Learning to Fly

Is it hormones? Is it bi polar disorder? Is it trauma?

I started to track the ups and downs. Two weeks ago I was clearly high and for the first time I actually told people I was feeling High. I acknowledged that my emotions were up so far up that I couldn’t even get a handle on the happiness and the excitement I was feeling. I told Tom that I felt “un-controllably happy”. Two weeks before that I felt low, so low that I wrote another entry about the pain and how I wanted it to end. Today I feel that same desperation. So clearly there is a cycle but the thing is right before every crash there has been a trigger.

A month ago it was a miscarriage, today it’s the letter I received from my ex-husbands victim.  

LOW

13 reasons why not 

I must have just written my one millionth suicide note. This time I imagined all my kids were at their fathers houses and I sent my sister an urgent message to come to my house after she got off of work. This way I would ensure that my body was found before my kids came back to my house. 

The reasons in this note today were simply I'm tired. I'm tires of fighting. If I were out of the picture all kids, fathers and grandparents would live happily ever after. Including the future ones. 

Despite the torment and torture my ex put me through, his onlookers admire his facade. He has created the perfect mirage. If I weren't standing in the way life would still be roses and sunshine. Just because my eyes are open doesn't mean anyone else's will. In the notes before, I found myself crying when my pen had stopped writing. Once upon a time "I couldn't do that to my mom" then it turned into "I can't do that to my kids". Today there is no one I feel would not benefit from my lack of existence. 

Before the age 40 I had no regrets. I was learning, trial and error. I was making mistakes that I thought had purpose and meaning. After the age of 40 I know see how I made terrible mistakes. Most of these mistakes were made out of selfishness and self-centeredness. I blamed everyone for my pain and I married my abuser. My eyes were shut. One of my biggest regrets I have is blaming my sister for living her life. I viewed her choices, that I couldn't understand, as stabs in the back. I also regret not being there for my oldest sister when she needed someone. I feel they both helped me more that I could have ever helped them. 

The worst part about this suicide fantasy is the reality I am living. Right now, at this very moment, while wallowing in self-pity, self-doubt and self-hate I am sitting on a plane with a man who loves me and his baby in my belly and all I can feel is pain. I want to blame him for being tired of my past, my present and my burden. 

Is it too much to ask for this fight to be over, for my selfishness, self-loathing and fear to be gone forever. Does it ever end or does it just become bearable? 

One half hour has passed since I wrote these words. The weight has lifted and my faith has been restored. I know that no matter what is in store for tomorrow everything will be okay. 

HIGH

Two weeks later

I could start this entry with a familiar line "I feel better, everything is looking up" but instead I will tell the truth. 

Thomas and I were driving along the highway and I kept telling him how much I loved him. Once we reached the city I noticed the people on the streets, beautiful women, handsome men, sweet children. The birds were especially melodic when it hit me. I looked over at Tom and hesitated before I said what I just realized. He asked me "what" before I could speak. 

I said "I think I'm high" 

"What do you mean" he asked

And for the first time I noticed the pattern. I said to him "it's like an overwhelming feeling of love. I want to tell you I love you over and over again because it's making my heart race. I want to dance and run and appreciate everyone I see"

DAM!!! 

This is definitely a pattern. This is all those empty pages of my journals. When life was good sometimes it was too good. I ran, I danced, I drank, I laughed, I woke up in strange places and then I crashed. I crashed so hard I returned to my writing, my praying, my pleading to survive the crash. 

I wonder if I trusted myself or had the support, would I have been diagnosed manic or bi-polar. I'm glad it was ignored and I wasn't medicated. But I am glad I have Zoloft for now. I wonder if this roller coaster is nature or nurture, not that it matters. What I'm most thankful for is the acknowledgement and the courage to admit the emotional imbalance. I hope that this might bring some more plateaus and less rides. 

Once as a kid I remember telling my sister I wouldn't trade the lows and the highs for a normal life. I always knew but I never admitted it. I hid. 

I'm done hiding.