I haven't blogged about this stuff since I was a pre-teen when I used to have a livejournal. I kind of think angsty emotions should be left in the teen years, but what about when those angsty emotions follow you into adulthood? For the most part, when I'm at a low point, I hate everything. The littlest things send me not only into a shame spiral for being irrational but being unable to stop being irrational, but also into a deep anger that whatever caused me to be irrational exists at all. If I'm not in bed giving the wall a "dead stare" as my husband calls it, I'm curled up in the fetal position on the couch. I go to work, I come home, I curl up until bedtime, and if I'm not already in bed, I curl up in bed and just stare. I don't want to be held but I get angry if my husband doesn't come to comfort me, because that means he must not care that I'm hurting.

I'm not certain what triggers my backslides, as I call them. I've tried paying attention, to no avail– there is no consistency. I'm relatively happily married, have been for almost 5 years, and have been in the same relationship since I was 15 years old (so 11.5 years total). My husband is my best friend, and I love him more than words can adequately describe. We play on 2 softball teams together, I roadie for his bands, we run together, and we have a great group of core friends. As I am a runner, pounding the pavement usually helps to break me out of these moods; however, there are many times where running isn't enough. When the endorphins I get after a long run aren't sufficient, so I cut. Nothing deeper than surface or just below, nothing that will cause much scarring, but enough to send the shock of breaking skin to my head. I don't cut frequently; I know people who have cut every day, many times a day. I only get to that point when I'm sinking and sinking and can't break myself free, when I pass the point where hopelessness and anger prevail and any shot at happiness is long gone. At this point, my husband doesn't know what to do because he doesn't understand; his solution is to recommend medication (I'm not on any) or for him to call the hospital to have the men in white coats come get me. I get it; he's scared. I have two prior suicide attempts under my belt (one attempt at ODing on pills when I was 12, one attempt at hanging myself when I was 20), so when I sink this low, he panics and says the first things he can think of to reassure himself. I still harbor thoughts about suicide, and I know exactly how I would do it, but I recognize that these backslides are temporary, and suicide is permanent, and though I might itch to just get it over with, if I focus on the knowledge that people love and depend on me, that suicide is selfish, I'm able to curb the itch.

While I don't necessarily doubt therapy, I don't feel it will help me; I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 15. My mother has it. My sister has it. My aunts have it. To a degree, my brother has it. For some reason, and I'm making the broad assumption that it's thanks to the constantly roiling hormones in women's bodies that make us more susceptible beyond the teenage years to depression disorders than men. I'm just not certain what to do anymore. My sister's on Lithium and Celexa. My mother's on either Celexa or Wellbutrin. I've tried Zoloft and Wellbutrin and hated them both. I don't know if I should give therapy a try, but I do know that in order to be properly assessed and medicated, I should consider it. My first experience with it was not the best in the world; he talked to me for 5 minutes, concluded that my depression must be because my mother has it, slapped me with a prescription, and sent me on my way. He didn't even bother to ask about the torment I endured throughout middle and high school at the hands of my sister and school bullies (more on that later– my sister's my best friend now, but our formative years were quite… something.). I'm not sure I'd be able to be honest and open with a complete stranger. I also don't want to be drugged to high heaven. I like being able to feel the highs and the lows; I just don't like the depth to which those lows descend.

I just don't know what to do anymore.