I keep watching myself for signs that I have evolved. That I am more advanced now. That I am not making the same mistakes again and again. Unfortunately, the answer might be no to all of the above. I mean, it’s wonderful to look young, but to keep repeating the same mistakes, what do you think you’re going to live to be 299 years old? You don’t have that much time left! Learn, evolve, become a more mature person. Abandon your old patterns, learn to live with less drama and more peace in your life. Yes, I know I’m asking this of someone with bipolar disorder. Do it any way!

I thought I was done with all the abandonment stuff. But, tragically, my mind has decided to make a sequel to Abandonment the movie, this one’s called Abandonment 2. Very imaginative! Anyway, I don’t know why, but I’m there again, age 4, horrendously sbused (as in bloody, and pulverized) by my mother and totally abandoned by my father. it’s only as an adult that I guessed how I must have felt as a child, how my heart broke, in fact how it felt like someone was throwing knives into my heart, shredding it to pieces. The confusion and heartbreak I felt at my father simply disappearing one day, out of my life forever. No explanations, no goodbyes. Just poof gone. Child abuse is also abandonment possibly at its worst. And i was abused to make Attila the Hun proud! Anyway, having dealt with all this over the years, I thought I was done with all of it. It’s been put to rest I thought. Well gentle readers, was I wrong. Abandonment has made a stellar return of late. My posture: lying in bed all day. My outfit: my comfy LLBean pajamas. My makeup: streaks of black amid beige with a touch of silver. My heart, rended. My eyes swollen and my brain on fire. I am not worthy of love, I’m hateful. I’m ugly, I’m useless, I’m stupid, I’m too stupid for any one to love me, my heart aches and I can’t bear it. I can’t bear it. Possibly, this is happening because i saw someone who looked quite a lot like my father or more likely because my son is moving to Buffalo. I am so happy he’s moving for a great job. I wouldn’t stop him for the world. But my damaged brain is perceiving it as abandonment. God save us. When does this all end and when do I get some peace.

Sometimes with people’s childhood issues, I have heard that you can either heal each other or if one or the other person is not ready then you can actually harm one or both of the people. Let’s look at a person with abandonment issues and another person who is afraid from their childhood trauma and deals with this fear by running away, Well, that’s the perfect storm, isn’t it! I mean imagine a person’s whose heart has been broken because of abandonment. Now this person meets a person whose heart is full of fear, and this person can only alleviate their fear by running. Gosh! Abandoned and Afraid and running. Not a good combination at all. Heartbreaking on all sides 😢 Running out of fear in person A causes person B to feel totally heartbroken and abandoned again. And the ensuing clingy behavior of B causes fear and flight in A. Sadly, a perfect storm. And sadly an increase in bad feelings in both A and B. Somebody should open places where they find well matched people to work out their trauma issues. That’s a pretty great idea. Both people will come out healthier!!!

I hope they are found and most importantly, they find themselves.

You can always tell who has been brought up with love and patience and understanding and who has been brought up with anger, violence and abuse. The former are peaceful, have found their purpose and are fulfilling it. The latter are reliving the trauma of their childhood by creating the same devastating conditions in which they grew up.

If you grew up with fear, you not only live in fear, you actively create and seek out conditions that will perpetuate a fearful life. If you grew up with anger, your first response to stress will be anger.

I know some lost boys and at least one lost girl. It is tragic that they have no peace in their lives, only conflict and discord, which, at this point is self created. My heart aches for these children of calumny.

One of the lost boys who is a young man now, is so afraid that he thinks he will be homeless once his parents are gone. He is constantly living in fear, which is expressed as anger, and he is inadvertently pushing away people who love him. As a child, he hid in the shower and under his bed out of fear. His young and very sensitive nature was programmed to being fearful and expressing anger.

You see fear is devastating and terrifying, while anger gives these lost boys and girls a sense of power and control over their lives, when really it is a very destructive force that only leads to more fear about the loss of control over their own lives as well as their ability to make a loving and fulfilling life. Not only are they perpetually living in these abhorrent states, they also unconsciously try to pull out the anger and fear in other people and ultimately lose the love of people who genuinely care for them. And all along they are actually asking for love and understanding. That is the tragedy with living with anger and fear.

Another lost boys, who is also a young man, has chosen a terrifying profession so he can keep himself in the terror of his childhood. He doesn’t understand that this is happening. Although he is seeking help.

The lost girl, who is a woman of some years, also lives with the effects of the abuse and anger and fear that she knew as a child. Does understanding bring relief? She doesn’t know.

Lost boys and girls are often highly sensitive and intelligent creatures, who have tragically lost their childhood to the fear and anger of their parents, and so the cycle perpetuates itself.

Is help available? Can they, will they get help? Can they be healed? They don’t know it, but I think help is available to reclaim their lives and live in peace. Everyone has a journey, I hope all the beloved and loving lost boys and girls find the understanding and self love, desert the fear and anger and live a life full of love, peace and understanding that they so desperately deserve.

All my love to all of you and us.

In many cases, that’s what mental illness is, a silent scourge. Anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, among others appear silent to others, while people who suffer from these live in sometimes constant and unremitting hell. When you look at someone who is suffering from, for example, anxiety, you can’t tell that they are suffering. Their face may look placid and fine. They can even smile and carry on a conversation with you. However inside, their heart may be pounding, their thoughts may all be fearful and negative. Their outlook on life may be bleak. Worry and fear swirl through their body 24/7.

Well I am one of those people. Worrying, panicking, fearful, unsure of anything. And yet I put on a brave face so no one knows the extent of my suffering. It won’t stop, it won’t let me be. I’m in there, somewhere, under the tons of anxiety, gasping for breath. Sometimes it feels like my heart will explode, the constant weight on my chest, the suffocating fear, the fear and dread of what the future will bring. Will things ever be ok? Just ok would be fine, I’m not even asking for good, great, phenomenal. Just ok.

Is the worry caused by legitimate external events or do I worry so excessively due to the present biochemistry of my brain? Or a little of both? I believe mine is situational, that is it is caused by some situations in my life. Possibly, having bipolar disorder makes it worse. All I know is that it is pretty intolerable. From the time I wake up to the time I go to bed, I live in anxiety hell. A special layer of hell reserved for those with mental illness.

Don’t know what else to say. Will keep you posted. I am hoping and praying for a positive change, positive developments.

Trying really hard, living silently.

The human condition

Felled by a little ball of steel

Injured by a rectangle of painted red cement

Blood flows, life ebbs 

Bones break, sinews tear

Why oh humans do you not take care?

We all will die one day, why hasten it with cruelty, violence and hate?

Why not take the path of love, gentleness and grace?

Why not take care of your brothers, of your sisters, of your parents, of your children, of complete strangers?

We ARE as precious as gold, even more so, once gone, no one returns 

Here is my plea to humanity, before you shoot, hurl, break, destroy, kill, think, think about the violence you’re wreaking, think about it cannot be undone. 

Any “race” any gender,  any religion, we truly are as one.

I would suggest doing the meditation first, then reading my comments below. That way you have your very own experience, not adulterated with mine. 🤗🤗

This meditation teacher’s words described the reason for anxiety so well that I was shocked! First I bawled, then I did the whole meditation again and I felt much calmer. If the reason for anxiety is so universal that the first hit on google described mine to a T, and possibly if all those other people’s thoughts and stories aren’t real then maybe mine aren’t real either. Also, hearing “giving yourself permission to focus on you, making yourself your first priority” !!! Wow! When have I ever done that? Not ever, I think. That made my anxiety abate even more because it also means I have control only of myself and possibly, I’m only/mostly responsible for my self.

Weight after weight dropped off my shoulders. I feel lighter, calmer, sunnier than before. I’m sure I’ll have to listen to this many times again. But I’m so glad I found it. It turned out to be a godsend for me!! Haven’t felt as much like myself as I’m feeling now for a very long time. Years, in fact!

A peaceful protest down Cherokee Parkway, minutes ago. I went out and gave them all the black power ✊🏾 sign and bumped fists with a young woman and a young man and got applauded for it 😢! Aral❤️ was out there with both fists in the air, running up and down, shouting encouragement and getting cheered in return!

May they all be safe, may they all be loved. Ameen. Summa ameen. ✊🏾🖤❤️ What an amazing experience to behold!

I am astounded by this ❤ young man’s ❤ courage and wish him love, peace and heaps of success in our cause against police brutality!

When it flares up, this is what it feels like to me. Imprisonment. Behind bars, unable to get out even as I use all my might to pry the bars apart and run free. I can’t. I’m powerless. Stuck inside, till it, of its own accord, abates or one of the meds I’ve been put on kicks in.

Until then I stay imprisoned. Hopeless, dejected. I forgot to draw the balls and chains around my ankles. I’m sure you can imagine them there.

Let me preface this post by saying that I am so grateful that no other member of my family has this infernal disease known as bipolar 1 disorder. And I’m fine with that. I would rather have it than any of my beloved family!

And now the post begins:

Upon the insistence of my psychiatrist, about a year and a half ago, I went back on lamotragine/lamictal. A disastrous drug for me! The last time I was on it for five years, I was manic for the entire five years. The most disastrous time in my adult life. The last time I was not on Lithium either. If someone would have soaked me with gasoline and thrown a lit match at me, that would have been less catastrophic than what this damned lamotragine did to me and my life. I finally ended up in the hospital as my life had turned into communicating with wizards and witches. In the hospital, thanks be to god, I was put back on Lithium and slowly, I got my life back.

Now, a year and a half ago, my relatively new psychiatrist said I could be on lamotragine with Lithium, that if I was taking lamotragine in concert with Lithium, then it wouldn’t make me manic. But he was wrong. I started with a 25 mg dose finally upped to 200 mg. Well at 200 mg now, is when the fireworks started. I’ve slowly been slipping into mania, probably at least for the last two months. Funny thing, when I’m on Lithium, coffee doesn’t make me jittery! When I’m off Lithium or when I’m going into a manicky phase, coffee makes me so jumpy that I can crawl out of my skin. I noticed this effect of coffee on me since the dose of lamotragine was increased to 150 mg a while ago. Unfortunately I didn’t put two and two together. The AHA moment just occurred today. Along with other very erratic behavior, the worsening of my anxiety to a fever pitch, losing 25 lbs… finally I realized lamotrigine was throwing me into a once again disastrous manic phase. I have stopped taking it as of tonight. I am on Lithium, a bipolar girl’s best friend, and Seroquel, another old friend of mine! I hope the poisonous effects of lamotragine wear off soon and I can regain myself and my life.

My husband, who truly is a saint, even he couldn’t stand the level of my anxiety and yes, he was getting angry at me for being hellishly anxious. Today, I finally couldn’t take his anger and told him “I am not my illness!” I told him that my illness is not me! The me that I am gets lost, disappears when bipolar disorder rears its hideously ugly head. And of course he agreed with me and we both decided that I have to stop taking lamotrigine as otherwise I will go into a full blown manic phase and straight back into the hospital. Not at all where I want to be. Thank goodness for this realization before I’m too far gone. Before all of me is lost again.

Some and these are only some of the side effects of lamotragine are listed below. I have pretty much all of them. All psychiatric drugs have horrendous side effects. But for me, there’s nothing worse than lamotragine.

lamotrigine side effects:

Weakness, drowsiness, confusion. Stiff neck, headache. Increased sensitivity to light. Mood or behavior changes, such as depression, anxiety, agitation, hostility, restlessness, mental or physical hyperactivity, suicidal thoughts, as well as total loss of appetite. Clumsiness and unsteadiness.

Dizziness, drowsiness, headache, blurred/double vision, loss of coordination, shaking (tremor).