moment. I'm a scrapbooker, a photographer, a quilter (I make photo rag quilts on a semi-regular basis), and a poet/writer. I like to think that I'm fairly good at all of these little skills...but I've found that in my downswings I can't do any of it. The creativity just gets sucked out of me and I just want to do nothing. I can't even go into my scrap room. It just disgusts and frustrates me because I know there is a lot to be done and I will accomplish none of it until the darkness goes away.
This week there were a few things that threw me down the spiral and I think just a couple of things that saved me from losing it all.
I started and finished my work week with the worst patient I have ever had. After practicing for nearly 10 years I have never hated a patient as much as I hate this woman. As soon as her crown is finished, I'm kicking her. I just am astounded by her rudeness. At over 70 years old she should be able to be somewhat polite, but she refuses to look me in the eye when she talks to me, won't answer my questions and takes her sweet time to follow instructions so I can finish the procedure in progress. No one in my office likes her and I'm sure there are underlying reasons for her unhappiness, but I will not make myself and my staff suffer from her awful attitude.
On Wednesday, Collin and I got in a rather heated argument that completely spun out of control and ended up with me saying I wanted to break up...a statement I regretted within 20 minutes. Things were fairly well repaired by last night, but the stress of that along with all the questions of how my "craziness" is going to strain our relationship has definitely worn me down.
And finally, yesterday I got some news of mixed review. My sister-in-law confided in me that she is pregnant (and swore me to secrecy from the family until she goes to her doctor appt. next week). I should have been happier for her and my brother, but it devastated me. I'm the oldest...this particular brother is seven years younger than me. I was married for six years prior to my divorce, two of which I was trying to get pregnant with no success. I have been in my current relationship for 3 1/2 years and have been strongly desiring a child for the past year. My best friend just had her first child six weeks ago and her pregnancy was a little difficult for me to deal with just because it's something I have wanted for so long. I'm happy for her, but it's hard to see. And now to have my sister-in-law pregnant...it's just salt in the wound. My life feels like it's falling apart around me and SHE gets to have a child??? She is immature and not someone I would particularly see as a parent. Don't get me wrong, she's not a bad person. And the kicker is the fact that they weren't really trying. As she puts it, they just weren't being careful. I had a major meltdown earlier today and nearly spun myself into a panic attack over the whole thing. Is it sad that I'm angry that not only will I be able to provide Collin with his first child, but now I won't be able to provide my parents with their first grandchild? I hope that my opinion of the situation will become less bitter and more joyful over the next few months, but right now anger, frustration and intense sadness and disappointment in myself are at the forefront. Oh, and to add insult to injury...I was planning on my wedding date being at the end of October. She will be due at the end of October/first of November. Now my plans have to change again...I've already had to postpone by at least six months because of what happened last summer. How old am I going to have to be before I finally get to do what I want to do?
Like I said earlier though, there were a couple of things that added a little light at the end of the tunnel and helped me return to even keel. The first was the discovery of the aforementioned documentary thanks to a forum posting on this site. It was helpful to watch it and identify pieces of myself while at the same time reassuring myself that I'm really not that bad off if I compare my symptoms with the majority of the people featured. For the last week or so I have been devouring all of the information I can find on BP...discovering that the education is helping me deal, but also realizing that there is very little out there specific to BPII.
The other thing that really helped was babysitting my best friend's daughter earlier today. Though I am still very jealous and really struggle with the desire to be a mother, being able to have a few hours of that calmed me and helped me appreciate the closeness that I'm going to get with her.
I'm hoping that the upswing continues. I have yet again begged off of my work at Collin's office and now plan to go in tomorrow instead of doing my office work today. It would be really nice to do something creative tomorrow while Collin is at work. I really enjoy having completed projects when he comes home. In the meantime, I just keep pushing along...
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