Something has been bothering me. I sat down to write out the story of my mental illness, in a brief form (which ended up being about 15 typed pages), to be given to NAMI as I volunteered to speak to the local police department as part of NAMI's CIT training (Crisis Intervention Team) training. And when I sat down to write this story out, I realized how much of it I could not tell.
There are a number of things I did, when I was psychotic, that I could not talk about to the police. One of them - which my therapist thinks I could talk about and it would not harm me - is the time when I stole a car. Because it was a Chrysler and I thought it was named after me, Jesus Christ, and I thought it was my car.
The other things that I cannot talk to the police about, are also things I do not want to write about here, because some people I know read his blog and I don't talk to people about those things. Some of them have to do with the times when I was manic. Others have to do with the lengths I went to to try to get the "baby" situation resolved, which I never completly talked about even on here. I never was pregnant, but I thought I was for two years, and I did a lot of things to try to get that situation resolved. I don't feel comfortable discussing that here though. I am being vague on purpose, sorry about that. But some things don't need to be given out to everybody.
There are things that I have a deep sense of shame about, which I did because I was delusional and I did not know the ramifications of what I was doing, nor did I fully understand why I was doing those things. I think shame is a pretty harmful feeling to have, and does not do a lot of positive things for a person. But I cannot get rid of some of the shame that haunts me from these incidents.
Then again. I never intentionally harmed another person or did anything that caused anyone serious problems other than stealing that person's car when I thought the car was mine. I never did anything that I'm ashamed of when I wasn't manic or psychotic or both, so I have some reasons for why I did those things. So maybe there is not so much to be ashamed about after all.
Anyway, back to the present. I am doing okay, other than a few problems like being horribly disorganized, needing to find a job, and not being able to sleep. I am also very lonely, which causes problems because it leads me to think too much about certain persons or have too much contact with them, when it's not healthy for me to do so. I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on the internet lately, and that's not necessarily a good thing either. I just do that because I am lonely and it gives me an outlet to communicate with people. I also do it because I can't sleep at night, and my medication is currently completely ineffective in making me sleep normally. It is obviously not at the right dosage, or it is not the right medication for me to be taking for sleep, because I am up all night basically every night. I have an appointment with my doctor in about a week and a half, so hopefully that will help resolve some of this problem. Until then, I think I am doomed to insomnia and all of its unpleasant effects.
Other than all this junk, though, things are going fine. I am better off without my boyfriend and better off without my former job, so both those endings had positive outcomes. I feel less stressed out in general, even though I have no job and no partner. I do feel lonely, but that is to be expected under the circumstances. And, also, I know that I need to make more friends, because part of my loneliness is simply a lack of enough people to talk to, so I am going to be working on that.
For now, I will try to set the shame aside and go on with life as best I can.
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