Depressed again

Interesting. Manic for two days and now bottom of the barrel. Actually, I might have been manic for more than that...or ramping up. I am hitting the depressed section though because I have tons of ideas but I can feel myself shutting down and closing off socially. I guess when I am manic I say too much and (though I feel totally comfortable at the time) embarass myself. Then as I slow down I start to think and rethink everything I've said and done and work myself into an even greater depression than it would have been if I had simply closed myself in a room for the mania.

So now instead of feeling like I should be in a different relationship...like I could have a relationship that is in any way more fulfilling than the one I have currently...I spend the day thinking about how my husband deserves more than me and I should leave him so that he could have a worthwhile wife, so that my children could have a better mother, etc. I am not so totally in a depression that I can't tell that I am not rational. I know I'm not rational. That is keeping me sane. And all the while I am keeping myself together enough that no one even notices a difference. Well, they probably know that I was a little "off" for the last couple of days but I am back to normal now.

Interesting to note though that my two really strong days of mania were the first two days of my birth control pack. I am going to the psychiatrist tomorrow. Apparently the Lamictal intereferes with a lot of different birth control pills and you need higher levels of hormones than you would normally. Ironic really because now you are putting more hormones into your body making your mood change more drastic between the filler pill and the actual pill because you are taking something to moderate your mood changes. Might you be better off if you just didn't take the Lamictal in the first place so that you didn't have those additional mood swings? Here you are medicating the effects of the medicine...and this is how I see the rest of my life playing out. Not that it matters anyway since I am sure that we will find out shortly that Diet Coke causes stomach cancer or something and I am totally addicted to Diet Coke so I won't make it too long one way or the other.

On the bright side though, I got a job. I LOVE LOVE LOVE not being a stay at home mom. In fact, not having to stay home for the last week has made me realize just how much I HATE staying at home. I don't know how some people can love it and some people can hate it...and I honestly feel that it is a sign of weakness, not being able to stay home to raise your own children. Regardless, I feel that this is the best option for my family. I can live with being weak more than I can deal with hating my children which is where I am on altogether too many evenings. It takes a lot of strain off of my husband who takes the brunt of my job dissatisfaction. It is so much better for my children to have a happy mother, have socialization with other children, have structured routines, and have other adult positive role models who don't have the mental issues that their mother does. And, of course, it is nice financially.

Anyway, we will see how things start going now that I have some forced structure in my life. For now, good night.

PostSecret

I don't know what it is exactly that made me close up shop...but I'm manic again so here I am. I am sick as a dog but I don't want to sleep because there is so much I want to do and so much I need to get off of my chest. I think I felt that I shared too much but, once again, I have convinced myself that this is the best place to share it...not with people I know...well, a couple of those but no one I actually have to face frequently...besides, I am good at embarassing myself in front of them anyway.

In my moments of leisure surfing I frequent the PostSecret site. I look to see if anyone shares my secrets...and people do. (The worst secret I shared was one that said something like…When my sister called me to tell me that she had an STD, all I could think about was the last time she used my loofah…yea…didn’t react well to that news…our relationship hasn’t ever been the same). I also contemplate what secrets I could share that might get published there. I come up with made up secrets and real secrets, goofy, morbid, depressing, happy…I have a lot of secrets (especially considering how much I talk and write and such). The secret of the day though is that I fantasize about Paul Jr. while I watch OCC with my husband.

I know it SEEMS like a stupid secret and all but it does say something about my relationship with my husband. Kind of funny that he doesn’t even wonder why I like a show about motorcycles. Totally boring stuff really. Just into the fighting. Guess I always have been. I can imagine myself at the antagonist position in arguments with him. I could totally drive him to that point. I know. Been there, done that. Not that I think he would be abusive really. There is just something about that frustration point that is so incredibly…hmmm…I don’t know how to say it really. Just turns me on. Don’t enjoy being beaten though. That part kind of sucks. Yea. Yea…I think that part really does suck. I am pretty sure I don’t want that to ever happen again. Not so much.


After basically losing all will to live (whether that happened before or after my ex relationship is debatable) and then realizing that no, in fact, I did not wish to die, I wonder if I didn’t make the whole decision to get married just to survive. I found someone who wasn’t abusive and seemed pretty nice…he had a steady paycheck and seemed even tempered. That last quality is not only the very thing that made him a good candidate for a husband and father, but is also what kills the relationship for me. I have another friend who has had similar experiences and who also made the husband decision for similar reasons. Don’t get me wrong here…I know it is horrible to say these things. I feel guilty for thinking them. I do love my husband. I really do. I just don’t have that spark. And my friend feels similarly which is incredibly reassuring. I mean, I gave birth to his children. I have feelings for him. I just don’t feel romantically attracted to him. I wish I did. I wish I could. For now I will just have to imagine something else. I wonder though, and this is an honest question…please don’t take it the wrong way…but if a gay man is expected to divorce his wife and the mother of his children (I have known several of these over the years), then is divorcing my husband the right thing to do? Or is it just that the “spark” is gone. Isn’t that what people always tell you…that you will lose the “spark” over time?


I feel guilty when I review our relationship. It isn’t anything I did intentionally, but I did use this relationship to get myself out of a bad place. I was trying to get out of an abusive relationship but my father didn’t want anything to do with me so I had to find friends to take me in. After a few months, I gathered enough money up to get an apartment (first, last, deposit) and wanted to get out of their hair…I mean, you just can’t sponge forever. Well, I got rejected from the apartment complex where I applied (only one) and called my father crying. I guess he felt guilty enough that he wanted to do something and my step-mother hated us (my sisters and I) that she would do anything to get away from us…well, we all took over their house (3 bedrooms 2 baths) and my parents moved to a condo. Well, I paid $400/mo which was fine really except that I paid $200 to each sister so that dad didn’t ever have to come see us…that was their food/gas money…as a result my father was in complete denial of the fact that I paid rent at all. Anyway, living there wouldn’t have been so bad either if my sister wasn’t a lunatic. She has food…issues. She would steal my food…all of it. Every crumb that I brought into the house she would take when I went to work. It was so bad that I had to put a keyed lock on the bedroom door and put a refrigerator in there so that I could keep food. Then they both tried to pick the lock. When I got home I had to lock myself in the bedroom because my sister would get so mad she would throw things (like large dishes) at the door and wall to get in. Nevermind what she would do if I was actually in the room.


Then I started seeing my husband and staying the night over with him frequently. Honestly, it was quite some time before we had sex even though I was over there…what with all of the sex issues I had from my previous relationship. But that didn’t make any difference to my sister who was calling me awful things and making things up to my father to get me in trouble because it would take the focus off of her issues (of breaking things and messing up doors, carpet, walls, etc.) Well, then it got kind of old hearing dad complain about how he didn’t know if I was even paying the rent or not…which was almost half of my pay at the time…and it was actually cheaper to split the rent with my husband (then boyfriend)…not like he was going to charge me if I was sleeping with him anyway…it seemed like a no-brainer. Then the natural next step when you live with someone (who doesn’t beat you) is to get engaged…and in my mind, being engaged was as good as being married so I never questioned the wedding…and before you know it we were having a baby and then another and now we are…here…where that is I don’t know…but I am getting tired and I should probably go take my meds before I stumble off to sleep…