Train of thought…derailed

I used to be smart.  Really.  I earned a Masters degree, held a position of authority at my workplace, enjoyed reading Plato, and had started on a Doctoral program.  Honest.

Someone once said that with each child a mother bears, she loses half of her brain capacity.  So, one child equals a 50% brain.  A second child brings her down to a 25% brain.  I used to scoff at that, until I met my ex-husbands mother.  She had eleven children.  Dear God, the woman could barely finish a sentence.

So, I had a masters degree, working on a doctorate, two children, and a demanding career.  Ergo, trouble.  Add on three breakdowns, and by now ten years of mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and beta blockers.  My brain is mush.

I used to love to read.  Now, three paragraphs in, I am lost.  I can’t remember the last time that I finished a book.

I love Bill Cosby’s assertion that his brain is in his behind.  Mine too!  It goes like this: sitting in the living room, I think of something I need to get in the other room.  I stand up, walk to the other room, and have NO IDEA what I am looking for.  I go back to the living room, sit back down, and immediately remember what I needed in the other room. My brain is in my behind.

If I pay close attention, and the person I am conversing with has a fairly direct point to make, I can carry on a conversation.  Walk into the grocery store?  Complete blank.  I can buy $200 worth of groceries, and still forget the one thing I needed to make dinner.

I could get frustrated, but it’s easier to laugh.  My two teenagers know I have no memory.  Could they exploit this?  Absolutely.  But I have great kids, so they don’t take advantage.  They patiently remind me of what they had asked, and what I had answered.  And they know that, if anything needs to get done, they MUST write it down, and put it next to the coffee pot.  Coffee is the one thing I always remember in the morning.

Notes and lists are my lifeline.  I make a list everyday.  Chores I want to get done, places I need to go, and what I need to do when I get to those places.  Every day has an index card, and the index card gives structure to my day.  And the calendar on the wall is my lifeline.  If I don’t write it on the calendar, I guarantee you that I won’t remember it.

Here’s my secret:  any old index card won’t do.  I use fluorescent yellow index cards.  Why?  So when I forget where I put my list, the color makes it easy to find.  🙂

Face Value and Zero Expectations

We all have toxic people in our lives.  In-laws, ex-es, family members, co-workers, and even some friends can bring a level of toxicity into our relationships.  People like this use strategies to take up our time, deplete our energy, and keep themselves as a focus by either seeking attention or seeking to engage us in conflict.

Snide comments, backhanded compliments that are actually insults, manipulation, unclear communication that deliberately leaves us unsure of their meaning, passive aggressive actions, or even deliberate meanness are some of the tools in their boxes.

The strategies that a toxic person utilizes can leave us, the recipient, emotionally activated.  They leave us wondering “what just happened?’  “What did that mean?” “Did I really hear what I thought I heard?”  Confusion can be the best result of an interaction with a toxic person.  Further results can be anger, resentment, feeling insulted, or feeling that we, as the recipient, have done something wrong.

A toxic person can drain us emotionally.  Trying to understand the meaning behind the words, the actual occurrence that led to us being blamed, attempting to develop strategies to deal with the person, gain their favor, or maintain a relationship, is exhausting.

Trying to deal rationally with an irrational person can be crazy-making.

So, de-fuse their strategies.  Refuse to be engaged at a crazy-making level.  Keep it simple.  Hear only the actual words that come out of their mouth.  Take everything at face value, and stop trying to interpret and figure out the hidden meanings.  If what came out of their mouth was unclear but important, ask the clarifying questions without  getting sucked into an argument.  If what came out of their mouth was a loaded statement intended to create an argument, ignore it.  If what came out of their mouth was unclear and unimportant, forget about it.  Don’t bother.

Sounds easy, but it is hard.  It is a habit, and a habit needs to be developed over time. Toxic people in our lives have rubbed our emotional skin raw during the course of our relationships, and when they continue to poke at our raw skin, it is our instinct to react.  But don’t react.  Fake it until you make it.  Paste a smile on your face, let the words roll off your back, and act on only the actual words that come out of their mouths.

The second de-fusing tool that works in conjunction with face value is zero expectations.  The quickest way for someone to light our fuse and engage us in frustration, anger, and conflict is by them repeatedly not meeting our expectations.  We are not talking a one-time memory lapse.  We are talking about patterns, passive-aggressive patterns of people deliberately not meeting our stated needs.  Whether because they are teaching us that we are unimportant, that our needs have no value, or to engage us in conflict, their actions can be infuriating.  Paying the bills, following through on appointments, making plans and keeping them are reasonable expectations to have of a reasonable person.

Toxic people are not reasonable.  Missing appointments, losing checkbooks, changing plans, inappropriate social behaviors, and creating crises are methods  by which they can induce an emotional response from us.  We must remove ourselves from their power.  They can not create a response of anger, frustration, and disappointment from us if we have no expectations of them.  We create this by developing an attitude of Zero Expectations.   Now, if this is a spouse, there are additional problems.  But as far as in-laws, ex-es, and some friends, remove the expectations.  De-fuse our own responses of anger or disappointment by not relying on them.

When we have successfully learned the habit of taking things only at face value, and of having zero expectations, it will be much more difficult for a toxic person to push our buttons.  And, if we have developed the face value and zero expectation skills, it helps us to step back far enough from a toxic person to choose whether or not to continue our relationship with them.  We have taken our power out of their hands, and given it back to ourselves.

Regret, not resent

There have been many different periods of triumph, and tragedy, in the past twenty years of my life.  I have loved, and lost love.  I have achieved a graduate degree, and have had to leave a career.  I have been married, and been divorced.  And always, always, I have worked hard to make the right decisions, the ones that would cause me the least amount of regret in looking back.

BiPolar has played a part in many aspects of my life.  Diagnosed nearly ten years ago, with several breakdowns and two divorces under my belt, I hated my disorder.  I raged against it.  I did (and still sometimes do) hate the idea of having to take medications daily for the rest of my life.  I blamed it for the failure of a marriage, for the loss of a career that I loved, and for my inability to trust those close to me. I hated the depressive lows that diminished my ability to be an active part of my kids’ life. I hated the manic highs that brought about financial difficulty and unstable romantic relationships.

But anger and resentment did not help.  The anger did not resolve anything, did not make anything better. The anger kept me in a state of blaming, instead of a state of repairing.

Regret is unavoidable.  Though I have made the best decisions that I was capable of making, though I tried to avoid having regrets, I do, still, have regrets.  I have dozens of “I wish…”.  Dozens of “If only….” .

My regrets now, are gentle waves of sadness that come periodically.  There are things in my life that I regret.  There are behaviors in my past that I regret.  Decisions I made that I regret. There are people in my past, unable to cope with my mood swings, that I miss terribly.

I can repair only what is in my power.  I can only change the decisions I am making in my present.

Though I cannot avoid regret, I can choose not to resent.  Not to resent the loved ones who left me, whether due to my bipolar behavior, or due to their own limits.  Not to resent my illness for sabotaging my career, and destroying relationships.  To resent requires being angry, and being angry takes energy away from healing.  I will continue to make the decisions that I believe will cause the least amount of regrets for me and those who I love.  And when the regrets come, as they will, I will acknowledge them, miss what is gone, and continue moving in the present toward the future.

Manifesting an Attitude of Gratitude

I don’t remember who first introduced me to the gratitude journal.  The concept is simple: record three things for which you are grateful each day.  I’ve started and stopped dozens of gratitude journals over the past twenty years.  Though the habit of writing the gratitude journal may not have stuck with me, the general idea has.

Today was the third day of a long weekend.  My college-age daughter had been home since Thursday, and my high-school age son had no school Monday. In addition, my son had a friend over for the long weekend.  Xbox on the big screen in the living room, late nights of teenagers laughing and eating (and eating and eating, as teenage boys do).  Each morning was a treasure hunt of glasses, plates, and wrappers to figure out what we had run out of, and needed to restock from the grocery store.

Socks on the floor, soda bottles and glasses on the coffee table, and for some reason, a grenade of lollipop sticks and wrappers had exploded throughout the living room.  A recipe for Mom’s crankiness.

I think I drew blood from biting my tongue. It was time to drive my daughter back to college, with a laundry basket full of freshly-washed clothes.  Returning from that 2-hour round trip drive, it was time to take the friend home.  The son remains, prepping for one more teacher-workshop-day-off before beginning finals week and returning to his Dad’s house by going into his own room to play video games.

Quiet.  No chaos.  No “get your feet OFF of me!”  No video game frustration. No “where’s my cell phone” tearing apart the couch.

Peaceful.  Messy, but peaceful.

And it struck me then.  I have a beautiful, intelligent, funny daughter who chooses to come home from college frequently because she still enjoys being at home.  I have a clever, handsome, determined son who is willing to share his interests with me, and is still comfortable having a friend come for several days into our home and family. That my kids bug me because they want me to be involved in their lives.  That my kids have been and are continuing to make very different choices than I made when I was a teenager.  They don’t party.  They don’t break curfew.  They know what their goals are, and they work hard to make them happen. They are willing to share who they are with me.

I am reminded to be grateful.

Stop “Should-ing” on me!

Learning to balance the demands of one’s own daily life is sometimes difficult. Setting priorities, making decisions, and completing tasks can be a daily challenge.  When the deep depression of BiPolar strikes, it is a monumental effort to complete the simplest chore.  When the high of mania or hypomania hits, it is nearly impossible to focus on one task long enough to complete it.  So the best measure of getting through the day is simply doing what one is able to do.

Well-meaning friends, or overly-critical controlling participants in one’s life can truly complicate the ‘getting-through-the day” process.

With the best of intentions, the well-meaning suggest activities, which one does not have the energy for.  They recommend processes that are overwhelming.  They attempt to bring one to recognize or make insights into patterns that are beyond the scope of vision one has at the time.

The less-well-meaning participants in one’s life do the same types of things, but with the intention of controlling, demeaning, isolating, or belittling. They recommend doing more, doing better, and doing things their way.  They may say they intend to help, and at times they may be believable.  But in the long rung, their suggestions are made in order to benefit themselves.

In both scenarios, whether coming from from a well-meaning friend, or an overly-controlling partner, the damning word is “should”.

“You should do….”  “You should try….”  You should do it this way…”  “You should improve…”  “You should do more…”

And the harder ‘should’ trap is the one we set for ourselves.  When we began to “should” on ourselves, most of the time we are actually devaluing what we have done or how we have done it.  “I should do more”, “I should have done it better”, “I should have done that (other task)”. We forget to acknowledge what we have accomplished in the light of what we have not.

But the secret to killing those “shoulds” is this:  remembering who we are, celebrating what we have accomplished, and giving ourselves praise and permission to do things the way we choose to do them.

So, I vow to tell all;  the well-meaning, the controlling, and myself; “Stop should-ing on me!’

“God willing, and the creek don’t rise.”

There’s an old phrase that hes been rattling around in my brain for a few days.  I’ve heard it a dozen times or so, mostly from an older generation.  It’s a response one might get to a request for help, an invitation to be somewhere, or a query about someone’s ability to do something.  “God wiling, and the creek don’t rise” is a way of saying, “I’ll do what I can” or “I’ll do what is in my power to do.”

What I love most about this phrase is how it reminds us that we aren’t always capable of doing what we would like to be able to do.  Whatever one’s stand on religion, it is a catchphrase that acknowledges that we are not all-powerful.  The unknown, the unexpected, even Nature can interrupt our best intentions.

I know that I can get caught up in things I think I should do, or want to do, or even think I need to do.  But, simply enough, sometimes the unexpected gets in the way.  A flat tire, construction on the highway, illness, or even schedule conflicts can derail the best of plans.  When that happened, I used to get angry, frustrated and upset. It was about control.  It was about my agenda being disrupted.

But when I step back and remind myself “God willing and the creek don’t rise”, well, it helps me to see the circumstances that are thwarting me in a larger perspective.  If the creek rises and you can’t get out of the driveway, there’s nothing you can do to change it, until the creek feels like receding. If it feels like the universe if conspiring to prevent you from accomplishing a certain task, well, sometimes the universe is right.  Patience, resilience, and ingenuity are better mental states than rigidity, frustration, and stubborn determination.

Alone, not lonely

Through fifteen years of split parenting and shared residence of the kids, I learned to be alone three days of the week.  The first years were the hardest.  I had to learn to give myself permission to feel more than sadness when they were with their father.  I had to learn that I could enjoy my time while they were gone without feeling guilty.  It was not easy.  When a divorce ended my romantic relationship, and a breakdown ended my ability to work, the prospect of three days completely alone was daunting.

I struggled with loneliness.  I threw myself into four part-time jobs to keep from having to be home alone, and to face the silence in the house.  I leaped into another doomed relationship, sold a house, bought a house, and got to the point of having a second breakdown with a suicide attempt.  It was an ugly time.

With time and help, I finally understood that I was making irrational decisions in my desperation not to be alone with myself.  I was afraid of the racing thoughts, the painful recollections of unhealthy actions in my past, and the utter stillness and silence that I found so suffocating.

I now cherish my time alone.  I can listen to the silence without racing to fill it with TV, or even radio.  I have tried hard to forgive myself for mistakes I have made, and to become a friend to myself.  I actually now get cranky if I don’t get some alone time each day.  Facing myself in the mirror, acknowledging what went wrong in the past, and forgiving myself for certain decisions seemed to be the key for me.

I can enjoy being alone without being lonely.

The ‘Structure’ Trap

All of the therapists, psychologist, psychiatrists that I have worked with since my bipolar diagnosis in 2004 have encouraged me to build a daily routine.  And it’s helpful.  It gives me a sense of stability and predictability, as well as a sense of accomplishment in completing tasks each day.

There is no way you could mistake my house as one of a person with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  The shelves need to be dusted, and with a big hairy dog, a cat, bird, two teenagers, and a woodstove, daily maintenance of sweeping the floor, changing the litterbox and vacuuming the hair off the couch is just about enough to keep it looking decent.  But I sure wouldn’t want to eat off my floor!

The benefit of a structured daily routine, keeping the house neat and organized, helps me monitor and decrease the chaos in my brain.  The racing thoughts, ruminations on past traumas, and harm-avoidance worrying about the future can be significantly more manageable if I keep the environment at home peaceful.  But at different times each year, like mid-winter and early spring, I find myself caught in an increasing spiral of completing my daily routine with just a little bit more rigidity, just a little more exacting standard of completion, just a little more emphasis toward perfection.

It could be “spring fever” from being cooped up due to the winter weather.  It could be the onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder, which challenges me each season.  Whatever the cause, when I recognize the cycle I need to get off of the rollercoaster.  I need to take a day to find different activities, whether cleaning out the garage, moving around the living room furniture, or planning a room renovation.  Creating structure for myself is beneficial.  But when the structure takes on a demanding life of its own, then it is a trap whose power must be diminished so that it returns to being a helpful part of my day.  Structure should not produce anxiety and irritation.

Rolling the boulder uphill

Life sometimes is unmanageable, no matter how simple it may seem to others.  A daughter in college, struggling through first semester with an anxiety disorder as well as developing mononucleosis, doubles the strain on her as well as challenging Mom to keep her healthy, motivated and keeping her scholarships active.  A son in high school, also diagnosed bipolar, whose half-time father tells him to ‘man up’ and outgrow his need for meds so that he can go into the military and not waste money by failing out of college.  A relationship between a man and woman, challenged by a combined total of five divorces and a mutual unwillingness to put the teens through the stress of yet another step-parent. The death of a parent with Alzheimers, and the mutual assurances that it is for the best, yet painful.  The economic challenges of surviving on disability income without making the family feel deprivation and uncertainty.

And yet, somehow, it works.  There is compassion, and mutual understanding, and joy.  There is laughter and love, challenges and successes.  But the existence, the day-to-day struggle, the never-ending appointments with therapists and psychiatrists, the unending medication refills; no matter how well this day has been accomplished, the ongoing burden of bipolar will be there in the morning.  And sometimes, it feels like the battle will never end.