Keep on Keeping On...

If I know anything after six years of treatment for bipolar/depression, it is that it's pretty much a never-ending battle.  The severity of the symptoms ebb and flow.  I go through many peaks and valleys.  I never know how long a "good" or "bad" episode is going to last, or when I will take a turn for better or for worse.  I never know how long my medications will continue to keep my moods and compulsive behaviors in check.  I never know how long I will enjoy a reprieve from medication side effects.  As I've said before, part of the crumminess of mental illness is the absolute vacancy of certainty.  Nothing is certain.  Nothing is for sure.  But then, nothing about illness or wellness is ever guaranteed.  

But I also know something else.  I will get through.  It won't be fun.  It will be hard - harder than perhaps anything else I face in this lifetime.  It will be downright miserable at times and I won't want to get through - much less care if I do.  But I will.  Because I have.  

Maintaining mental health, like physical health, takes work and dedication.  It takes a lot of effort on my part.  At times I've been lackadaisical about taking my meds everyday, taking them at the correct times, manipulating dosing schedules to prevent side effects and make life seemingly better.  Those attitudes and behaviors never serve me well, and I always pay in the long run.  

I'm learning a lesson that has taken me years to accept - and I don't accept it on a daily basis.  But oh, how I am learning it, as my Texas friends say, "Little by slow".   What is this big lesson? 
 
Surrender.  

I haven't blogged much yet about my six weeks in a Texas treatment center.  Partly because life has been really busy.  Partly because I wanted some time to personally reflect on it all.  Partly because I wanted time and distance to sort everything out in my mind.  And partly because it's really hard to integrate back into normal, everyday life after having been confined to the rules and guidelines of a recovery program with twenty other people for 24 hours a day for 42 days.  


I will blog more about the actual treatment and treatment center over the next few weeks.  But tonight I really just want to focus on surrender.  The treatment facility I was at emphasized the twelve step program for all patients, regardless of our individual issues that brought us there.  Regardless of whether one is a participant in Overeaters Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Bulimics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, or any other twelve step program, the steps are the same.  Step number one is all about surrender:


We admitted we were powerless over alcohol (or food, money, gambling, drugs, etc)—that our lives had become unmanageable.

I arrived at the treatment facility with utter relief, really.  Of course I had some anxiety, some homesickness, and I was absolutely travel-weary after a host of horrible snarls in my trip to TX.  But ultimately I felt relief at being there, because I knew, for perhaps the first time in my life, that I didn't have all the answers.  That this thing - this overeating, this spending, this need to fill a void - was bigger than I was.  And that my life, indeed, was becoming unmanageable.  I knew all of that before I ever left home.  It was, in fact, the reason I did leave home.  I knew that if I didn't get help for this - whatever it was - I was going to ruin my marriage, my life, and everything and anything I held dear.  This fear was enough for me to put my life on hold and leave everything of comfort and dearness for six weeks away in a treatment center.  

I sat there in my first few days of treatment wondering why people were stuck on little old step number one.  It didn't seem like that big of a leap to me - we were all sitting in treatment, so it was obvious to me that something wasn't working in our lives.  That even though we thought we knew ourselves best and what was best for us, we clearly were failing at life big time.  But I didn't realize in those first few hours and days that, unlike me, some people weren't there willingly.  Some had been sent by family and friends as a last ultimatum:  You will go to treatment or we are done with you.  Some had been sent by the court or a judge after numerous arrests or offenses.  Some had merely shown up there because they were at the end of the road and could see no other options.  Not everyone was as grateful and relieved to be there as I was.  

I had another lesson to learn in those first few days, too.  This was a little bit harder to grasp.  That whole surrender piece - the one that I at first thought, "Pshaw, that ain't nothin'!" - well, it's not something you do just once, on that first day you arrive in treatment, shrugging your shoulders saying, "I don't know what else to do.  Where else to go...".  No, surrender has to happen daily.  Well, actually, surrender has to happen sometimes every hour, or even every moment of the day.  Surrender is an action that has to occur as many times as it must - we don't know how often we will have to hand it over.  And each of us hands it over to someone or something different.  That all comes later in the steps.  But man, that first one is a toughie, because those of us with addictions, whether it's food or drugs or money, whatever it is, we love to be in control.  We love to think we have all the answers.  We don't like to feel like someone else knows better.  

And that's what surrender is all about.  Admitting that we don't have the answers and hoping that someone else does.  And it's not necessarily something we will have the answer to immediately.  There may not even be an answer.  And that's even harder to believe, because we like to fix things.  We can't fathom that there might not be a solution to it all. 

I'm slowly beginning to grasp the idea that if I surrender to this bipolar disorder, or rather, the idea of bipolar disorder, maybe it will lose some of its control over me.  Maybe it won't hold the power over me anymore if I finally just throw up my hands and say, "Okay, so I have bipolar disorder.  Big deal.  It doesn't change me.  It doesn't define me.  It's just a tiny piece of the whole pie.  I don't have to fix it.  I'm not broken."  

Maybe, just maybe, if I surrender to it, it will actually be easier to manage.  Maybe taking my medicine won't seem like giving in.  Maybe it won't feel like defines me.  Maybe it will just be like taking my B12 shot each month after my bypass surgery - it's just something I do once a month to feel better.  Well, Seroquel and Effexor are just something I take each day to make me feel better.

I'm doing well right now.  I wake up every day fairly positive, fairly energized.  I have hope and goals and I even enjoy working on hobbies or crafts.  I am happy at the prospect of going back to work part time in a job that gives me a little more control over my scheduling and leaves me room to make changes if my physical or mental health changes.  I still struggle every day with eating right and spending right.  But I keep trying.  I get up every morning and I'm willing to do the work.  I'm willing to start over again when I've messed up.  I'm willing to rebudget, eat a few more grams of protein, or ask for help from friends or my husband or my therapist.  

Each of those actions is a form of surrender for me that I haven't always been willing to do in the past.  I had to do everything perfectly, or I was a failure, so starting over on the budget or trying to eat better wasn't an option, because that meant I had failed.  I wouldn't allow myself to fail because then that meant I was a failure.  Getting out of bed was a struggle because it was so daunting trying to be perfect all the time.  I didn't even want to try, because I knew it was only a matter of time before I showed how much of a fraud I was or how much of a waste of space I was on the planet.  I couldn't ask for help, because that meant someone might see me as weak or stupid or ...any number of things.  That's a lot of crap to carry around in my mind.  

Surrender gives me a little peace of mind, even though it also causes some anxiety.  A little voice in the back of my head is always there whispering "what if, what if, what if..." and sometimes it is quieter than others.  Sometimes I almost forget it is there, but then when I least expect it, it surfaces.  Sometimes it makes me reach out and take back that surrender, which inevitably leads me back down a destructive path.  The difference is, I'm trying to let go of that all-or-nothing thinking that once told me I couldn't regroup my losses.  

Today I know that I always have that option to give it up, at any given point and time.  It's a little bit of a relief to know that I don't have to be perfect, and it's never too late to start again.  And that's how I keep on keeping on, at least for today.