Thoughts I'm Not Allowed to Think

Maybe after all this time and all this fighting against it... maybe it's time to reconsider bipolar disorder. Although I remember very little of it first hand, it's pretty obvious I was manic for a while. (And I kinda liked it, truth be told. From what I hear and what I do remember, I had energy and enthusiasm and saw the good before the bad overwhelmed me. I had a take-on-the-world attitude. I smiled and laughed and took things in stride. Sure, there were bugs crawling on my skin and I had a tendency to go with 1-2 hours of sleep and I kinda skipped town without telling anyone... but hey - actually... None of the bad stuff has changed except my attitude towards it. Hmm.) But far as up as I was then, I am sinking equally far down. I am tired, so so tired, in my soul and in my bones. I am back to having to force the positive thoughts and not really believing them even when I drag them out and tell myself they are what I should be thinking. I am back to not letting people know how I feel because they want to here that I am okay or better and I'm just not. The black thoughts swarming again. So if I went up and now I'm going down... should I revisit the bipolar thing? Or was it a medication screw up?

I just don't want to fight any more. I don't want to swim against the current. I don't want to try to stand back up every time I fall when I seem to be falling every single time. I feel worthless. Actually, less than worthless - I am taking up resources that could be used by better people. I stopped fighting the memories. Maybe this is a major factor in all this. I remember way too much. How did I forget this stuff in the first place? I don't have details. Just nagging little "remember this face? remember this trip? remember this day? remember?!" and I wish I could could lie down and curl up and give up. How could so many things not tied together have happened to one person unless it was the person themself causing them? Unless it was my fault or something inherently bad about me?

I watch a lot of television. Part of it is because I don't have a lot of choice. The tv is on always when Craig is home. But I have my own set of shows that I love and obsess over. Mostly because they are a reflection (albeit a somewhat distorted one) of current trends and thought patterns and partly because they are an escape into a world I wish existed. I like my tv shows but I know how unrealistic they are. I mean really... a shrink who would go to a patient's house to check and see if they are okay? I can't even get mine to call me back in a crisis. Shrinks can't afford to get too invested in their patients. They would become overwhelmed and burn out like the return descent of the Columbia. All it takes is one panel damaged by an innocent piece of foam insulation...

Another thing... why do authorities on television always tell victims they did great just by surviving? It's not really like they had a choice. Believe me, if it were possible to *will* oneself to die, there would be a lot fewer victims out there. And yet the people on tv always take such heart from it, gain perspective and decide they can face everything after all. Tell me, really, what is the alternative to surviving?

So many things come down to choice or even the appearance of choice. I had a choice. I always had a choice. He rubbed that in my face all the time that I had a choice, that I was deciding to those things, that He would stop if I just said the word. Even now, I have the choice to feel better, right? I just need to think happy thoughts. Obviously I am choosing to stay sick. I must like the "sick martyr" role for the attention. Or I'm too lazy to do the work. I do have choices. Lots of them. I don't have to be here. I have enough drugs in the kitchen to make sure no ventilator could help. But I choose to stay around because of my family and a few other people that are almost family. I know this is a choice, but it doesn't feel like one. I want to say screw you to everyone and just give up. Take the pills and quit fighting and or just plain shut down, shut everyone down and give up. But I can't. I'm not allowed. Not even allowed to think it... so of course, I'm not, right?

Let me ask this though. When a child loses a parent to a car wreck or cancer or even murder, it's horrible and devastating, but the kids get over it and move on. Even if they were driving drunk, wrecked and died, it doesn't destroy the kids. If the experts are so bent on insisting that depression is a disease, why does death from it generate such awful stigma and permanently traumatize children?

I want to do NaNoWriMo this year. I have a plot, a cast of characters, and a setting. But I also have a life. And writing 1700+ words every day is not a luxury I have. Again with the taking care of other people. I guess that's my role in life - protect everyone... from ME. Will I ever be free? Will I ever live my life in a way that *I* want instead of what's best for everyone else? No, not that I can see anywhere in the future. Because the kids will always need me and once they don't their kids will...

How can the day be so sunny and beautiful, the children so happy and cheerful, my own dear birthday boy be so funny and sweet and everything around me be so perfect.... and me just want to curl up and hide? How can so much depend on me being alive and happy and all I want to is to disappear? How can God be making so sure that I stay here and yet all I want is to go home?

I hate me.