The dawn.

So I did it. I finally cracked.

I’m admitting defeat now. I’m in a depression and I don’t see anyway of getting out. I can’t. fucking. breathe.

It all happened about 7 weeks ago when I had an unexpected miscarriage.

I know this will possibly be an extremely sensitive subject for anyone of my readers, or who happen to come across this post during a random search, so I will spare it at that. The experience was surreal, and the details i’d prefer to keep locked up in that black box full of little insanities in my mind anyway.

The following week, one of The Boy’s close relatives passed away, and took a massive part of him away with her.

As selfish as it sounds (I wholeheartedly admit that I was selfish, as the grief of knowing someone for the duration of your life vs the grief of… well, nothing, is one of the hardest things a human being would ever have to face), in the midst of both mine and his drama and without him there, I was alone.

I dealt with the next few weeks on my own.

Rejection after rejection of job applications, with the expiry date on my current job coming up fast, finances and unexpected debt putting pressure on me, other little life stresses sneaking up behind my back and attacking when I was at my lowest point…

I got the news that I wouldn’t be enrolling on my postgraduate course a few week before my start date (my finance fell through). So with nobody to talk to about it, no partner there to lend an ear I ultimately resorted back to the pills.

For anybody who is not familiar with my posts or my past, drug addiction has made a huge impact on my life the past few years. As it turns out, some habits die hard. Even after extensive therapy and rehab to wean you off them.

No money, no job, no period (for some reason my life seemed incredibly empty without one whilst my body recovered from the event), no university course. No plans. Nobody. No nothing, apart from a ton of pressure to sort all the debt I have somehow blindly managed to accumulate over the past year.

It wasn’t just the big things. It was the little ones that hurt the most. I began to get sensitive to everything and everyone around me, closing myself off from the world. One of my best friends once told me, “You know when something is wrong with you, when you don’t want to talk about your problems.” How right she was. I have even been ignoring her messages the past few weeks.

Eventually, I told The boy what was going on. Shameful feelings were confessed. Raw anger brought out to the table. Tears were shed (both parties). He didn’t know about the drug addiction. I thought he did. Little things I’ve mentioned over the past 18 months, I have an NA keyring on my everyday keys for heaven’s sake. Absolutely oblivious. Men.

He was supportive though. And he has been there ever since. He told me we will fight and go through this together, whatever life throws at me and whatever feelings are burdening me. It was too late by then, I already knew it. You don’t really go through a Bipolar depression together. You go through it alone. No one else around you really feels what its like to suffocate at site of the sun rising up during the day and setting during the evening.

The past 10 days, my finances took a turn for the worst. I am a single mother with a part time job, holding the fort down on my own – my bills are mine, and mine alone to pay. Since the government cuts this year I have spent the past week and a half unable to feed myself. My daughter is fine, she will always have enough. Myself? Let’s just say i’ve been left that short that I had to make an excuse last week not to go in to work because I couldn’t afford the petrol fee’s to get in, never mind a loaf of bread.

I have one more payday left in my current job.

Things started to get a little better. Last week, for a few days I had a few great days – tackling life’s problems like a pro, doing something active about my finance situation, making sure I attempted to scrape some funds together for the next month. My mood perked up, considerably. And then, I fell down again. Just like that. I think the no eating – and withdrawal from the not taking any pills, food came first before my fix obviously, i’m not that low of a person. Yet. – the tiredness from a messsed up sleeping pattern (my good old friend insomnia has made an appearance nightly since it happened). I just crashed. My motivation went, everything just went. Gone. That was it. I could feel a change in me, something fighting for some survival (I even wrote back to my friend at last about the whole situation). And then it just crumbled away again.

Saturday night, was the first night in YEARS that I laid in bed in tears and came to the realisation that I felt suicidal.

It feels so strange seeing it typed out like that. Like I am being a drama queen over nothing. I have to accept that not only these life events ( I have been saying to myself over the past month that time passes, it wont be like this forever, it will pass etc. It’s making no difference) are difficult to overcome, but the urge to push the reminder that I changed my medication two months back and the overexaggerated feelings that I am holding could be partly due to the cuts in my medication.

I am not on my antidepressants anymore (I would KILL for the feel of prozac in my system) and I am 100mg down on my antipsychotic.

My last pdoc appointment, she promised she’d arrange a follow up app within 4-6 weeks (never heard anything back off them). I also recall her saying, if it gets bad then we can try a back up drug (i think it was abilify??) that they can just throw in to the mix as an emergency.

Is it time to admit defeat, as a bipolar diagnosed patient, that my life and my health relies on that medication? I understand it’s common for mental health patients find it difficult to fully accept their illnesses. After all, we have no band aids, no neck braces, no broken bones.We only have scars and broken minds. We live with that. Sometimes it’s hard to see past our ‘normality’.

I think it is time I admit my defeat. Not as a person who’s life stresses are getting under her. But as a patient who’s chronic condition has her throwing in the towel to her illness.

Accepting that sometimes I have to surrender is the hard part.