Normal
I've been sick my whole life: major social anxiety, OCD, panic attacks, Crohn's, arthritis, bipolar, migraines, and I'm sterile as well. I'll be 30 in March and I've never touched a girl, never gone to a normal school.
I have a Master's in Library Science but the job market is horrible for that, so I've been working two part-time positions, seven days a week for the past four and a half years without a promotion or raise. I have never really had any friends and the people I work with just want to go home, same as myself. The two jobs earn me a little north of 20K a year but I have no time for any social activities; this is being typed up at work.
I've been in therapy for 20+ years and I'm heavily medicated. Generally, the meds work well but attempts to decrease the dosages have always proved disastrous. They have a ton of side effects, though; Topamax makes me a lot stupider than I was before, Klonopin makes me perpetually tired, Prednisone causes wild mood swings beyond the bipolar problems and bloats my body, etc. I think this is as good as it will get.
Lately, I've been feeling extremely lonely. I want what I see everyone else has. Getting upset always triggers my problems though; I find thoughts that I can't get out of my head, fantasies of gunning down all the people more fortunate than me, repeating patterns of words that I can't stop thinking of, the idea of inducing myself to vomit that I can't get out of my brain and that makes me retch for an entire day. I become manic without realizing it as well; I snap at patrons who I think are being impertinant to me, curse people out in public. In the past, I've smashed cars that cut me off, had to be restrained from punching a woman in the face, and was nearly expelled from university for screaming at a professor in front of about 300 students. At the time, these all seemed like perfectly normal things to do, just like when depressed, it seemed normal for me to consider jumping out of a window. I'm not this bad all the time but I can't trust myself and I always feel like I'm just on the brink of a mental break (I've had three, so far).
All I want is to be normal, to have a girlfriend and a decent job. But the therapists keep prodding me and asking questions and adjusting meds and I feel like I'm going to lose my shit again. And I've already wasted the majority of my life; hell, thanks to my Topamax (I think...), I have trouble remembering anything from the past 30 years. Yeah.
Posted Feb 15, 2012, 10:57 PM UTC
There is no such thing as normal and I think that type of thinking is what's blocking you from finding happiness in yourself. Find a teeny-tiny hobby. Invest in taking care of a loyal pet. Write down all of your ideas and memories in a journal, looking back at it after a year. Use cold coffee to paint pictures on printer paper. Buy something unnecessary. Sit on your roof on a nice day with a beer and book. Complain more right now, as I see this was posted about a month ago. Type it, write it, paint it, make it. I like to make myself feel better when I'm having a manic episode that wherever I am, something that will make me feel better is in hands reach, but I just have to "find waldo" look at it. Sorry, I can go on forever since I'm a bit strange, but I just wanted to say you sound like a colorful person. Full of medicated passion and beautiful blue vision that tries to see someone else in their reflection. To me, just based off the information, you are a walking poem. That is quite lovely. Sorry again if I just came off a little strange. But I hope you have been doing well.
I live with my parents and they have five big 'ol dogs that I help take care of. They keep me grounded a lot of the time, if only because they are so poorly trained that they want constant attention (also they are soooo cute!)
I've stabilized a bit since I wrote that, mood is back to a baseline for now. I'm still feeling trapped and that's not something I want to lose sight of; I think I was complacent for too long, illnesses or not and that is how I ended up where I am. I need to actively push forward, figure out some sort of life plan with those therapists. I mean, I'm paying them enough.