What's Next?

Anyone who watches "West Wing" knows that one.... what's the next thing to be tackled?  Who needs to be taken on?  How do we claim triumph over the next set of obstacles?

These are the questions I ask myself in a hospital room in Concord, MA.  By now, I figure I've lost at least half my reading audience.  I figure this mostly because I write about THE SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN.  But I can't help it.  This is the stuff of life that eludes me, and I will continue to write about it until it makes sense. I swear, I'm not trying to bore anyone.  But this is the course of my life.  If you're bored with the monotony of hospitalization after hospitalization, can you imagine how I feel?????

I ask "What's next?" because I (and a team of highly-trained specialists) have come to a conclusion: Laura is very good at being bipolar.  Laura is also very good at singing & acting in high-pressure, high-level musical productions.  What Laura is NOT very good at is doing both at the same time.  Since kicking bipolar disorder to the curb doesn't seem to be in the cards right now, I am taking a hiatus from performance.

The thought of this makes me nauseous. This is not "ok, go do this difficult thing without a net".  This is "you've been doing this difficult thing without a net since you were three years old, now just fucking stop". The idea of it brings on waves of depression, devastation, confusion.  I feel like someone just pulled a rug out from under me and told me there was a floor to walk on, so just go do it.  But the floor is covered in tacks & nails.  How the FUCK am I supposed to walk across this new floor?  I don't need a net, I don't need a map; I need feet of steel.

I know that there's nothing telling me not to sing EVER.  I'm allowed.  My throat works.  I remember the notes and words and rhythms.  I just can't do it in front of anybody for the foreseeable future.

AND I AM PISSED.

I have some thoughts.  I won't stay away from music.  I'll continue to take voice lessons.  I'll continue to work on my piano playing (when the titanium screws in my right hand don't give me too much trouble), and I am hell-bent on learning to play the guitar.

But this feeling of not singing feels like someone is trying to pull my heart out of my chest... through my right eye socket.  It's a ripping and tearing that I can't even get my brain to comprehend.  I need some steel plates in my head and heart to go with those feet.  I need to walk across that floor.  How the hell am I going to get across that floor?

What's next?

A Reflection

But that's what these all are, aren't they? Reflections of a mind that is usually aware of itself, and sometimes on another planet.  Today, I'm somewhere between the two... and here's why....

Today is my 35th birthday. A birthday is always a time of reflection.  What has happened in the last year?  What has happened since I got to this planet?  Am I leaving it in a better place than when I showed up?

I'm not sure.

Everyone who reads this knows the struggles and battles I fight.  I am a woman with Bipolar Disorder.  I am a talented singer, writer, and hopefully a loving person of my friends, family, and fellow man.  But I am also a person who sometimes finds it easier to cut her own flesh than make it through the next five minutes.  

It's been 10 days since that happened. 

I'm proud of myself for that. I also dread the next time. Because I'm not foolish enough to think that it'll never happen again. I can only pray that I'll stave off the feelings for a long while. That I'll keep doing my nails and wearing bracelets and dreaming of the "scar tattoos" that I will never get. 

I am starting another round of partial hospitalization. I am hopeful, as always, that I'll fill my arsenal with more tools and weapons against the worst parts of the disease. 

I am starting to lose hope that the naturopathic care I'm receiving will do anything good for me. I ended up in the ER last week with a whopping part of gastritis. After they gave me morphine and at least 4 different stomach medications, they told me I might have the beginnings of an ulcer. I was instructed to discontinue my supplements by my naturopath. Now I feel better. Many thousands of dollars and supplements and ten months later, I find it hard not to throw inanimate objects randomly. I'm so angry. I feel a fool once again. Just like after the failed TMS and the failed ECT and the myriad of failed medications. 

I saw a new medication doctor last week. He was brutally honest, and I could have kissed him for it. He said "Laura, after reading your chart, I thought a mess would walk into my office. You're not a mess. You're a high-functioning person with a chronic illness, doing the best she can. I don't have a magic pill, or even a lot of ideas for you yet, but if you continue to be open-minded and use your tools, including the hospital, you will live well with this disease." 

It's all I can ask for. It's all any of us can ask for. To go forward and live to the best of our ability, whatever that is. 

So am I leaving this world better off than when I was brought into it? Am I doing my best? I hope so. I hope for better futures. I hope for things like peace and harmony in the world. I hope that the Red Sox will stop sucking. I hope that we will find a way to stop hurting each other and ourselves. 

I hope.