Feeling clearer today, but still irritable and vulnerable.   I have a lot to do, in general.  I am feeling more certain about the need to take some mood stablizer, but I am also pretty sure that my concerns are valid ones, and that I should not do anything until I find out which doc the third opinion sides with.  Hopefully, I can take Lamictal – it seems like the right choice to me.

There has to be some workable option.  Something that won’t wreck my creativity…  there are some things I am not willing to sacrifice in the name of "getting well" – I use quotes because I don’t know if I would call it "well," if it involves washing parts of me (maybe the best parts) away. 

I realize it is very easy for other people to think they know what is best, but it’s my mind and my body on the line, and both have been through enough already.  I have the right to feel comfortable with whatever steps are taken to "help" me.  If I can’t salvage what matters most to me…  that’s not a future I am terribly interested in.

Anyway, I was honked at, and "woof"-ed at on my way home earlier.  (Been taking those long walks, to wear myself out).  Two different guys…  middle aged men…  acting like twelve year olds…  the one who went "woof, woof, woof" was on a bike, and was staring so hard he almost ran into a parked car, haha.  I guess they like my summer look – jeans shorts and a camisole.  It’s not like I don’t wear a bra – for f@ck’s sake.  It was pretty funny.  Men can be such dogs.

I feel better today than I have lately.  But, anytime I think I am thinking clearly, I need to be careful – mania can give me delusions of being in control or on top of shit when I am most definitely not. 

For now, I am productive, anyway.  Trying to keep my attitude upbeat, like it’s been today.  I know I am still manic, because my thoughts are still jumping around like popcorn kernals in a kettle, and I don’t want to be still, but I seem to have gotten a reprieve, at least for the moment, from the battery of sadness.  The mixed episodes really, eventually, start making me want to die, or get high – like I have to shut my mind off, somehow, because it can’t take much more.  Kind of like my windows during that hail storm the other day.  It was so scary, I thought they’d all shatter – this constant battery of hail, bigger than golf balls, beating against the windows, so hard, in sheets, like some kind of squall.  It was madness.  I really was worried that the windows would all shatter, and glass would be blown everywhere.  I thought, "this glass can’t take much more of this."  But, the storm moved on before they gave out.  Same with me I guess – I was being relentlessly pelted by painful thoughts and sad or guilty feelings.  Humiliations, failures, disappointments, and hurt feelings…  all rushing back, all coming down on me like so many pieces of hail, beating the shit out of me.  But, at least for now, the storm has let up, and there’s no serious damage done to me.  (Or to what’s left of me these days – I’m sort of the surviving wreckage of a life that’s been through the ringer, repeatedly – we’ll see if there’s ultimately enough here to work with, in the long term.  I’m still fighting the good fight, trying to find out.)

I wrote the above a little earlier.  The kite isn’t flying quite as high, now.  I haven’t tumbled all the way back into mixed episode madness, but I am feeling really shaky and unstable.  Productivity has given way to anxious paralysis, and trying not to think about heroin.

It’s been on my mind more.  I try to ignore it. 

I can’t go back.

I’ve come too f@ckinmg far to throw this away, now.  But, damn…  right now, I see so much of what I was trying to supress with that.  The mad pace of my thoughts, the paralyzing anxiety, the over-reacting, overemotional, freak outs and crying jags.  Post acute withdrawal is making this worse.  It will be easier once I get on a mood stabilizer.  Once I’m prescribed something that doesn’t scare me to death (something like Lamictal).  Tomorrow, I am all over setting up this 3rd opinion.  It has to happen ASAP.  I needed to give myself a break from the whole thing because I was freaking out pretty hard (hard enough to do something desperate), and I still feel a little on edge about it, but now, I think I sort of see it clearly.  I need to find another doctor (that my insurance covers) and try to hash this thing out as quickly as I can.  But, I will make sure that my concerns are respected – I won’t be pushed, bullied, or guilted.

Anyway, I should really get on top of some sh*t before the day completely escapes me.  I should try, anyway.

Happy Father’s Day, everyone!