I’m worried I’m always going to feel this way. This half existence. Not really happy, not really sad, just...existing. And I think that’s a miserable way to live.
I’m back on the Abilify 10 mg but now with a medication called Cogentin that I take twice daily to avoid getting the akathisia again. And I have less anxiety than I have had on other medications, I’m less depressed than other medications. But I feel like the exciting parts of me, the interesting parts of me, are gone. I feel boring. I can’t even begin to describe how uninteresting I feel.
I used to have conversations with Ryan via text messaging and we’d keep conversations going all day, talking about nothing. Now I barely manage to express three whole thoughts in a given day and chances are that at least two of them are some version of “I feel awful” or “I hate today.” I have other friends that I used to chat with via text messaging throughout the day and I feel that more and more my side of the conversation is waning. I have nothing interesting to say.
Nothing is going on in my life except the bipolar disorder. Having the disorder and treating it are all I am anymore. It’s talking to people about how I feel, complaining about medications, talking about how tired I am. And talking about how I don’t feel like me. It’s not like on the Latuda where I felt like my “me” was wrapped in thirteen layers of bubble wrap. No, it’s more I feel like me but without anything interesting. I have much smaller highs and lows, which is a good thing, in a way. That’s the goal, to level out my moods. But it also makes everything about me that was fun and gregarious and “Dani” go away.
Tonight I went to a small party at Danielle’s (best friend) workplace. Normally, I can chat up just anyone about anything. Tonight I barely said five words to anyone and most of those words were speaking to Danielle’s boyfriend, Jake, who I already count as a close friend. But strangers? Her coworkers, the random people I’ve never met? Nothing. I had no witty repartee, no questions to spark up a conversation. I sat quietly on a stool and tried to at least pretend to be engaging when someone thought to talk to me.
It was awful. I don’t do that - I don’t have trouble talking to strangers. But tonight I just had no energy for anyone. It was so hard to smile, my face felt weighted down. I was in a building full of people passionate about dogs and I - the consummate dog lover - had nothing to talk about with anyone. And that is just not me.
The Dani I know talks to strangers on the bus. She makes friends with the manager of a favorite restaurant. She picks people in class or at work to be her buddy and she strikes up friendships out of thin air. She’s can converse for hours about nothing at all because she always has something to say. Some new question to pose or joke to make. She doesn’t even know the meaning of awkward pauses.
But me? Me on medications, me of the bipolar disorder trying to find my cure? Well, I’m about as interesting as toast. I don’t know if I’ve lost my confidence or if I’m just lacking in energy to strike up a conversation or if I’m just so preoccupied with my disorder and my medications that I can’t think of anything else to talk about. And I don’t want to be that person that never shuts up about one topic (in this case, being bipolar) so I don’t like to talk about it unless someone specifically asks me about it. Besides, I feel like a real Debbie Downer to talk all about how I don’t feel like me and when I imagine living my entire life this way it makes me feel just a touch suicidal.
Because this isn’t living. This isn’t what I signed up for. I can’t go off the medications because that’s worse. The crippling anxiety and the depression that sapped the life from me for hours on end are not something I can go back to. But when my psychiatrist promised me we could treat my disorder and I’d be normal I thought it would be like my euthymic moods before medication: not anxious, not depressed, but happy and normal.
Instead, I feel like a clay version of myself. I don’t have the ups and downs but I don’t have the middle either. I just have this Play Doh version of me that doesn’t have anything to offer the world. What is my contribution when I can’t even hold a simple conversation with a coworker? I stare at my phone trying to think of something to say to someone, anyone. Who can I text and actually have something to say beyond “How are you?”
I feel terrible for Ryan. What kind of partnership are we that he has to carry the weight of everything. I’m never up to doing anything more than watching a few episodes of Friends or maybe going for a short walk. But our conversations are few and far between and I feel like it’s all on him to keep us going. And I have no energy to help take care of our animals so he ends up doing all the upkeep with the pets. He ends up doing most of the little chores because I can’t motivate myself to get up off the couch.
I want to be fun again. I want to not get vaguely anxious at the thought of doing anything other than sitting in my apartment. I want to be able to add to conversations. I want to be able to be around people and seem like someone that people would want to know. I want to find my magical combination of medications that will let me be who I know I am capable of being. Unfortunately, I’m quickly running out of medications that I can take while trying to get pregnant so I may have to settle for “just okay” until I can manage to have a baby. And it scares me that I won’t have a medication regimen worked out before the hypothetical baby comes. It means that I’ll have to start fiddling around with all new medications while I have an infant to care for.
I hate being boring. I hate that to have the simplest of conversations I have to exert so much energy that I feel drained from a 15 minute conversation. For anyone that knows me, that’s not me. I want so badly to be myself. My psychiatrist keeps assuring me we’ll get there but I’m not sure where the “there” we’re supposed to get to is. I’m much less anxious on this medication, much less depressed on this medication - doesn’t that mean it’s working?
I can’t even think of an interesting way to end this post. I have no clever wrap up, nothing smart to say that will make you think. So, I’ll just stick with a classic:
THE END
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