Slipping...

So I'm not doing so hot lately.

It's rough, this being bipolar business. It pretty much sucks, actually.

I was diagnosed 4 years ago, and for the last 3 of those years, I've been doing extremely well, quite stable on my meds. It was great.

And now, all of a sudden, those meds just aren't working for me anymore. There's no explanation, they've just stopped being effective. My doctor even doubled my dose of Effexor, to more than the maximum dose, and it hasn't helped.

If anything, I'm spiraling even further downward.

I can feel myself falling apart. The tears are coming every night now, unbidden and unprovoked. I couldn't cry for so long, because I was too medicated, even when I was truly sad, that it's weird now to be crying all the time (at night, when the kids aren't around, thankfully) for no apparent reason. The "thoughts" are starting to come back and are picking up frequency. I'm not going to act on anything, but I have the necessary phone numbers if I need them...

I hate this. I don't have time for this. I have too much going on, too much to do, between needing to clean the house, needing to feed and maintain the kid and pets, planning lessons for homeschooling (we start in less than 2 weeks! Unless I can't get this under control, and then I'll push it back to September...), running the high-maintenance Fishing and Wishing blog... No time for depression.

Some people think it's something you can control, like you can just say, "I'm not going to feel like this. I'm not going to give in to this," and snap out of it. Well, those people can kiss my ass. They are clueless about depression and bipolar disorder, because I have been trying to hard to yank my head out of this fog, and it's been a wholly futile effort.  I want to be happy. I want to be content. I want to be stable and function normally. I don't want to wallow in misery. It's a terrible feeling.

I just needed to get it out. Please don't feel obligated to leave a bunch of "I'm so sorry" comments. I know you are. I know you guys care and want to see me get better. And I will.  Soon.

Fin.