"HAPPY" BIRTHDAY

For years, I’ve wanted to spend my birthday alone, without fuss. I suppose that I didn’t want any attention drawn to me specifically. I’ve never gotten away with it, even if it was only a sole friend that wanted to treat me to a special restaurant for dinner. That is, until last year when I was fully able to convince everyone to stay away and treat it like any other day. This would have been fine, but for some reason my dad’s wife emailed me, after having not communicated in years. I was not in control of this situation. Email is email, and it just rolled in. I didn’t read it fully of course, but two days later I purposely OD’ed while watching “Dead Poets Society” (I woke up the next morning in pain and called 9-1-1 on myself…. after a day or so in ER, I spent the next three months inpatient, where I finally tried ECT, which had some effect). Now that I’ve filtered their emails and blocked their calls, I’ve chosen to be around folks this year. But alas, that plan didn’t go so well either, as my anxiety grew and grew. The day trip we had planned didn’t happen because I awoke with a killer migraine. The rest of the week was filled with care team appointments, and I knew I couldn’t cancel them, not only because I need them on my team, but they provided company. There was one new care team appointment that I won’t be following up on however; her style and mine didn’t mesh well; ie, she made it feel that it was my fault that I’m bipolar and that I should be ashamed of it. These feelings sent me spiraling the rest of the week, but now that I’ve made it this far through the week however without any serious thoughts or actions, I just might be okay for a while.

It seems that I now view a once “happy” holiday with something just as frightening as other traumatic incidents. Both my family and my care team even noticed.

Sometimes it’s about cutting things out to let something better in.