Scraping Up Some Hope

I feel hopeless today. It is a horrible day. Well I feel horrible anyway. It should be a great day. I am taking Victorya to celebrate her upcoming 4th birthday at the Circus! Yay!! WEE!!! THE CIRCUS! ...nope not exactly. I am overwhelmed by so much internal chaos and anxiety, and I feel very depressed. I couldn't get up with Victorya early this morning. I kept her in bed with me watching cartoons until we fell back asleep and slept in until 10:30. I made it to the store because we had no food and my SIL needed to trade foodstamps for cash because they are living in a hotel and couldn't pay the room. I remember being in that predicament. It was so horrible and hard to get out of. I should be able to feel some relief that I am not there any more, right? 

I don't know what I feel. I feel like I am sinking. I feel like a failure. I don't know the black and white of my condition anymore. I guess that is what medicated bi-polar looks like. Everything's grey because the medications take away the black and white. At least I think that's how its supposed to work. I feel like I have only lost my mania and I am still incredibly depressed. I guess I am in the black hole of depression, no grey, no white. I am trying so hard to understand how to get out. I need help, but the things I am doing aren't helping. Meds aren't helping. Counseling isn't helping. I missed my counseling appointment this week because some drama with my daughter came up, and I got side tracked and forgot the appointment. Tells you how stable I am.

There is a recurrent theme that Destin's and my counselor keep insisting on : Sleep, diet, and exercise are key in recovering from anything. I dont feel like eating or exercising and all I want to do is sleep. I never feel rested. I never have energy. I am still in mourning for being manic. I find myself praying before bed that I could just have one good manic phase to help me get everything done that I am behind on. I was superwoman and could handle everything when I was manic. Now I can barely make it to the computer. 

Here are the things I am still getting done, although a little slow/late sometimes: Getting Victorya to school, keeping house picked up, but not as clean as usual, making dinner and cleaning up the kitchen after words (kids do dishes that fit in dishwasher), mine and Bryson's, and Victorya's laundry (slow, last minute), getting kids to all of their appointments, paying the bills. The problem is, I am struggling to get all of those things done. Each one is like facing up to my worst fear. Its like going on stage. I have panic build up and I sit paralyzed, sometimes until the last minute when I have to push myself, and then it takes all I have to get up and go. I feel panic when I am driving, when I am waiting in a waiting room, or sometimes for no reason at all and sometimes I can't breathe and it builds and builds until I cry. I have told both my Psychiatrist and my counselor and I get a lot more sympathy than I do solutions. I think Bryson is runing out of sympathy. He never had any solutions. The more I look at this, the more scared I get, as I realize I am probably not going to come out of this without a lot more agony. I am sick right now, yet somehow I need to be my own advocate and I have to fight to come out of this. I also need to fight because my kids need me. Destin has reported suicidal feelings all week. He has been falling asleep in class and the teachers are confused and don't know if its still his concussion or depression or? He needs an advocate too. Mentall illness isn't understood or accepted the way physical illness is. Part of my daily fears is that someone who is involved in our lives (counselor, school personnel, Dr.) is going to find me unfit to be taking care of the kids and is going to call social services. I have to get well. I have to, but I don't know how. I refuse to go down without a fight. I will keep taking what energy I have to scrape up some hope.

Just Some Blog Business

I have been doing some thinking today about this blog and about what should go here. I started this initially because I wanted to share my recovery from my addiction to meth and needed a place where I could be open and honest about my mistakes. My bipolar has always been a present theme because, well... because I am bipolar! I kind of fell into the community of parents of addicts and nestled in for a nice stay. Much like now, I felt in the middle because I was both an addict in recovery (from meth at that time), and a parent, so I could relate on different levels. Now there are two more levels because my son is stepping in the muddy waters of drug use and he has also been diagnosed bipolar I.

I have many different followers, from all walks of life, and here for many different reasons. Rather than try to send people in different compartmentalized directions by separating this blog into the many different areas of my life, I have decided to keep it the way it is.  The main issues still being addiction, recovery, and mental illness, but shadowed by events in my day to day life. I will keep my other blog, Acute Verbal Sabbatical going, and its purpose will be more for random thoughts, information sharing, or my sometimes much needed babbling and venting about my moods and my life. Feel free to follow both or to just stay put right here! I will keep My Sacred Insanity more focused on mine and my son's Bipolar and addiction and recovery issues. I must say, I hope I don't have to revisit addiction in Destin's life, but I know the hand he has been dealt and so I am prepared for anything, and most importantly I know I can find support here, so I think its important that I keep it the way it is.

He is using again! Now what????

I am devastated and concerned. Destin has admitted he is smoking weed again. I am sure that is the reason for his depression. Best case scenario he has switched to a depressed state of his bipolar and the marijuana is making it worse. What can I do? I want to lock him up and never let him out, but I know I can't do that. I am so torn up inside. I know what it feels like to be mentally ill and to not understand mood changes and to want to take something or use something that fixes it. He says smoking weed makes him feel "normal" when nothing else does. He says he is afraid of a med change. I don't know what more I can do for him. He sees a psychiatrist for his meds. He sees a therapist weekly. He has been seeing a substance abuse counselor and passed his last UA. I just had a feeling that he might have smoked so I asked him if he was going to pass his next UA and he told me no.

Since we had all the openness going on, I figured I would ask Aliviya if she had used at all and she said YES! OMG! So I have 2 kids that are using marijuana. I asked them which kids have it and they are doing it with and they said pretty much everyone they hang out with. Do I start calling parents? Do I ground them from all of these kids. I know if they are determined to do it, they will find a way. I have to reach them on a different level where they want to make better decisions. I am at a loss. I can only have a say until they are 18 and it is especially hard in our area because it is legal for medicinal use so kids have easy access because a lot of parents are licensed users and there are as many dispensaries as there are liquor stores.

I sat them both down and laid out my thoughts on it all, which went something like this:  I am not ok with it. I will never condone or allow it. I do not want to ever see you high or doing it.You are not to have any type of drug or paraphernalia in the house. If I do find it on you or in your rooms I WILL report it to the community police officer. I will not take any responsibility for any trouble you get into related to its use. You are putting yourselves and your 3 year old sister at risk of social services taking action against our family if there are drugs found in this house, so I will completely comply with any social worker or police officer that wants to take action against YOU for YOUR poor choice. I will not pay court fines. If you steal anything (to pay for drugs?) I will report you. If it escalates to probation or juvenile hall, I will have no sympathy and I will not pay for any costs and I will not put any money on your books or pay to get you out.

To all you parents out there that didn't see the signs when your kids were younger, what would you have done if you DID see signs? What else can I do?

What Do I Do?

I want answers that I am going to have to get for myself: being a parent is really hard.

What do I do? I am asking myself and my husband that all the time. Do I play endless taxi? Do I give them $? Do I let them spend the night? Have friends spend the night here? Go to the mall? Skate City? Take a nap? Wait to do homework or chores until later? Get on facebook or youtube? Hang out?

My anxiety and panic have crept into all of my once strong parenting nooks and crannies and have me questioning EVERYTHING. I want to raise strong, independent, resilient, creative, and humble children. I know that if I give them everything they want, I am taking so much away from their learning, but somehow I still get left with so much guilt.

Right now with Destin I feel like my decisions are so life or death, literally. He has been experiencing more depression than usual and was pulled out of class on Friday because he seemed "down." Further conversation with the teacher revealed he has been having some suicidal ideation and thoughts of worthlessness. We found out earlier in the week that his smoking cigarettes is causing his red blood cell count to be elevated and his blood is thicker than normal, putting him at greater risk for heart attack, stroke, or blood clots. This was very distressing information for him- as well it should be- he is only 13! Some of his thinking was: If I am going to be sitting around waiting to have a heart attack, maybe I should just kill myself so that I know when its going to happen instead of being in fear of death all of the time.

Proof to me that his mind is not mature enough to be processing some of the choices he is making and it makes me very afraid for him. I am afraid that at this low time in his life, that either the unimaginable worst could happen; he could succumb to his depression and take his life, or he could think life is already as low as it can get, why not try A,B, or C substance and see if it makes me feel better and end up abusing a substance to make him feel better.

So now I am walking around on eggshells, afraid for him and unsure how to help. I am checking in with him, and on him frequently. I am trying to balance his time with friends and with us, and reassuring him he is very loved and needed and that we are here for him while he works on feeling better. I am asking some questions about what he is up to, but not making any judgmental comments. Most of all I am just worried ALL of the time and afraid I could say or do the wrong thing that could make his situation worse.

Having all of these intense feelings during such a hard time for the family is really hard on me, especially because I have my own symptoms of panic and instability. I also have an 11 year old daughter who is interested in boys and is testing every boundary there is, and a busy 3 year old that both need my time, attention, good judgement, and parenting. Oh how I wish I had a parent or grandparent to pick up the phone and call and ask for help. Instead I just keep finding myself asking, "What do I do?'