work that brain

i've been so negative lately. i tell myself that it's my physical health swaying my mind to a place i have no control over. i started on anti biotics 4 months ago to treat cellulitis, it's a diabetes related skin infection.i could go to hospital and have it treated with iv antibiotics but my agoraphobia is strong and i feel scared , terrified of people when i leave the house. i have not stepped outside this house in 5 years. i have been living like this for so long , and i am such a strong willed person. i have let some heath care workers into my home. at first i did it out of desperation, i was having a bad day i think.then over the period of about 2 weeks i had a GP, an occupational therapist, a physiotherapist and we are waiting for a psychiatrist and a psychologist to return the request favorably.

i had an argument yesterday with jesse as he was telling me what to do and he wanted to distribute my meds like the do in hospital. i am in fight or flight mode. i am on about 35 pills a day and i can manage that myself. 35 pills, 5 injections of insulin a day and its not the pills that are troubling me today and the last week or so. my brain feels like mush. i forget words, little words. i get stuck when i try to describe something. a lot of the time i dont speak unless i know i can do it. my doctor is going to look at my recent bloodwork and trying to take me off some of these meds. i had him at a home visit last week and i told him that i fear my brain isnt functioning well because of the overdose i had not too long ago. 300 xanax i thought i was smart because i've never od'd on a benzos before and i really dont think its possible , unless you take a lot more that i ever have.

i explain to the kids that i was being hideous because i needed to be treated for illness and they are a part of that process by monitoring me a little bit and to be encouraging. one thing i want tolerate is someone taking my meds and distributing them as they see fit. treating me like a psyche patient and talking to me in simple, loud voices and words. i think that my brain isnt working as it should because the last od left me with some brain trauma.

its difficult to image being healthy and able to not be many of those labels that go with the diagnoses. but i am gonna give it a red hot go. i heard a saying once ,it was something like, the end is not what matters ,but the journey in between. i think i will be facing more demons as i embark on physical therapy, i just have to keep my cool and maybe use a safe work with the kids, a word that enables them to tell me to stop.i did that when my brother had dementia and it worked a treat. so i will do it.

jo xoxoxox

Don't blame it on the health, oops i mean boogie

i am having a week from hell. my bipolar has me sleeping for 2 hours at night. it doesnt feel like bipolar or psychosis. i can seriously say that it feels like my family is falling apart. i left the kids father 15 years ago. i left to break the cycle of violence. the way i feel today, its a cycle bigger than me, smarter that me. like Godzilla big, smart with a very low IQ.if there is unrest in my home it always revolves around jesse. he lived with mark and i and he felt the trauma as much as me. so did kobe. he was just a baby. he had PTSD from experiencing beatings and shouted at and kobe felt all of that, he was born raging with anger and it has taken a lot to get him to a happy life. jesse on the other hand, a lot more work.i dont feel comfortable with anymore disclosure about my kids.

my mind is still out to lunch. i can be looking at something and i want to, but say its a broom, i can stare at it to try to fined the name in my head, but it doesnt work.the whole situation is really worrying for me. the kids see me struggling and they jump into 
action, but the thing is that when i am feeling a mental illness or a brain injury, usually i want to do what i can for yourself. i know my kids mean well but they do take over sometimes. its very frustrating. my doctor said he thinks some of these mental problems could be due to the drugs he prescribes me to treat my illnesses.. anyway i dont really feel too good this morning. every time i do something i put a hold on my feelings and the kids jump on top of the situation. its a fine line we cross. i want to have help when i need it and i want to have support from other people with disabilities and or mentally illness. when i first became bipolar i was still ok. i think the antypsychotics have brought me undone. if i had my time over i would never convert,

what's normal

i really dont know how i feel. blogging seems to be a way to undo the bad and see the good. but i am starting to feel like closing my bedroom door and staying there. i have enlisted the help or a case manager, an occupation therapist. i am trying to find a psychiatrist who does skyp appointments and bulk bills, i'm pretty sure i wont find that. i've got two chances, buckly's or none. my kids got really aggressive with me last night, telling me i had no capacity to see or remember the truth. i was so shocked that all the things i wanted to say were tightly wound and in no way would all of my anxiety and PTSD can possibly take what they dished out.

i am trying to think of it as their way of letting steam off after dealing for weeks with my erratic personality. i dont know how to educate them further regarding my mental health. i have to allow for their mental illness's too.but for all 3 of us anxiety and rage take over and more often not i am the focus of the rage.i have been this way for so long now, i just dont remember what sort of lives other  people really live.

i.m really getting tired of this bullshit. the kids have had all the right counselling and they've played sports in heir spare time. when they decided to be musicians i bought a guitar, a drum kit and they already had a keyboard. that didnt take long to be ignore. i know my life has consistency. my life has almost all about mental illness and trying hard to give my kids a good life. i feel like i have failed miserably. it feels awful, i used to have such passionate vision about o many things that i became aware of in this world. now i never go outside, never answer the phone, if i get a bit sassy and am on the opposite side from jesse in debate all hell breaks loose. i really cannot take even one more terrorizing attack on me, especially while i am sick. i am gonna try to ease the anxiety and various forms of shock.have a nice day xoxoxox 

Mental Madness

I'm gonna try to talk about mental illnesses. PTSD makes you silent as you tear your memory apart trying to establish who you really are. and questions like "Did I deserve it, how should I have played that, possibly receiving far less injuries." Dissociation, for me is a part of PTSD. sometimes I just go blank and its not just my mind, its my face. I can feel my eyes rolling back. This is the first symptom that I cant hide from. what i believe is dissociation is the appearance of Michelle my little twin known and seen by only me and when there's trouble I used to take her outside and run to my little shed and seat us right in the corner, hidden and protected. another offshoot of dissociation is to run away sometimes with my hallucinations some time without. If my safety was compromised and it looked and sounded like he was going to make me hurt and scared.

Bipolar is surely a dominant force in this race to fuck up Joanne. it can go lots of ways and change over the years. for a long time i could be around men unless alcohol was involved. More accurately I didn't remember the argument at all as i'd slept it of, I remember one day when he beat me and then demanded with the intention of making me pay for him. so I went to the party with a black eye. you can be obsessed by someone when you have bipolar and you don't see the circumstances or intention of this illness. I really cant think of anything else I have that I can talk about today, I feel exhausted and I want to deliver my message carefully and succinctly.

there is a lot of grief in my house at the moment. I froze at Jesse as he said something. it was like arguing with mark.then he would grab Jesse and shake him while screaming, he had Jesse under his iron grip with enough ability to frighten. i used to escaped to Jesse's room and through the window I could call me. Once Jesse was inside and we were silent I was able to tend to my wounds and keep Jesse safe.

A few years ago I was finally ready to fess up to what had been. She sent me to a psychiatrist. Then he put me onto antipsychotics, whole different story. They were the worst drugs. They rendered me zombie like and compliant. I have to go, I think I have covered a little insight into my illness. I have the need to tell my story is because I am currently quit pretending, safe to speak for once and for the continuous breaking down of the cycle of abuse. but I'm sorry because I have to leave you hanging. I'm going to hide, count to 100 and come find me. Here's a clue, I'm in my bed. For some strange reason, they would always find me there and there would be hilarity and warmth and I would make some toast and we would eat it in the bed.....I hope the fucker slept badly that night. ok. off to bed i go. g'nite and xoxoxoxoxox
kobe did most of the spellchecks and finding the words i wanted to use. i hope to be articulate, interesting and fun one day.bye xoxoxxo

i am so tired of all this bullshit

i can feel bipolar has a little bit of depression waiting around the corner.this morning i cried for so long and about stuff that matters, some stuff causes me so much pain, i absolutely know it'll be coming to the grave with me. so every day this week i have been trying to asuce, with my case manager, a physiotherapist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, thats it i think.   the thing is, i dont think the amount of care matches the the amount of bad blood wherever i go. up until now i have been stoic and ready to do all that i can to break the cycle of violence with my two boys. it feels like it cant be done. i have spent 25 years either defending myself against mark, my ex, and then about 15 years trying to give all that i could to son #1. i felt so guilty for what he'd been through.. you know that saying "give me a boy aged 7 and i'll show you the man...and the next line is something else" i know i am being vague and annoying, i dont know if depression is coming or is it coming with my body under duress thx to a bad case of cellulitis. i know i am out of any sort of routine. i know i am on too many pills. and i know i spend too much time in bed. the only reason i dont top myself tonight is kobe. he is only 16 and hasnt had much of a life, i want to watch him go on his way in life happily, unaffected by all of my sickness, all of his brothers sickness and his fathers too. you know if i was a betting woman i would have put all my cash on getting these kids out of the cycle of violence. i think i failed. i really cant talk anymore, shit is hitting the fan, i dont cope PTSD. in fact all 3 of us have PTSD. its not a go past go and take $200 please.its serious shit, with serious events that their issues are so enmeshed. i gotta go. 

when's it ever gonna end?

i suppose my kids have had enough of me being ill. i don't think they think i am unwell. something changed during the last 36 hours and i don't know what it is. i am so tired and hurt. i have an appointment with my case worker today and on one hand i could tell her whats going on in the hope that she can help us or on the other hand she could blame my mental illnesses and have me involuntarily put in the psyche wind and kobe would go to foster care and i don't know what would happen to jesse. i must be sick coz to be brutally honest, i really don't care, i want to get well. i don't want to be called an arsehole, bitch, cunt, idiot, stupid. i really feel like telling my case worker and maybe she has access to residence for recovery for me and foster care for a couple of weeks for kobe, that would teach him a lesson in life, and right now  have no feeling for jesse. yesterday he brought my wheel chair, i am wheelchair bound now, and he stood there and had an arguement with me and then he walked away with my wheelchair, i needed it to get to the toilet.he left the chair right down the other end of the house where there is no way i could have got it. so i waited about 2 or 3 for kobe to come home.he did come home but rather than come and hugging me and talking about his day . he walked straight into jesse's room and there were words exchanged and then they were friends again. it really hurts, i just wanna take some pills and go to bed. nothing ever changes, violent, loud and a house full of egotistical, then i went on to mark, my partner for 8 years. i cant begin to talk about him right now. and now i have 2 sons and i feel like i am an uninvited, schoolyard joke and all can do is either use my forked tongue back at them, stay out of the way and cry silent heavy tears like i used to do with mark. i don't know which was to go. wish i had a crystal ball. one thing they both said to me is that i am a shit mother. they didn't say it actually , they yelled it my face. i am gonna go now coz i am sure there will be repercussions for me because of this post.

jo

Depression

i am feeling myself going under. all my ideas, all my attention directed at self mockery and funny jokes, some not so funny. yeah probably most not so funny.not so funny or as much funny today. i don't know if i am in for a big depression. depressions like a party guest who drinks all the alcohol in the bathroom, using the both to put the alcohol and tons of ice. day 1 of depression is all about how i can cope with this. i need a tidy bedroom, because i am going to be in there for a while and i don't need physical reminders of why i am the way i am right now. day 1 is also making sure you need supplies like drink that satisfies both my body and mind. i need sugar even though i am diabetic.and to those who wish to chastise me or judge me about drinking while on meds, you can fuck off.

i miss my younger years, not really the drugs that i miss. i just miss the opportunities and having contact with my old girlfriends. i cant do that anymore as i have agoraphobia. i miss doing what i want to do. this week i had a huge argument with Kobe . you know i cant even remember what it was about. i realized sometime in the last week that i have sped through stages, relationships, with men or without. no fucking wonder really, 2 parents, 1 an alcoholic and the other a pill head. they were both pretty non entities. my elder sister raised me and she was a fantastic mum. when she found a man she loved she left the family home, she found a new role to fulfill her new life and she dropped me like a hot potato. she left me when i was 11, she left me to live with the old people who had not much to do with me. bingo and beer down the bar. it was then that things went pear shaped for me. i was 11 went 2 different instances of sexual assaults occurred. they just touched me very inappropriately and they were definitely in control of the situation, obviously seeing me and grooming me for probably more than they got. that's the thing with me. i may not know whats about to happen and i try to be positive about people. and then instead of being stunned and unable to move i run, i run and don't look back. its hard to run away in front of a whole lot of people, i don't know, but i just ran.the man who copped a good ole feel of my 11 year old body in a split second changed his demeanor to anger in his face and him and a couple of his friends that he'd brought with him, they all stopped joking, not at me, at my dad. i my guess is as good as yours. he was a 2 pot screamer. that's slang for a couple of beers and you're drunk.
i definitely believe them to have been laughing at him. it would have hurt him and shaken his cage but in my mind , i loved my dad and i love the way he took care of me. sometimes he made me feel really special and i didn't want that to change. i didn't want to be one of the kids who he growled or ignored. i didn't feel any resentment for his shortcomings.i just wanted to remain a daddy'd little girl. so anyway, that's when the drinking started for me. one of my brothers had a recent 21st so it was easy to drink as the drinks fridge was in the garage. vermouth and beer for me until it was half gone.

i need to stop thinking about certain topics and this is one of them. the worst thing about depression when you are on lithium is every thing is dulled down, or pushed down to the pit of your stomach so you don't have to feel it. i don't know what lies ahead foe me and depression this week. in someways i don't mind my depression. sometimes it feels like the arrival of an old friend. i can count of it turning up and it feels like a stabilization. i don't do any acting out during depression. there are no surprises during my depressions. my need for allies turns me into a sorry machine. at the top of the list for understanding or listening to what its been like for them and what its like for them when i go into depression. they fill up on my jokes and anecdotes and stories and general silly talk. when i am depressed, really depressed, bed bound and silent. they look after me, with practical things like making me food, doing my laundry keeping the house quiet and sitting with me, knowing that i can't reciprocate the laughter and the sparkle and the unity between both of them. although i can not move i love them keeping me company. i think it weakens and shortens my depression, much like skin on skin touch and massage is more important to me and i can feeling the healing straight away, instead of throwing back some pills.i have to go...my mind has said "enough"

jo xoxoxox

This is the end, my friend

I am having a fucked up week. i thought i was getting healthier but I am not so sure now. i get up slowly and painfully out of bed when I truly need to be up. rheumatoid arthritis means that the longer you spend in one position, i.e bed, you wake up in a lot of pain and for me it means I need help to get out of bed. i am really tired, exhausted. i am arguing with the kids. i tried to explain the when i am crossing the line between hyper-mania and mania, I need to talk to them. talk to them in an immature manner because if I don't talk to someone close to me then i start to fall backwards and withdraw into myself where i reach dizzying heights of crazy talk, delusions of grandeur and hallucinations. I have told all of this to Jesse and he's cool with it and can talk me down sometimes. but Kobe. hes 16 and just starting to make a life for himself, friends, minimum sleep and maximum partying. i told him that if there was alcohol there i want him to stay away from it. we have a code that both boys held onto for their social uncomfortability. if things get out of hand or he just needs to get home for whatever, then he needs to call me. i told him to tell whoever he is with and if they ask for details then just tell them that you forgot something from home, meds, sleeping bag, anything really. as soon as he calls me he is to say "mum i forgot my Ventolin" and when i hear that i know that he is not comfortable. i have told him to use his phone in private and give it 10 minutes and then walk out to the driveway and i'll be there. 

i need to go in a sec. i am really exhausted and just had enough. i have been struggling with cellulitis on both legs for 4 months. my brain is taking advantage of my body's weakness and i am in not coping. cellulitis, arthritis in the knees, hips, spine and hands. and of course there is my mental bullshit. bipolar, schitsoeffective disassociate disorder, PTSD and diabetes. it theirs anything i am missing then so be it i guess. i rely on the pills at the moment. i think if i wasn't as sedated than i have been i would have killed myself. i fantasize about suicide and have plans for about 4 different ways and places to do it. but i cant. i believe that your life is not just your own . everyone you come in close to, when you look at your day think of all the people you have interactions with. i think that if i followed through with throwing myself off a bridge than not only do i leave the boys in a world or trouble for the rest of their lives, but i would hurt the people that are close to me.and for the boys, i imagine them thinking during hard times that mum took a drastic action and took control when she jumped, and i don't want one of my boys to feel that and think that.

anyway i posted way more than i intended today because i'm feeling petty low. so i'll catcha round like a donut.     Jo  xoxoxoxo

ps, the song i am going to play is this is the end my friend. i am plying not out of desire to suicide . i am posting it because the end can also mean a new beginning, and good by to certain repetitive, annoying banter at the kids and not able to stop because i don't want to revert back to hallucinating, unrealistic fears, the thing that always brings me down to a safe place is talking to like minded people and being understood and witnessed to my situation. which includes the boys. its like i am waiting for a disaster,
well i am going. thanks for reading if you did. and i'll catch you later.

shine on you crazy diamond

i've not been reliable self for some time now, but the last two or three months have been a roller coaster and the haunted house in one. i feel out of control of my mind. i could practice mindfully the things that i do and think. but by the time i realize that i think i am two far gone to change my philosophy. i feels like i am in deep water with who knows swimming below me watching every panic stricken movement my heart rate is racing so hard, the shark takes all this into consideration biding its time for the perfect strike.and like i imagine a shark bite i am feeling thoughts and feelings, and mood swings, and bad dreams,and hallucinations and out of touch with reality.

the other day someone called me on the phone and asked how i was and i went on to tell her with a lump in my throat and trying to sound assertive instead of hysterical. i asked her if she could help me assertively straighten out my brother andrew's fear and panic of dying. i cared for  andrew for some time when he was in melbourne. he was very sick.and frightened. i i was with him every day and when i went home he would call me on the phone for reassurance i told the woman on my phone if she would help me make his last days as calm and gentle and loved as he should have been.it was hard for me to imagine speaking to those nurses because , being 1995 discrimination toward people with AIDS was tolerated and people felt it was their right to treat these people like 2nd rate members of society. the woman who had called me ,she listened and tried to reassure me and when i told her about andrew and how i need to help him, she said to me "how can you go to the hospital. what about your agoraphobia. my heart sank and my mind shifted gear as i said "its not 1995 is it. i didnt have agoraphobia then. i dont what i felt, i was panicked and numb. i told the phone lady that i'd just woken up from a dream and thanked her for understanding and trying to talk me down. she knew it wasn't a dream. i knew it was a dream, but thats where we left it. a couple of hours later the phone rang and it was another health care practitioner. she told me that she had spoken to her colleague and she had to speak to me. to see if i was hallucinating, delusional, emotionally stable. my survival skills quickly kicked into gear and i told her not to worry as it was only a dream. i dont really care if she believed me or not. at this stage, i have enough experience with institutions, i know what to say to keep me out of the psych ward. 

so i waited for an hour so to straighten myself out and i thanked her for all that she has done for me but i wont be needing hers or any other health care workers for now. its very stressful when someone listens to you or sees you having a hallucination. it is draining and theres a lot of pressure in handling someone like me. i can be talked to to calm me down and back on track. and if they cant manage to do that then they are trained to get psychiatric nurses to come to my home and choose whether or not i need hospitalisation. unfortunately my time to parcipate in the conversation is last, and its all about debunking the health workers in a calm voice, watching them watching me for any sight of my mind running on running on empty. i used to think that i would never go back to the psyche ward but this week i am nit so sure.

this week i have noticed that i am shaking twice as much as i used to. i can be in conversation with one of my kids and in the middle i forget where i was going. that happens to everyone i hear you say, not 10 times a day. yesterday i called my son to my desk claiming that my mouse doesnt work. he had to show me which buttons do what. the friggin mouse only has 2 buttions and a scroll wheel and i've had it for about 5 years. i  am having these things happen to me everyday. i forget how to use everything. cannot find the name of what i want and i try while getting a gut clenching urgency to get it together. i have been talking absolute rubbish to my kids, some of it they stand there explaining that what i am saying , dont listen to it , its in your mind. just sit down and take it easy and it will go away. it does go away.i feel so sick with remorse at my kids childhood. caring for their psychiatric unwell mother. i try to make them laugh as much as i can to take the edge off and for my own sake too. if i engage 
someone else into my thinking then it leaves no room for the mental jo to shown up and take over. 

when andrew was very sick he developed dementia. he was taking about 40 pills a day and its my belief that all those drugs, heavy drugs too, i believe the drugs contributed to his dementia.i have shed tears this week, every time i try to say or do things right. and i have been thinking of andrew, wondering if dementia is in store for me. i too am up to about 30 pills a day. i have to let the phone ring when it calls, if someone knocks at the door i never answer. i am in my own bubble. when i am sick i have all kinds of things to do and say if the psyche team turn up, which they might considering the fact that  more or less sacked the 2 heath care workers.  well, i have to go. but i very gratefulfor being able to type this blog, even though i need to use spellcheck just about every line. thank goodness i can work the mouse now haha. 

jo xoxoxox     

p.s. i hope syd barret was happy tending to his garden and being a recluse. i cant help but thinking about him whenever i play pink floyd.

I can smile about Andrew, it took me 15 years.

i feel like the sky is falling and all i can do is run rabbit run. i have nightmares most nights and my kids wake me up if they have to. i am so embarrassed by my actions on Thursday. i was sleeping and Jesse came into my room with the telephone. i took the phone and started to talk. i was talking a million miles an hour and good job to her for talking me down and through what was essentially a break from reality.

my brother Andrew died in 1995. he had dementia for a while before he died. he came to Melbourne because he believed our mother was dying. he was behaving erratically and very confronting. so we made a word as our "you've gone to far" word, it was kumquat. i am so grateful that my big brother who was my hero and protector , he connected with me and he he just knew that i'd be a good carer. it felt natural to look after him after years of him looking after me, getting through school, picking me up from work. the first time he arrived with his motor bike he bought an extra helmet, fire engine red. i loved it, the same colour as my hair.

i think i am going off on a tangent because i don't really know how to write about this without tears dropping from eyes, big,heavy raindrops. i didn't really cry when he died or at his funeral.  some years later i was seeing a psychologist and i said "I've been crying all week, sobbing and i don't know why. i cant remember what she said to trigger the reality and reason in my head. when i realize what i was doing it left me stunned, with grief, shocked, my big brother was never gonna be with me as i am passing the age that he died on. 

Andrew and i had an unwritten understanding that i would be with him when he died. i spent my days with him and when i went home he called me every hour because he was so scared of dying. it makes me so mad. he gave his Sundays to be an alter boy and it raged inside of me that this man, who is responsible for participating in the first of many programs, he spoke with such passion and awareness. my rage is toward the medical staff at the hospital he was staying at.i called them and i wanted to know that Andrew was calling me every two hours and all he needs is some care and talk him down gently. stop spending your time talking about your week end and do your job. when my dad was dying they gave him a beer every day. Andrew got more pharmaceutical drugs and not even a "how are feeling today, do you want to talk?" i dot know why one of them didn't take the situation in hand and comfort him, touche him, a stoke of the hair, a hand massage, they could have got him the latest Sydney star observer (a newspaper for gay people). i told her to bloody well do it. and the state of his mind is a medical problem, not a direct ploy to interrupt your gossip session. she got it and she went on to change her ways and those of the medical staff on his wing of the hospital. 

i knew that death was just around the corner for Andrew. about a week before he dies the father of my kids called me. he had spent all the money on gambling and the horses, and he was telling me i need to come back and help him . there is one thing you need to know about mark. if you say no to him he will be in your ear talking about it, following you around the flat. and then it escalates with throwing objects, grabbing me and cornering me and saying the most hideous, hurtful, abusive things ad it would be then that most of the time. with the stability of my mind and trying to lesson the physical damage to my body and face i am submitted to the coercion i really don't want to speak about what came next. what i really want to say is this man is not a man, he is an animal. and a useless animal .   

anyways i decided , to more than gathering rent money. i came back for Jesse who was only 2 years old. i was for the first time frighten for Jesse. he didn't have me at home to protect him. so i went to see Andrew and told him i had to go. and he said nothing because the look in his eyes expressed everything. i still cant believe that i let him down with something important. i have a few regrets in my life and that would be at the top i think. i should have been there. i hated mark for what he did, i should have told him to straighter out the mess he'd made but i wasn't their to protect Jesse and i was afraid mark would be one of those men who take their children and either take the far away and raise them or he would find away to kill the 3 boys , but he wouldn't have to guts to do the same to himself.

the last two paragraphs i rambled on about to a woman who is helping me get it together. she's got a big job to do i'm telling you.i answered the phone to her and she asked me how i was and i want on and on about the treatment Andrew was getting and how he called me every two hours. i was happy to help him and mark made a statement like"Andrew needs to know that you have a family here" Jesus i hate that man. i take full responsibility for my choice to leave Andrew to die without me i will never ever not remember his eyes as they seemed to sink into his skull.i took him in my arms and i felt his love and my love for him.the world can be truly awful sometimes. and i hate mark. some people say you shouldn't hate as all you put out there with what you say is there forever and may be stuck in that groove,hate poisons your body and mind and spirituality, even us atheists have spirituality, if you don't get that , drop me a line and hi''give you the mail.                              

anywho i have to go. i cant talk about mark. 
thank you for reading my blog.

Jo xoxoxox

I can't believe this is me

i need to write all this down to understand it and take some control while i still can. i think i am quite sick. i don't think i sound sick on the internet but in person i know i am weird and confused and anxious and emotional. i haven't stepped foot outside this house for five years. i have agoraphobia. i fall to pieces when the boys start getting aggressive and throw each other around. i don't know if they are being violent or if they are being normal brothers play fighting and antagonizing each other. 

i also have bipolar, schitzoeffective disorder, PTSD and i dissociate when confronted with anything threatening, and because I've kept myself in a cage for 5 years i think i have encouraged my mind to see my hallucinations most days and some of the hallucinations, they are not so frequent but have taken on a sinister approach. i always had voices in my head. i can remember at the age of 4 i had an imaginary friend, she was my shadow and i called her Michelle. when there was trouble in the house and the whole house seemed to shake under the weight of screaming voices and loveless commands for me to go to my room. sometimes my big brother Andrew would come and talk to me and play with my toys with me so i didn't have to listen to the fighting. when Andrew wasn't at home i would sneak outside, trying not to be seen or heard or asked where i was going. when i got out into the sunlight i could see Michelle, she was my shadow, to me she was someone i needed to look after. if i could see her in the sunlight then so could all the shouters and blame shifters and people who were to far gone to love with generosity and dare to be taught by the children how to soften your approach and treat the children like they had something to offer. 

so i saw Michelle in the sunlight and i ran as fast as my little 4 year old legs would take me. there was refuge for Michelle and i in a small little shed made out of fence palings and it was dark in there. Michelle was safe there, in the darkness, out of sight. we both sat in the corner of the shed, away from the doorway, and we talked to each other. i would guarantee her safety and reassured her and comforted her. all of the communication between us was always in my head. but i could communicate with her safely. she had access to they goings on in my head. when it was overcast and raining i still went to that shed and talk to the walls waiting for Michelle, worried about her because she is so delicate and she needed me.  i don't think Michelle was just your run of the mill invisible friend. we had very definable rolls. she was frail and terrified and i was brave and resourceful and my priority was looking after her, talking about fun things and making her laugh but not vocally, always in my head and she responded by being quiet as a church mouse and trusting of me. i believe Michelle was the beginning of my dissociation. my dissociation has developed over the years. whenever something traumatic happened i left the shouts and threats and anger away from that situation and i would find somewhere safe to be still, be quiet, be insignificant to these people who communicated like they hated each other. i have taken this part of my life as an adult. if i am experiencing a serious fight between the boys i start to cry an stop them if i can and the i go to my bed, sometimes for day and i am unresponsive, negating to take my meds and just fading into silence.

i really don't want to talk about that any more today. and i totally bypassed the topic that is troubling me at the moment. myself and the kids have decided that Jesse should be in charge or the money.my money.i thought i had assured myself that this was a good solution . i now the last few months have been ridiculously incapable of doing small things. it feels sad for me to lose the Independence i have managing my money. i am having a really hard time and i don't really know how to fix it. i dont know if i am getting ready to mourn my job of providing the kids their financial needs.if i am to be honest, i have had to ask for assistance occasionally from a charity that deals with fresh food donations. i haven't done that in a long time, probably since i stopped leaving the house. anyway, the problem is i feel myself slipping some days. i slip into my hallucinations. i slip into dissociation. i stay up all night and sleep during the day and if i do too much of that my bipolar kicks in. i don't want to be one of those mentally ill people who you know cant come back from when they were healthy. these things are very sad for me but i will shit twice and get fucked before i submit to the life filled with these disorders, i managed to get a physiotherapist to come to my home and give me excersizes to gain strength. i am trying to do them every day. and its excersize that's not punishing. i find it motivational. every time i do them i think to myself "this is another step to being who really am, for me, for the boys". for everyone who has helped me when i needed help.

i have to go. thanks for reading. 
jo   xoxoxoxo