Bad 'dreams' make reality so nice.

I have been feeling a lot of anxiety of late.

I fear the 'motor' is starting to roll. That it's trying to spark the ignition.

Last night is the first night in a looong time that I actually screamed out in the middle of the night, scaring the heck out my husband, and then I would fall right back to sleep according to him.

I would hardly remember doing it, if he hadn't told me about it. He even considered screaming out loud at me out of frustration to show me how it feels (yes he told me this), except he knows that I don't do it on purpose. But bless him, his sleep was massively messed up due to the fact that this was going on.

I feel a little like I could lose it. Knowing that I have had the capacity in the past to do so in the past, scares me.

How many people know what its like to be as sober and with it as can be, in reality, interacting with the world on one hand and doing so for many years and also know that if enough stress builds up, if the bottom seems to fall out for some reason, there is the possibility of being in an entirely other place.

A place where most people just don't, just can't allow themselves to go. The land of psychotica. I have been there a total of three actual documented times and it was Hell. Pure Hell.

And I fear that I could go back there again and even worse, to tell you the truth. Lose all sense of who I am. Lose all sense of who anyone is, except the closest of family, hoping and praying with every beat of my heart that it will be over and hoping that I can return to having some semblance of what is normal for other people.

You can ask Tracy, my husband, my friends, even aquaintances that barely know me, I am a sweet almost glowy person or personality. I am kind, empathetic, loving, you name it and you would Never Guess that I've got this monkey on my back, that I take a slew of drugs every day, three times a day to keep the monster at bay.

For the short term, the monster seems like a small under-current - keeping the moods even, keep me up to speed with the intelligence God gave me. For the long term, the monster is threatening, frightening and can be intimidating if you think about it - keeping another psychotic episode from happening.

For all the years I have had this blog, this is the first post I believe where I even describe a little what psychosis is like for me. I never get specific, that is years worth of thought to tumble out anyway.

In all my years of being alive I've never found one just like me, someone who had to be labeled Bipolar I because of these mind blowing episodes. I've been able to live like they don't happen because so much time has passed between now and the last one.

I must admit reading someone's blog who had recently been through it, must have triggered me in some way. It's not so far away. It's still a part of me.

A part I can't scream out in reality to real people and say 'I have mental illness' the way some people say 'I have cancer' and illicit the same sympathy. Why the heck would you say you have mental illness to someone?

But the PT people ask me what I do these days and I said I work part time. And then they are asking what I do and I say bake. And that intrigues them, unfortunately.

And they are asking me all these questions and none of my answers make real sense because I can't just say (or FEEL so strongly that I cannot say) well, the person who got the grant for this has mental illness and she wanted to provide a job opportunity for people with mental illness. Period.

That is the reason and it would be so simple to say, except that there are all types of people in that room, not just the PT people who seem to really like me, and the one doctor there who I told I was bipolar already too, so its very uncomfortable.

That is the world we live in. It's the one I live in, I think. The same one where I am screaming in my sleep and dying to get it out so badly that I'll spill here. I set up my blog so that bipolars could come and relate and there you have it.

But I'm so much much more than 'just a bipolar' as all of us are so much more than what our ailments are. Sometimes, or maybe for some, even more than sometimes, we are much much better than what our ailments want to do to us. I have been lucky to learn that from some wonderful people, like you blog friends.:)

I truly hope that everyone in blog land has a great day. I'll try to make the rounds. It takes me forever but I'll get there.

Love, Tart:)