I remember I remember when I lost my mind

Last night was VERY bizarre, filled with racing thoughts, some nice, some sad, some infuriating. I wanted to call up an ex and call her a stupid moonyas for something she said like, two years ago. I started trying to piece the stories of my life together. I was thinking about something seriously fucked up that happened to me eight years ago, and how I only ever told six people about it. I sat up several times to pet Schrodinger and Mister, who were being adorable. Schrodinger has turned into the sweetest kitty cat ever, with a nice deep rumbly purr. They are very good at calming me down. I think I need to adjust my meds, which means another trip to the doc. Oh well.

My favorite cousin, Deanna, is leaving!!! She’s moving to Regina today to start classes at the U of R. I will miss her, but I know it’s a better program than the pitiful excuse for an art department at the U of S. She is a wicked fly lady, I hope she kicks ass out there.

Anyway, I didn’t get a lick of sleep last night, it was very frustrating. I know I’ll have a short nap at some point today, but I’m still going to feel like crud, with eyes falling out of my head. Now I’m drinking milk, because for some reason it totally rocks when you’re having mental health issues. I think it does something for your brain, and it calms ya down. I remember in the psych ward they were always giving us milk, and I was like “I am not a child!” But it turns out that there is a reason for it.

One day my cuz and I were listening to the radio and Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy” came on and we both cracked up.

I’m not suicidal or depressed, per se, but I think I may be going hypomanic. Cruddy. It’s good that I’m recognizing it, and I also think I know why. My day time meds were moved to The Med Cupboard without me knowing and I didn’t take them for a week because I couldn’t find them. Also I find I have to put my day time meds in a place where I go every morning and see them, such as beside the computer. I will have to move them back here, or I’ll just keep forgetting and fucking myself over. And my daytime meds are the mood stabilizers, and the night time ones are mostly for depression. So yeah, a week without mood stabilizers will do this. Yesterday I was like, ULTRA mega bitch to my mom, and the worst part was that I knew it too and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t yell or scream at her, I just kept sassing her and not doing what she wanted me to do and being generally unhelpful. Jeez, I wanted to kick my own ass. I haven’t been hypomanic in a long time.

I think I need marijuana. Pot totally kicks ass for bipolar, unless you get something that’s laced. But it’s great, makes you feel happier when you’re depressed, makes you calmer when you’re getting manic. There are some people who are trying to push for medical marijuana to be made available to bipolar people, but there’s a lot of resistance towards giving a mind altering substance to the mentally ill. Never mind that all the prescription drugs we’re on are also highly mind altering, they have the stamp of 20th Century pharmaceutical approval, whereas marijuana has only been used medically for thousands of years.

I did Shrooms the other night. Some might think this is why I’m hypomanic, but I think it’s been starting for a few days. But what was really cool on Shrooms was that whenever I thought I was about to have a bad trip I’d say to myself “wait a minute, I’m on DRUGS! This isn’t real!” and then I would start giggling. I think that kind of mentality is also applicable to bipolar mood swings. I’m not cranky and messed up, it’s a byproduct of chemical malfunctions. The trick to surviving manic and depressive episodes is to try to view it as objectively as possible. That’s kinda hard, but it really does help. A diabetic with high blood sugar wouldn’t feel like a fuck up failure, so why should I?

God, I’m glad I quit that suck ass artist run centre job, I couldn’t stand being told I was a fuck up unreliable failure for having a bipolar episode and missing three and a half days of work. That and listening to some dude tell me racist shit about Native people and assuming because I’m a lesbian all I’m interested in is sex. Dude, I’m not completely about sex, I’m about the Revolution!!! Personally, I think artist run centres are the most dysfunctional work environments. So many of my friends have gotten fucked over and burnt out working in those places. I’m not sure why that is. Even call centres are healthier work environments, and that’s saying something!! Besides that, I was the first woman to ever have that position, AND the only Native employee, AND everyone who gets that job is hated by the Saskatoon video community. I think people also saw me as some kind of outside interloper, even though I grew up in Saskatoon. Either way, it was wreaking havoc on my mental health, and being shamed for my disability by my boss was some fucked up shit yo.

I have some stuff I want to post here in the next while, but not this post, cause it’s totally irrelevant.

I think I need a totally fun, silly, smart, kick ass girlfriend with a good sense of humour who won’t go all wangy when I have episodes. “Aaaaaah! My girlfriend is CRAZY!!! I’m dumping her ass right now, I don’t care if she’s in the hospital, she pisses me off!” Yeah, I definitely don’t need a sweetie like that.

You know, the strangest thing about stigma towards the mentally ill is that most people will experience a mental health crisis at some point in their life. It could be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, Agorophobia, Post Partum Depression, or Dementia. EVERYONE is at risk for that shit, and those are some pretty tricky issues to get through. So sometimes when people treat me like shit because I’m crazy, I just smile to myself, because one day they’ll step through the looking glass and be as fucking looney bird as me.