Random Venting.

Tonight I got into a conversation that's got me thinking and wanting to vent some things out. What started as a conversation about the cost of my new medication has turned into a slightly emotional vent that I can't help but chew on.

We're going to dive into my mental past... feel free to ignore the following vent, but it's open and blunt and direct. Maybe too much so. But it's all out there, the complete and honest truth about everything that's brought me to where I am now.

So far, I'm really glad that I was able to gather up the strength to admit that I had -- no, have -- a problem. After years of not knowing what was wrong, and thinking that it was simply normal to go from blissfully happy to nearly suicidal, I've discovered that there's something wrong with that... and that it's preventable. That I can be happy, that I don't have to walk around on eggshells and fear that tiny trigger that sets off everything.

That I could be... you know, stable. That S-word I've always wanted but never could be.

My biggest problem was overcoming the fear of medication. When I was about sixteen or seventeen, I was placed on Zoloft for severe depression. At first, it seemed to work well... little did I know that I was wrong. It sent me into extremely trippy highs of hyperactivity -- as if nothing bothered me at all. Even getting hurt caused me to just laugh and ignore the situation. I didn't care about anything else, nothing bugged me... I was happy.

So I thought.

A few months would pass and I would become diagnosed with moderate ADHD. I was placed on Welbutrin to combat this condition... supposedly the Welbutrin would make me focus and concentrate. I wanted to be able to focus, as it was my first year of college. For a week or so, things seemed to be working very well. My focus was sharper than anything I'd ever experienced in my life and I was catching every word my professors said. Shiny things weren't distracting me, I didn't fidget in my seat, and I was just... focused. I thought I was fixed... I thought I was officially normal.

But then things started going downhill. More like spiraling out of control.

I started having vivid night terrors where I'd wake up convinced I was being attacked savagely. I started feeling paranoid and twitchy. The highs got higher and the crashes more severe. The depression started returning with a viciousness I'd never seen before. I became afraid to sleep. They put me on Ambien to combat the sleeplessness.

Image that -- being forced to take something that would make you sleep and experience such awful nightmares. Stupid me, though, I became addicted to the Ambien's effects -- who wouldn't want an aphrodisiac? What I didn't realize was that while it increased my libido, it was killing my memory. I started waking up in weird places around my house... One morning I awoke in a heap in the kitchen floor. I started waking up without my clothes after going to sleep fully dressed. I took a pair of scissors to my face and cut off my eyebrows... and couldn't remember doing it.

Meanwhile, I wasn't saying anything to anybody because, again, I thought it was normal. I thought, "If I give this time, it'll all subside and I'll be okay again." But things kept worsening. I started crying in the middle of classes, I started becoming highly distracted by deep and complicated plans of how I could kill myself.

How to die...

And then the episodes began. I started having near-psychotic episodes in which I completely lost my mind. I had these around my then boyfriend, who became so terrified by them that he admitted to being afraid of me. He told me of episodes where I tried to punch him in the face as he held my trembling, sobbing body down. He told me how I ran from him and grabbed a bottle of Tylenol and attempted to swallow them all. I didn't believe him -- after all, I didn't remember these instances happening. He told me I laid down in the middle of the street in his subdivision and screamed at the sky, "Come on! You won't do it!" Again, a fantasy in my mind.

Until the fateful night I was forced to see that he wasn't simply telling tales.

I was feeling sick that night, but Mama was insistent I went to the store with her and Shelby. Mama was in a foul mood from a rough day at work, and was throwing around words she normally didn't use. I got ready and got into the car, feeling steadily sicker. When we got halfway to the store, I told her I thought I was going to throw up. She flung the car around and sped home, threw the keys at me angrily, and told me, "Just stay inside. I hope you do throw up." With that, she and Shelby left me. Alone.

This event triggered me. I went inside, threw up, and proceeded to have a complete breakdown. I stumbled, almost drunkenly, through the house, laughing and crying at the same time. Then things went blank.

When I came back to the surface, I was laughing and humming to myself, sitting in the corner of the kitchen with a large knife slowing cutting into my wrist.

I snapped out of it immediately at this image, throwing the knife across the room and running to where my medications were kept. I grabbed the bottles, went to the bathroom, and flushed every last pill down the toilet. When I went back to my doctor a few weeks later, I told him I came off them. When asked why, I simply replied, "I can handle it on my own."

But four years had passed since then, and my condition wasn't any better. I was still highly volatile and easily triggered. I suffered multiple episodes of panic attacks that terrified both me and my current boyfriend. I even went as far as to threaten him with my own death during these episodes, because I was convinced I had failed him when there was no signs that he was discontent. After we both were calm and he had finally found enough peace to sleep, I spent that night awake, staring into the dark. There was no reason for me to have gotten that way, and I spent the night trying to make up an excuse. I never could.

It was extremely frustrating, knowing that my family and loved ones were walking on eggshells because I was so easily triggered. It's painful to know that they were afraid of me harming myself -- or worse -- because they might accidentally trigger my sharp crashes. I toyed mentally with the thought of resuming medications and counselling... but I was too afraid.

No more fiascos. No more lapses. I was horrified I'd do it all again.

The parentals were away in Savannah, and Shelby had started a new job. I was alone for the majority of the day, several days in succession. Not even my online friends seemed to be around that much. It left me too much time to become triggered and depressed, and gave me too much time to plan an ending. I made my first attempt at suicide in several years during those days, attempting to drown myself in a bathtub. However, something made me rethink my plan, and I instead stood in scalding hot water until the water turned cold and I had properly burned myself.

That night, Shelby came home and found me on my hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor. I'd become so wrapped up in trying to distract myself from my lonliness that I resorted to extreme cleaning. She had brought home dinner for herself and I'd had nothing, but I didn't feel like driving to get it on my own while I wanted some of hers... even though it was food that normally I don't care for.

I curled up into a ball on the couch and said nothing for thirty full minutes. My first words to her after that period of silence was some kind of snarky remark followed by a round of tears. She'd had enough and called Mama on me, terrified that I was going to do something dangerous to myself. Later that evening I attempted to leave the house alone, because I wanted to drive as far away as possible. Shelby refused to let me leave alone, however, so I told her I was going to pick up dinner for myself. I could barely keep the car in my lane because I was far too enveloped in my own misery and desire to run away. She forced me to pull over and she drove me to get food and drove us safely home.

This was when I realized that I needed to do something about it. I took a few days to think it over, and finally told Mama, "I want to go to the doctor and talk to him about this."

I brought this up with my boyfriend, who immediately seemed resistant to me starting treatment. It was a painful few days while we struggled to get a grip on the situation, and, at times, I wanted to break up with him because I didn't think he would be willing to support me... and I wouldn't make him suffer that just like I refuse to be with someone who won't support everything I do. I began having nightmares of losing him and started sleeping less out of fear. I finally came to the conclusion that if I didn't talk about it, he and I would be fine. I started confiding in another friend to avoid the confrontation... but it wasn't the same. I wanted my boyfriend to be the one I confided in, as I trust him and want him to be active in everything I do... even if he disagrees, I wanted him to support me.

The doctor's appointment went over without a hitch, and I was told that I was misdiagnosed as a teenager. I'm not depressed, I'm bipolar, and the medications I had been put on years ago were not meant to treat my condition. In fact, they worsened the problem and that's what caused my "lapse outs." He started me on an antipsychotic, Abilify, which I've been taking for nearly two weeks.

A few days into the treatment, I brought it up with my boyfriend. He had become supportive of my decision, which took a huge weight off my shoulders. I actually cried tears of happiness and relief after that conversation with him, as I knew I had my column of support again. With him at my side again, I knew that whatever would happen to me, I'd get through it. He'd seen me through the biggest surgery in my life, had never left my side during the recovery, and has been so wonderful in the months since that I could see no other person at my side through another big step in my life. I felt genuinely happy and eager to proceed, so that I can be stable for him.

So that I don't have to make him walk on thin ice or make him think he's failed when I've randomly crashed.

So he doesn't have to blame himself or wonder why I'm angry when there was never a reason for the explosion in the first place.

So that there wouldn't be so much tension caused by my inability to control myself and his not knowing what was wrong.

After seven years of wondering what the problem is... we finally have it figured out. Now the recovery and healing can begin. I can finally begin to pick myself up, dust myself off, lick the wounds clean, and stand on my own two feet. I won't have to spend my nights wondering why the hell such a screw up like me was ever placed on the earth because I no longer think of myself as one. I'm just... a little different.

And that's perfectly okay.