Somebody Make Me

I don't want to deal with the subject I must edit. I've been stuck here for over a year. For months I haven't been able to make myself work on it, except for reading titles and guessing what I wrote. The problem is that I'm not curious. I don't want to know. I'm afraid to read and find out.

This is the way I feel about this "book manuscript." My intention was to share information about bipolar disorder and my experiences with it, so that bipolar disorder won't carry such a negative social stigma, in addition to symptomatic problems that go along with a bipolar life.

I feel that when I start reading, and start remembering, and commence re-experiencing of what I wrote, I'm concerned it's going to bring on symptoms.

Spring has just begun, and soon I'll be able to discontinue my Effexor prescription. From experience, I finally figured out that my mood begins to crash about every October. Sometime in the Spring, my depression melts away. Eventually, I made the correlation with the Daylight Savings Time change,

One of my psychiatrists insisted that this annual change in my behavior either did not exist, or was the product of my imagination. He said that an individual living at the latitude and longitude of Dallas could not be emotionally effected by the rays of the sun. He thought that I had read about SAD, Seasonal Affective Depression, and had just assumed the behavior.

That psychiatrist also diagnosed me as having Borderline Personality Disorder, rather than bipolar disorder. I read and compared symptoms. I know my own problems, whatever name "they" conjure up for it. That psychiatrist was not a good match for me personally. But I am very grateful that his ardent misdiagnosis, and medication management, removed me from the grip of Lithium. It was not the med for me, but I was under state care then, instead of having an insurance policy and a private physician.

This sort of thing is bad enough to remember, and it brings out less intense emotions than other experiences about which I have written.

There are certain visual images that come to the fore when I think about working on my book. They are shameful. I postponed publishing on purpose until after my Mother died. Some things I think I'm ready to share with the world I could never share with my Mother. Too much shame, and then a shame cycle starts. Why would I want to publish a shame-fest?

That's not supposed to be what I'm doing. I'm supposed to get on and deal with it, so the book can be published, information shared, and maybe a few royalty checks could supplement my income.

Somebody make me do it!