Waves of Furor

Had my appointment with the gastroenterologist the other day.  He pushed all over my abdomen. The entire left side is very tender and swollen so he is thinking I have Colitis.  He put me on Flagyl three times a day with a double dose at night and I am on a very strict diet. 

It’s very refreshing though to have a doctor that listens to me.  He was very interested in my life and my well-being.  He told me that I have got to lose weight, but he didn’t do it in a degrading way.  He said that my hands are next to the fire and I am going to get burned.  In other words if I keep on down the path I am going I’m going to get hurt.  He said my weight is pressing on my colon and making the colitis worse.  I will probably have to have a colonoscopy done in about a week so maybe we will get some answers as far as that goes.

I still have my appointment with the rheumatologist on September 9.  I hope he is as good as my gastroenterologist has been.  I am very  hopeful that I will get some more answers for the way I have been feeling lately. 

I have group therapy tomorrow if they don’t cancel it.  I hope they don’t because I really enjoyed it last time.  She taught us some great relaxation techniques!  I will keep everyone posted!

I haven’t written anything in a while.  I have been very busy lately.  Well, mostly just really tired.  I woke up this morning around 5:30am in excruciating pain and drenched with sweat.  The same old pain that I was having after my C Section has come back with a vengance.  This time it wasn’t only in my left pelvic area, it was also in my lower back on the right side.  I thought this was strange.  My joints and/or muscles are still really sore and my eyes, throat, mouth, and lips are extremely dry.  I am also having spasms in my fingers.  My appointment with the rheumatologist is on September 9.  I hope he can figure out what is going on with my body.

Meanwhile, my manic phase I was in is starting to taper off finally.  I am starting to get a handle on things.  I am attending group meetings once a week and learning new coping skills.  My brain has been in kind of a fog the past week or so.  I keep forgetting things.  I’m not giving up though, I have to fight for my little man:-)

Sometimes it’s hard to keep your head above water.  I have always struggled to do the right thing..and sometimes I fail.  But I do try.  Maybe I have wronged people in my life, but it wasn’t on purpose.  Well, maybe I have done some things on purpose but not really.  Bipolar is a complicated illness, and sometimes I have made bad judgement calls.  I still feel that those bad calls were my fault though.  And sometimes I get so stuck in the negative that people avoid me.  I really struggle with that. 

When someone hurts me, it’s like all the bad things that have happened in my life come back and slap me down and try to crush me.  I don’t know if this is Bipolar or Anxiety or if it’s just me.  But yesterday I was hurt very badly by some people.  I won’t name names because that would just be wrong.  But this is my place to tell my story, and this is part of my story. 

This couple, who were supposed to be my friends, for some reason would not let their daughter come stay with me.  Wouldn’t even let her ride in the same car as me.  Well, it was his daughter and her step-daughter.  Me and their daughter have a really close friendship and she wanted me to become friends with her mother.  So we started talking and became friends.  She and her mother wanted her to come stay with me, but out of respect for my friends I said no.  I kept saying no.  But her mother made a good argument that it was up to her when she was staying with her, and if they were my friends they wouldn’t do me that way.  So, I said I would let her stay with me sometime.  My “friends” found out.  They also found out I told her about something I told her, not to hurt anyone, but because she was confused and scared about how everyone was acting. 

So, they get one of their friends (who is supposed to be my friend also) to take a picture of my son, that I gave them because I thought they cared about my son, and go up to a male friend of mine’s mother and step-father and tell him this might be your grandson.  Asking if they thought my son looked like him.  He gets online and asks me why I would tell his family that when there is no possible way my son could be his.  I was so shocked, hurt, angry.  This is the most cruel, childish, thing someone could ever do to me.  My blood pressure got so high, I almost passed out.  I was crying, and yelling. 

It would be different if they were just messing with me, but they are messing with my baby!  That, I WILL NOT TOLERATE!!!  Then, another friend of mine, said I should expect people to do this to me because of what I’ve done.  Expect someone to take my son’s photo and show it to people and say he could be their grandson?  No, sorry, but no, I never in a million years expected that.  Needless to say, now my bipolar is making me have all kinds of mood swings and my son’s Daddy is really upset and couldn’t sleep last night.  I gave them pictures because I thought they loved my son, well if they are going to do that crap, they can give them back and I wash my hands of them.  They are supposed to be Christians, like I am, but I would NEVER treat someone that way.  NO matter what they did to me.  That is the most horrible thing anyone has ever done to me.  I will forgive them, eventually, but they will never get close to me or my baby again.  How can someone be filled with so much hate?  I can’t even imagine it.  I will pray for them, that’s all I can do.

Maybe some would say I overreacted?  Maybe because of my mental illness?  Everyone I have talked to said I reacted how they would have.  But to me, it was like a battle.  It was like all these things that have happened to me came back to mind, plus this, and it was all trying to crush me but I didn’t let it.  I almost lost that battle because I believe I was near to having a stroke. 

People who have never dealt with this illness or this group of illnesses don’t understand what it’s like.  Everything is magnified to us.  It’s worse than physical pain to me.  I had rather they came and punched me in the face.  Now I am reeling from this mess.  One minute I’m ok, then I’m manic and have so much energy but am physically exausted the next.  Then I am so depressed I want to give up, but I can’t.  I have a little boy who is counting on me.  He needs his mother.  I will get over this, sooner than they think.  And they will never hurt me again because I will never let them close to us again.  Bipolar is a constant struggle, but one that I will eventually win with God’s help.  Despite all of my short-comings, despite all of my mistakes, He still loves me.  He can get me through this.

I had my sweet little boy by C Section on October 31, 2008.  There is nothing that compares to the joy I feel in my heart when I look into his beautiful blue eyes!  I wanted everything to be perfect for him.  I am keeping his father in his life, even though sometimes that makes things harder on me.  I love his father, don’t get me wrong.  Things just get complicated sometimes.  I want him to be in church…I wanted him to be there every time the doors were open but that’s not exactly working out right now.  I want him to have everything that he could possibly need or want.  I also want to be the best mother I can possibly be for him. 

Since the birth of my son, my OCD seems to have kicked into high gear.  I am a complete germaphobe now…everything must be sterilized before it touches my son.  I get this twinge every time small children get near him, especially ones that get rough around him.  I constantly keep my eyes on him.  I can’t be away from him for more than a couple of hours.  I won’t let very many people watch him.  If they do, I call constantly.  I carry everything in zip-lock bags.  Germ-X and other hand sanitizers are everywhere and always with me.  His clothes can’t be dirty.  I am paranoid about him getting sick or being around sick people.  Maybe all of this is trying too hard..but here is what made me realize that maybe I have a problem.  When he was first born, I made us sleep in shifts so someone would always be awake to watch him and make sure he was still breathing.  Ok, that was ok.  But now that we all sleep at the same time, I am constantly checking to see if he is breathing.  And in my mind, I think that if I don’t check, he will die.  I wake up every hour or less and make sure he is breathing.  I wake his dad up all the time and say, “put him on his back” or “you have him on his face”.  I never really get much sleep until he and his dad get up in the morning, then I know he is being watched. 

I can’t control these thoughts.  I am just so scared of SIDS.  I couldn’t make it if something happend to my little man.  So, I guess the OCD is making it much worse.  I’m not really sure what to do.  I have prayed about it.  I just automatically wake up over and over and automatically check him.  Maybe this is something I need to discuss with my doctor.

Have you ever felt like you’re just along for the ride?  Sometimes I do.  Like the waves are carrying me and I have no control over them.  But I do have control, don’t I? 

I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 Disorder with psychotic features, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Panic Disorder in 2006.  I have always known there was something different about me.  I was always too nervous, got upset too easily, had strange thoughts and experienced strange things.  When I was 8 years old, I misplaced my English book and wanted to kill myself because I didn’t want to get into trouble.  I couldn’t sleep alone until I was about 12 years old.  I would see things, hear things.  Living in constant fear and anxiety was not fun.  And then I was painfully shy.  If anyone I didn’t know talked to me, my face, ears, even my neck and chest, would turn bright red.  Kids would make fun of me and talk to me in front of the class just to see me turn red.  I liked to play alone most of the time, but when a new kid came to school, I was usually the first to greet them. 

One day, everything suddenly changed.  I became a totally different person.  I was hyper, always on the go.  I had lost several pounds by then and had several boyfriends.  I had this one boyfriend who was a bit younger than me.  Everyone gave me trouble about it and called me names.  Eventually I broke it off with him.  Then I got mixed up with some kids that drank and did drugs.  I thought if I did that too they would like me.  So I was always drinking and smoking pot.  I became angry and bitter.  I was going places I shouldn’t and doing all kinds of crazy things.  If anyone messed with me at school, I would cuss them out.  Some even seemed afraid of me. 

Somehow I got out of all that, and started dating this other guy who took me to church.  While I was with him, he was pretty nice at first but he started being somewhat verbally abusive.  I stayed with him though, and went on a youth trip with him.  There I met my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  He saved my soul on January 2, 1999.  I became a totally different person then.  I no longer drank or cussed or did drugs.  I tried to do as much good and witness to as many people as I could.  I even tried to make peace between my boyfriend’s mother and grandmother.  That didn’t go to well for me, his grandmother ended up starting rumors about me in the church.  I stopped going as much.  I was trying to witness to a friend of mine named Pam.  She didn’t believe there was a hell.  She was a really sweet person who tried to help me because I was having some mental issues at that time.  She died in a car accident.  Her father was driving drunk on their way back from the beach.  That devastated me because I thought I had failed her and that now she is in hell because of my failure.  I didn’t go to church for several years after that. 

I began working at Walmart and went back to my wild ways.  I was drinking, and doing all that bad stuff again.  I was extremely hyper, so I was a great worker and they kept giving me raises.  I now know that I was manic during that time.  I also met someone and fell in love.  We were together for several years.  Then some friends of mine betrayed me really badly and I had some kind of breakdown.  I was so depressed I couldn’t get out of bed.  So I went to a psychiatrist and that is when I was diagnosed.  I went on meds, which made me gain a lot of weight and helped cost me my relationship with the man I loved.  I started going back to church and was really happy. 

Then, I went back into a depression and was convinced I was going to hell no matter what I did.  A good friend helped me so much during this time.  If she hadn’t let me stay with her and pray and pray with me, I don’t know if I would have made it through.  I will never be able to repay her.  I finally did come out of the depression, at this church we were going to on Friday nights.  They had a singing and they sang this song called The Blood Is Still There.  I felt the Spirit that night and I felt better after that.

For some reason, I went into a manic phase for a little while after that.  I’m not going into details here, but I ended up pregnant.  I am so happy about that because I have always wanted a baby.  And Daniel is the sweetest, most loving baby I have ever seen! 

My road has been a bit rough here lately.  We are low on money and I have been so stressed out.  And it seems like no matter what I do, I get blamed for something or get a guilt trip for something.  But sometimes I have to choose between feeding my family and going places.  Maybe things will get better soon.  I am being tested for Sjogren’s, Lupus, and RA right now.  Also I had to go get a biopsy of a growth in my uterus.  I have been having a lot of strange symptoms lately.  I’ll get into that a little later.  This is kind of a long post..LOL.  I just got started and couldn’t stop!

My name is Amanda Smith.  I am 30 years old and have a wonderful little boy named Daniel.  I am a Christian saved by God’s Amazing Grace!  That said, I am also not perfect…which is why I needed saving to begin with.  I am currently living with Bipolar Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, OCD, and Panic Disorder.  I also have Acid Reflux Disease, Asthma, and suspected to have Sjogren’s Syndrome.  Despite all of my shortcomings, I do the best I can and be the best mommy I can to my little boy.  Thanks for taking to the time to read about us