Mystical Meditations

Sadly enough, I only noticed that something weren't right when I had moved out from home and certain ... influences were gone. Then I could concentrate on myself without being told how and why I felt like I felt, without pre-filtering.

When I was a teen, first of all I thought - like my parents - that it's normal for a teen to behave like: from aggressive over hyper-euphoric to dull in the sense of the word and crying. Hormones and stuff; you just behave erratic and unpredictable then. My parents thought that, too, as mentioned: extreme teenage moods.

Then there was the bullying at school. To that I attributed my often violent fantasies about how to end it and my suicidal thoughts and that I thought about it so often. It was that hard, yes, and I thought that either if I blow my lights off it would be over OR if I was rescued from that so-called school they would cease (what really happened after my parents finally took me from that school).

The "teachers" there - some even "participated" in the bullying by giving deliberately bad grades or not intervening when they came across me being bullied - even had the impudence to say that

a) I was dumb and it surely a mistake to have send me to the Gymnasium (in Germany that's the highest secondary school in the three-fold school system, not a gymnasium in the American sense of the word ) and

b) they thought I was either mentally retarded or autistic.

Can you believe THAT? Of course, I was behaviorally conspicuous! I was frightened to death and full of dread to ahve to retreat to that hellhole each day anew and no one helping me, not even those whom I asked for it. In retrospect, I guess, my hints at my situation were too subtle to be noticed as such, but I was too ashamed to talk openly. Nevertheless, my parents could and should have noticed as the non-verbal signs were there and screaming for attention:

me continually stating the others would be "rough on me" and the teachers "not doing anything to stop them", but most of all psychosomatic illnesses perfectly related to "swallowing" what happened: gastritis, angina, even migraine. All that stopped immediately after I was taken off that school, see? And they STILL didn't have a clue! As I knew they wouldn't even try, I simply kept all the shit to myself.

Funny enough, it didn't affect the moods at all as I had hoped, having attributed them to the crap above.

About two years later, a real crime spree against children hit children: abuse, murder, neglect ... it was all over the news, you couldn't escape. The moods got worse and I even began to nightmare about the crimes. The dreams were as realistic as flashbacks ... till the day I realized it weren't just dreams, but I flashbacked about real events.

I had a breakdown, was totally hysteric, and locked myself in the bathroom. There my dad stocked razor blades and I so desperately wanted to cut my pulse arteries, but my fear of pain kept me from doing it. Yes, the only reason I'm writing this is probably that I'm afraid to inflict deliberately pain on myself. I also never cut myself for that reason as many people do who are e.g. borderliners. I can endure and ride out "natural" pain (appendix rupture, toothache before treatment, staunched limbs, etc.).

I went into therapy - the first months took Zoloft to stabilize my mood and keep me from killing myself - and was, as mentioned in my introduction diagnosed with depression and PTSD. After five years, it was over and I released as "recovered".

The moods stayed ... and THEN I finally realized that I wasn't "just nuts by calling" but that the moods didn't come from the origins I thought them to originate from as those were eliminated by then.

Funny enough, in the last few months before that fateful day when everything changed, I repeatedly went to the local psych ward. I parked opposite of the building. The only thing I had to do was getting out of the car, go over, and tell them that I thought something was seriously wrong in my attic. I even knew that I could be potential life-saving to do that. Nevertheless, I couldn't bring myself to just do that!

I still don't know really why. Maybe because of having to admit my "problem" not only to myself but to the whole wide world as well. You wouldn't believe how stigmatized you are as a mental person in Germany; you really wouldn't. *shakes head*

I only could get myself help after I had - only figuratively, thank God! - finally fallen to the lowest point in my life.

Since then, the disorder and I are fine. We can live with each other. We don't fight each other anymore. Sometimes, we even cooperate. The moods aren't as extreme anymore, mania and depression have dampened. Life isn't still rosy, but as it has never been, I can live with it. Side effects of meds ceased and life can be and more and more often is "liveable", even with the disorder. Even relationships are possible to keep up when I'm depressive, even if only with people very close to me who "know".

I still live and when even the lowest lows didn't bring me to blast my lights off then Bipolar won't manage it either. *shrugs*

~O~