Dear Anonymous Comment Leaver who suggests I’m bi-polar,
First of all, let me just say that you managed to come off as a very very sweet and caring person despite the grenade you were handling. I have no doubt that you meant absolutely no offense and found yourself in the tricky position of, “someone should say something, but how do you possibly say something?” On that front you did extremely well. Good work for your diplomacy and thank you for your concern.
I’m not at all offended by your suggestion, but it does make me stop and think about what I’ve been writing that might paint that picture to someone who doesn’t know me.
I too have many people close to me that suffer from one mental illness or another, so I’m all too aware of what these diseases look like up close, so I can say with confidence that I do not need medical intervention.
What I need is a cure for endometriosis.
Bear is in the same unfortunate position. I look and sound pretty close to normal, and so there is no way to truly see how this disease has ravaged me. I’m always trying to give him context clues. “See, you can tell I’m really hurting today because I couldn’t tie my signature ornate bows on the Christmas presents.” “You can tell today is a bad pain day because there is laundry strewn from one end of the house to the other and just for today I don’t care.”
What could easily be mistaken for cycles of depression and mania, are almost always tied to my menstrual cycles. I’m ordinarily a manic person. I’m Type A and driven and totally OCD. I cannot sit still EVER. This is not mania, this is me. Everyone who knows me knows I put Martha to shame. I cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner, make a homemade centerpiece out of treebranches, and sew all the table linens myself. When I teach Sunday School I not only teach the lesson but I make intricate handouts for 15 people that consist of handmade jewelry or personally bound books. I’m crazy, absolutely, but my problem is OCD, not bi-polar.
But there are days, many many days, when I am just not capable of my normal obsessive behavior. You’re right, there are many days I can’t lift my head off the pillow, but that’s because it’s weighed down with a migraine and my cramps are causing me so much pain that I vomit every few hours. That’s when the cramps pull so hard on my internal organs that I alternate between constipation that makes me bleed and diarrhea. When the pain radiates through my legs and into my chest so that I can’t walk or breath. When I can’t eat or avoid the bathroom for more than an hour at a time because of the pressure the endometrial lesions put on my stomach and bladder.
But I never write about any of that stuff. So how could you know? I purposefully avoid writing about it, and maybe I shouldn’t. Dooce seems to have done pretty well with the whole constipation angle, maybe I should rethink. I’ve avoided writing about all that for a few reasons. Mainly because I didn’t think anyone would want to read about it. What is more self-absorbed than a blog? A blog about your non-lethal health problems. But I also didn’t want to write about all this because I wanted this blog to be about my life, not my illness and I’m just flat in denial about how drastically my life has changed because of this illness.
I never intended to write an infertility blog or an endo blog, I just wanted to write because I wanted to write. Because I want to write books and I’m scared stupid so this seemed much more approachable and bite-sized. I see now that the problem with this approach is the same problem I had with my middle school diary. I only write when I feel like writing which is usually when I’ve got some emotions to work out. So it doesn’t paint a very accurate picture of me. If you look at how long I’ve had this blog and how many entries there are, it’s apparent that there is a lot of between the lines that I’ve been leaving out. I’m going to have to work on that.
There are many days when I am depressed. Absolutely. But I work hard to keep myself honest about that because of the experiences of my loved ones with the disease. I’m constantly asking myself, “how many days in a row have I been more unhappy than happy?” “Am I depressed about unreasonable things?” and the answer is no. I’m doing great, considering. I’m happy, I smile all the time, I’ve never stayed in bed due to depression, when I am upset, I’m upset about something specific. I’m sad because I didn’t have the strength to scavenge for tree branches today, or because my cramps hurt too much to sit at the sewing machine, and therefore my manic productive self will have to accept the fact that I’m just flat out not as capable as I used to be. And that is depressing. Unbelievably depressing. Focusing on my future in this disease is depressing. But then my menstrual cycle marches on and my hormones allow me a productive day, and I get through it.
Truly, thank you for your concern for a total stranger that you would first of all read my entire blog, and then take the time to write out such an eloquent and thoughtful comment. I truly hope you’ll come back and let me get to know you without the Anonymous label now that you know I won’t totally bite your head off and throw you to the ground.