Drained and Uninspired

I am drained. If there was a way to measure the amount of energy, willpower, and motivation that resides within me it would alarm even the calmest of souls. I am not immune to this feeling, being bipolar has been a great mentor in showing me the lifestyle of the chemically imbalanced. With that being said, I thought my severe lows and my extreme highs were of the past, but it looks my brain is trying to humble me once again. 

Microdosing has truly made a significant difference in my quality of life. By reading the first paragraph this might come as a surprise, but truly, life has been better than it ever has. I have found stability, balance, and joy. I have been more introspective than I have ever been and focused to make what I desire manifest into my reality. I don’t just wish for a difference, I make it happen. When I do find myself falling into a low, I can usually get myself out pretty quickly. The same goes when I start to experience some moments of mania, although I can’t really recall my last true manic episode. So that is why this time I am scared. Because I can’t get out. 

I have been feeling myself drift for a little while now, and my depression and anxiety has been having fun trying to show me what I have been missing. I know that some of it stems from my career path. I was supposed to be an author. I have half of a manuscript that I poured my entire soul into, and now I just lack the inspiration and energy to complete it. I was working with a publisher, we were in conversation about the publication process, book tour, the art. Everything. But I needed a paycheck now, so I had to put my dream on hold. And now I feel as if my energy is being wasted. I love creating and building up a story. I enjoy nothing more than developing a twist that no one was expecting. I become giddy when I create a character that is relatable, and to show their journey. I want my readers to feel everything from the safety of a cemetery to the sadness that a character may feel to the jolt of excitement that shoots through them from the climax of the tale. I want to leave an impression on those who take the time to read what I poured myself into. That is what I love. That is what makes life sweet for me. Despite knowing this, there is not enough of me to do my job, take care of my animals, take care of my husband, take care of other tasks that I need to complete to stay alive, and take care of myself in the form of creativity. 

To make a long story short, I feel stuck. I feel stuck creatively, mentally, and passionately. I feel as though my soul has once again detached itself from this vessel and now I am walking around doing everything that I am supposed to be doing but without gratification. I don’t feel fulfilled, I don’t feel happy, and I just feel stuck.

Suicidal ideation is an unwelcome friend of mine. Although I have been able to keep it at bay for the most part since November, it recently has been at the forefront of the battle lines inside of my head. It became apparent that I was in battle once again last week when I was lying in bed, using everything I had to convince myself not to do what I really wanted to do. The problem with being suicidal is you don’t know what to listen to. Your mind is telling you that you are so exhausted that you can’t carry on any longer, but your heart is pleading for you to give yourself another chance. The thought of dying is the peace that you are looking for at that moment, but taking your last breath in this lifetime is just as terrifying. You want both outcomes, but it’s almost as if you don’t want to be responsible for that decision. 

When I say that the only reason why I am here is because of my animals, I truly mean it. Anytime I have almost done anything, my furbabies can sense it, and they shield me from myself. Last week, all six of my babies recognized the agony that I was in and did everything in their power to comfort me. My dogs are always there to put their weight on me to help soothe my anxiety. My cats are never too far away to jump to my aid and lick my tears away. When I feel them, I can breathe again. They continue to watch over me time after time. 

I think, for the most part, I am authentically me. I am unapologetically sarcastic, dry, a little cold, lazy, honest, overbearing, controlling, loving, caring, sweet, an interesting mix of spontaneous, and someone who needs to plan ahead. I am quirky and odd. I can see the big picture of the universe and use the secrets that I have access to guide me through my life lessons. I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I look at patterns and I tend to be realistic with my approach to things. These are just a few things that put together the puzzle of me, Brookana. 

There are certain places in my life when I feel like I can’t fully be me. I find myself masking at work, and by the end of the day, I am just absolutely fucking tired. At work, I am soft-spoken, tender, respectful, and kind. And while all of those traits aren’t necessarily bad, they definitely aren’t all of me. By not being everything that I am, I am not being authentic, and that grows tiresome. 

I know within time I will get out of this low. I know I will start creating worlds and stories again, and one day, hopefully not too far from now, my manuscript will be complete and someone will be thinking about my words after they read the final page of my story. 

Mental health is scarier than any scary story I have ever written, but I am determined to keep fighting no matter what wounds I might inflict on myself. 

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My Mind and the Lack of a Middle Ground

Hi everyone. It has been a while. Nobody likes to hear excuses for anything, and I am included in that, but I would just like to give you a super brief explanation of my whereabouts. I opened a new business, The Witches Abode, and it sure has kept me busy. I love it though. I get to be creative and work on my craft and interact with amazing people on a daily basis. Everything that I have ever wanted as a small business owner is coming to fruition, and every day I wake up feeling more and more fortunate. I also have been working behind the scenes on a super-secret project which I hope to be announcing within the next month or two. Now, unfortunately, with all of this good in my life, there also needs to be some bad, because there always needs to be some sort of balance. 

One thing that is truly starting to trouble me is I feel like I have never been properly diagnosed when it comes to my mental illness. First, I was diagnosed with depression. Then I was diagnosed with severe depression and bipolar disorder. Then I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety. Then, my most recent diagnosis is clinical depression, generalized anxiety disorder, and PTSD. You see, I never thought that bipolar disorder was something that I had because I never really thought that I had manic episodes. I was always just very depressed with suicidal tendencies, but I never went up and down with my emotions. I am starting to realize that maybe I have had manic episodes, but I just never knew what they were.

The past couple of months have been a rollercoaster. I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t been taking my medications, which include Lexapro and Abilify, regularly. I don’t know what it is. I feel like I am starting to feel better so I stop taking them, and then I wonder why I come crashing down. I have started questioning life again. I have started having major anxiety attacks because I feel like I am not doing anything perfectly. I lay on the couch sometimes and list off all of the things that I should be doing but I can’t bring myself to do them. I have thought about self-harming. I haven’t purposely done anything to myself in about a year now, but there have been moments where I was shaking because I wanted to so bad. So instead of hurting myself in a negative way, one night while I couldn’t sleep, I bought a stick and poke tattoo kit. And when that kit arrived in the mail was when I knew something was wrong.

You see, I feel so much pressure that it almost feels indescribable. I am trying to work on The Witches Abode, I am trying to work on my secret project, I am trying to maintain my home and tend to my plethora of animals. I am trying to take care of my husband and try to have a social life that I can be happy with. And I am also trying to take care of myself. Well due to the pressure that I feel and my obvious lack of coping skills, I started to crumble. I became fragile. So instead of hurting myself in a negative way, I started tattooing myself. Then, before I knew it, three weeks went by and I have gained fifteen new tattoos. Fifteen tattoos that I did to myself as an inexperienced tattoo artist. And that is not to mention the three new piercings that I have gotten (by professionals) within the past two weeks. Let’s go back to the tattoos though. Now I am fortunate that I love every single one with the exception of one, and I have already been in contact with my tattoo guy to get that atrocity covered up, but fifteen tattoos in three weeks is worrisome due to what it represents. Each of those fifteen tattoos was done to prevent myself from self-harming. 

I believe that I have been in a manic episode, and I believe that I am finally starting to come down. I have spent money that I should not have spent, I have done things to my body that I probably should have spaced out more, and, to be frank, my sex drive has been even higher than it already is. I just know something is different, and I really think that there is something going on.

I have been talking to my therapist about this, and we have devised a plan to help me with my coping skills. Luckily, I do have a lot of work that I need to focus on, so instead of tattooing myself, I will just work on my business and on my secret project instead. I am behind on my project, so I need to use my time wisely to catch up on that. Also, I have a huge event that I am doing for The Witches Abode in December, and I need to work on that. I also have a new contract as a freelance writer so the assignments will help keep me busy. Luckily, I have work to occupy my mind. 

I think the thing that is scary to me is the fact that I am never just living and enjoying life. I am either so depressed that I can’t leave my bedroom or I am so elated that it doesn’t feel like reality. And when I feel like I am not in reality there is a part of me that tells myself to calm down, but I almost lose control over myself and my actions. It is an odd experience and I feel like a lot of people like feeling manic but I hate it. I hate to not feel control over myself. 

Anyways, I am working towards being more balanced when it comes to my mental illness, and I remain hopeful that one day I can feel somewhat normal if normal even exists.

The Monster That Hid Behind the Mask

***GRAPHIC CONTENT ABOUT SEXUAL ASSAULT. PLEASE DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE AT RISK FOR A TRIGGER. PLEASE MOVE FORWARD WITH CAUTION.***

I close my eyes and I can visualize you perfectly. The way that you would smirk. The way that your hair fell to the side. The way that you would grab your stomach while you laughed. The way that you smelled. The way that I could feel your energy whenever I was near you. 

You had this way of making every girl fall in love with you, which was remarkable because you were never that attractive. You weren’t physically or emotionally desirable, and yet, I wanted you. I wanted to know what it would feel like to hear you say “I love you.” I wanted to feel that static that one would feel when you held hands with someone you cared about. I wanted to feel the electricity that would build up between our lips as you kissed me. 

You used to make me feel so incredibly special. I met you before I was even a teenager, and I know that the moment you saw me was the moment that I became your next target. What I thought was love was manipulation, and what I thought was good intent ended up having ulterior motives. 

I was vulnerable with you. I cried in front of you. You comforted me when I needed comfort. What I thought was safety was actually me falling into the hands of a monster. 

You see, as I grew older, I realized that those moments of sincerity were moments of secrecy. You knew what you wanted and went for it under the disguise of someone who cared. The older I have become I have realized that what I thought was you being genuine was you training me and molding me to be your next victim. You always wanted something of mine that was never meant to be yours, and you were willing to do whatever it took it take it. 

So you used your best weapons against me. I was no match against your manipulation. I was not prepared to mentally handle what was about to happen. I was too naive to decipher your words that ended up being lies. 

I was never a person to you. I was always just a body. 

Someone hurt me before you did. And I went to you after it happened. I can’t imagine how difficult it was for you to find out that someone got to me before you did. Oh, how it must have angered you. You had been working on me for years, and you expected something for your efforts. 

So you decided to take your reward because you must have felt by this time it was now or never. You did things leading up to the event, testing me to see what I was willing to do. Seeing where my comfort was. I was emotionally driven by your lies, but I was nowhere near ready to take things where you wanted them to go. So you took that upon yourself. 

When I close my eyes I can feel you. I can feel your face less than an inch away from mine. I can feel your breath. I can feel my body go ice cold. I can feel my body wanting to run, but unable to move. I can feel that feeling that I felt in my stomach like I was about to be sick. I can feel the fear. The terror. I can feel your hand going up my leg in an effort to touch me. I can taste your finger going into my mouth, and I can hear you say “suck.” I can feel you grab me to touch you. I can feel and remember everything as if it were happening right now. I hate you for that. 

People assault people because they like the control. They like the game. He manipulated and trained me for years to be his puppet, and sadly, he won the game. 

I still dream of him. I still wake up with drenched in sweat. I still wake up filled to the brim with panic. 

Sometimes he slips into my mind and I just freeze. I can feel my body go ice cold. And there is nothing that I can do about it except just try to get through it. 

I am trying my best to release the grip that you have had on me for all of these years. Oh, how I have been trying. 

I hate you for what you did and who you are, but I take comfort in knowing that karma exists. Whether it is in this lifetime or the next, you will suffer as I have, and that brings a smile to my face.

Feel.

What does it feel like to have a mental illness? 

Every person has a different experience, but here is mine.

Mental illness is a type of monster that wants nothing more than to isolate you, torture you, belittle you, and test you.

Mental illness will make you doubt yourself more than anyone else ever could, causing your own self worth to diminish with every word spoken from your mind. 

Mental illness will keep you up at night. You think about every single thing that has ever happened to you, you think about and play out scenarios that never even happened, and you question every choice that you have ever made.

Mental illness will make you feel like you are in a world of euphoria, where you have never-ending energy and you can take on anything that comes your way. If you wanted to, you could save the world with your love, positivity, and energy. You can spend hours exercising, deep cleaning, calling and texting all of your friends and family, and not feel anything but extraordinary. You could quite literally do anything and everything, and you try to because you feel so good. But then, you crash. You spend eighteen hours in bed sleeping despite your partner trying to wake you up. You ignore phone calls and texts because you don’t have it in you to speak to another soul. When you do wake up, you’re a shell of a human being that just does the bare minimum to keep your body alive because at that moment your spirit is gone. This can last for as little as a day, or even months. You never know. 

Mental illness is either eating too little or too much. 

Mental illness is watching videos at four in the morning on “at home stick and poke tattoos” and considering buying the equipment yourself because you could “easily do that!”

Mental illness is wanting to tell your friends and family that you are sinking into a low but you’re too afraid to tell them because they go through this with you all of the time. Also, they sometimes throw your mental illness in your face when they are displeased with you.

Mental illness is staring at the scars on your body that you gave yourself and hoping with everything that you have that you won’t pick up that blade again.

Mental illness is knowing what is happening to you but not having any control over it.

Mental illness is taking medication and having a therapist because life would be awful without those things. 

Mental illness is relying on animals to bring you a glimmer of happiness and a sense of calm. 

Mental illness is living past memories so vividly that you have to remind yourself that those memories are in the past and you are safe right now.

Mental illness is constantly having to listen to people tell you to “grow up” or “deal with it” or “snap out of it.” 

Mental illness is sobbing in the shower or on the floor of your bedroom because you can’t stop thinking of the worst. 

Mental illness is a curse. It’s a sickness that eats away at you. It is always there, taunting you in the background just so you know that it is still there and can hurt you at any time. 

If you know someone with mental illness, please take it seriously. Ask them what they need. Make them tea, put on their favorite movie, give them their favorite book, make them their favorite food. Do whatever you can to make them feel loved and cared for and valued because when they are in a low they can’t see how incredible they are. The pain is unbearable, and even a tiny bit of effort and love from the people around them could quite literally save their life.