Swelltide.

In the mood for a quick post. 

I have been in a terrible mood the last three or four days. Irritable. Anxious. Tired. Typical, normal bi-polar off his meds stuff. I have attempted to contact the psychiatrist, several times actually, without getting a response. Which, is fine. I need the medication, which is becoming more obvious, but I also want to have an honest conversation about the cost of drugs, and whether there is a generic or combination of generics that I could be taking. Doctors don't really like having to have the conversation about the cost of drugs, in my experience. So, I'll be finding a new doc soon.

School is going much better. I've been busy, but feel like I'm finally catching up. I feel far more hopeful about it than I have since I started. Been hitting the books really hard, and am finally getting to grades that show the amount of effort that I've put into it. 

So, I'm well. Busy. Still off the medication. Still fighting with myself to get things done. That's it really. 

Swelltide.

Still, no medication. I have attempted to contact the shrink, a few times, and haven't gotten a call back. Has everything to do with me not having insurance at the moment, I'm sure. Figures. I have been fairly well. Busy, but still fighting with myself to get things done. I procrastinate, and it seems harder and harder to get myself motivated. To study. To clean. To do what needs to be done. We went for a night drive last night and inwardly I was fighting the urge to be at home. I manage to do it. Just seem to fight myself along the way.

Went up to the house to visit with mom and dad for a bit, tonight. Which was okay. Mom and the girlfriend started talking about the mother of my nephew. Apparently she called mom and started talking about her daughter, who is no relation. Being combative. Being difficult. Teenage stuff. A girl that my mom has knocked since she split with my brother. Suddenly, mom is defensive about this girl-- who is completely self-absorbed. Immature. Overly-dramatic. Probably not a great mother.

Now, I have made a lot of progress on the family front, but with my parents-- thinking about parenting in any way gets me going on this semi-obsessive cascade of... rawness, emotion. Something. I guess that is what it takes to get into my mother's good graces. Seeking her to be motherly. Allowing her to feel superior in some way? Reaching out? Of course, mom would be defensive to this absurd girl. They are a lot alike.

She, mom, is such an emotional child. I feel guilty for even putting it that way. Granted, she has been through a lot of shit, and I acknowledge that but she refuses to. She refuses to deal with it in any way. When I went to her, told her about being bipolar (like other big talks that we've had) she just shut down. She doesn't know how she really feels at any given time. This is has been an enormous rift between us. I don't feel as though I can approach her with emotional stuff. Partly, because I don't think she would really understand it and partly because I feel like she doesn't really deserve it. What a terrible thing to say about your own mother...

Which, is part of a much longer story. My father? He is the overly-devoted husband. Passive. Peace-keeper. Bread-winner. I'm not a kid anymore. The truth is neither of them really owe me anything. Other than maybe an honest conversation, which is unlikely to ever happen.

I think that the healthiest thing that I could do for myself, and for my girlfriend, is to get away from it. Get away from being made to feel obligated, guilty and blah blah blah. I already feel a little better, just writing about it.

Swelltide.

This is likely to be a long and rambling post, because I am nearly drunk and because I've been doing a lot of thinking.

I'm in a weird, reflective mood, and I've done a lot of quiet, solemn thinking the last couple of days. About everything. God, who I am not sure that I believe in anymore. Friends, which I don't have many of anymore. Love. Life. The real value of things, and the real meaning of things.

As a teenager, everything seemed so full of purpose. Maybe, it was having the whole of my life ahead of me. Feeling like anything was possible. Feeling like anything could and would happen. A lot of things did happen. I moved away from home only a few months after I turned eighteen. It doesn't really matter that I moved back home only a few months later. I lived more in those few months than I have in the years since.

To be thirty (or almost thirty) and to look back on my teenage years still. It tells me that my life since has been mostly wasted, which is something that I loath to admit, and it tells me that I need to change some things. School has been a good start on that-- starting over, but I need more. I need to know that there is still  joy and meaning to living.

 I think of things like; if I were to die, who would come to my funeral? I don't know the answer and I'm not sure that I really want to. I haven't made any meaningful friendships in years. I haven't met anyone worth being friends with in years. I can't blame it on everyone else anymore. My girlfriend can seem to make friends at school, work-- wherever she goes. Friends and family. They can find people to connect with and mesh with. Why can't I?

I could say now, that I feel isolated BECAUSE of being bipolar. I have a hard time socially BECAUSE of being bipolar. But, I don't accept that, at all. If only there were another person that I knew that was a carbon-copy of myself. I would get along great with myself.

I used to meet people everywhere I went. I would talk to anyone. I would approach anyone. And now, I ask myself things like, 'was it because I was in a manic phase?' It robs me. Bipolar steals every bit of meaning. I have become, fore reasons I don't fully understand, so isolated. Socially awkward. Hesitant. Full of doubt.

And, I hate it.

I can spend all day at school without the need to talk to anyone. I can be around people for hours without feeling any need to talk to anyone. I can come home and waste hours doing nothing. Then, like tonight, I can keep myself awake for hours with worry and regrets. With a longing for some kind of connection with someone that I don't have.

I really don't understand it.