Welcome back to Diary of a Bipolar Pixie! I, Pixie, am your neurotic and erratic hostess with the mostess in regards of extreme weirdness. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve missed writing but things have gone completely crazy in my life.
For starters, I went into a depressive spiral. Other than my job, I didn’t want to do anything, and my job wasn’t paying me enough according to my dad, which only drove my mood lower and lower. I felt like they were attacking me for loving my job.
Then something weird happened, and I blame myself entirely for it. I discovered that when I don’t get enough sleep, and I drink too many energy drinks, I develop what appears as tic symptoms, random whistling, head bobbing, etc. I truly wasn’t doing it on purpose, and it was embarrassing and exhausting, but I still couldn’t sleep at night, so I had to drink energy drinks to stay awake and it only made things worse. I thought if I could take the weekend to get some rest, then it might go away on its own.
I told my sisters about the issue, just wanting to vent and not feel so alone, but they went and told my parents. I’d been working hard to not tic in front of them, because they tend to get irrationally angry about stupid things. When I was holding back to that extent, it made me feel so uncomfortable, like there was a feeling in my spine that was only growing every second. I spent the two evenings I had at home avoiding my parents or in extreme discomfort.
Then, on Friday the 20th, my parents sat me down on the couch like I was a child and started interrogating me about my symptoms. I had to be so careful not to tic when I was home, but as soon as they started yelling, I started stuttering and head bobbing uncontrollably. They yelled some more about how I was only doing it for attention, and I needed to stop that very moment, but I couldn’t, so I started sobbing, and they started calling me a liar, and my mom decided to throw everything in my face, from my mental illness, to my ankle problems, to my wrist cyst. It was too much for me, so when she asked me where I would be if they didn’t make me do things, I said dead in a ditch because I hated life and I didn’t want to live it anymore.
They took it extremely hard, immediately called around, and got me a place in a mental institution. From the time they called to the time I was officially admitted in a city 200 miles away, 6 hours had passed. I didn’t go to sleep that night until 2 am in a strange bed in a strange room that had a door into a hallway I wasn’t allowed to close. I was woken up several times that night by nurses coming in to shine a light in my face. The next morning, a nurse woke me by shouting into my room that breakfast was ready.
I had no clothes besides what I wore, so I had to spend the day in the jeans and tank top I’d worn all day the day before. I felt gross, and anxious and desperately wanted out and after I ate the box of breakfast the staff gave me, I called my mom in the hopes that she would change her mind and take me home. Except she’d gone home the night before so she had no intentions of driving back for me so soon.
I had three panic attacks the first day. Everyone scared me, I wasn’t sure what to expect from them or how to handle them, and if someone spoke a little too loud, or said something carelessly, I was instantly in tears. It was traumatic and horrible.
But it got better. I had a lot of meetings with a lot of different doctors and therapists, who, over the course of the two weeks I was there, adjusted my meds, set me up with new skills to try when I became overwhelmed, and helped me identify what was a depression symptom versus an anxiety symptom. What I thought was mild depression turned out to be pretty severe anxiety that I let control my life in such a horrible way. I was so terrified about what others would say, or how they would react to me, that I did things to avoid rejection or ridicule. I isolated myself and convinced myself that if I was dead, things would just be better.
My stay wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I made a lot of friends, one being my roommate, who was the sweetest girl with autism. She may have been an adult but she acted more as a child, and I felt more like a sister to her than a friend. There were many others that I made friends with, but most of them were only there for a few days so when they left. Kinda made me sad to get along with so many people who understood what I was going through only for them to leave.
I got out on September 2nd, my birthday, and I promised to stay in touch with as many of my people as possible, and I did try, but it’s weirdly hard to get them on the phone and see how they’re doing. I’m still working on it though, still in contact with some of them.
After I got out, I took the weekend to relax, reevaluate my wants and needs in my home life, schedule follow up appointments, then as soon as Monday hit, I was job searching. I had to drop the semester, and lost my job at the school, so it was pretty important to get a new job as soon as possible. Let me tell you I applied for every job I could in my area. After two weeks of applying and calling for jobs, having fights with my parents because I obviously wasn’t trying hard enough to find a job, I eventually just decided to contact my aunt. She owns a business that works with developmentally disabled adults and I knew she was looking for help. I applied, she hired me the same day, and I’ve been there over a month now.
I didn’t think I was going to love my job as much as I do. I go to the participants homes, help them clean and cook, drive them to appointments, and bring them to the office for the day program. I absolutely love working the day program. I get to help plan activities and discussions and I love seeing everyone be active in group and contribute to the discussion.
And starting November 1st, I get to implement a reward system! I know they’re not children and I had no intentions of treating them like children, but I have learned that they are much more willing to participate when there is something in it for them. The reward system is a payment kind of system. I didn’t come up with the system I’m just going to be in charge of it.
What will happen is during the day program, if the participants complete their goals, stay on task, stay positive, and so on and so forth, they will be “paid” in funny money. Again I did not come up with the name. Anyways, they’ll spend the whole month working to earn money, and at the end of the month, we’ll hold an auction, where they get to bid with their money to buy prizes. These are cheap prizes, but hopefully the participants will find themselves motivated enough by the prizes to behave in group.
Been going to a new therapist who has been super helpful with managing my emotions and my relationship with my mom. She also helped me realize that I should change my major to human services so I can be better at my job. Its been a crazy few months but I’m doing so much better than I have been in the past. I will do my best to keep up with this blog, but if you couldn’t tell, I’m staying super busy lately. Be patient with me as I keep trying to balance my life out.
Much love to you all, and thank you for the support you’ve given me for the past few months. I appreciate all of you valuable and wonderful people.
And with that I say fly high, Chimers. Fly high.
“Broken bones take a long time to heal. Why shouldn’t brains?”
― Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, Fighting Words
Diary of a Bipolar Pixie 