The Dance of A BiPolar Life

I’m so tired of this shit. I really am. My wits have an end and I’ve found them. I can’t make those ends meet; but I sure can go to my wits’ end with a quickness. I mean, really. How in the hell am I supposed to keep getting kicked in the teeth financially before I either snap and end up institutionalized for a while? Or why don’t I just give up, pack it all in and sell as much of it as I can, then just go somewhere, anywhere else, and start over.

The answer(s) to the last question, there, are pretty easy for me, really. I don’t get rid of everything and take off because I spent way too many years of my life wanting nothing more than to get back here to Santa Fe, the only place I’ve ever felt somewhat at home… just about the only place where, even though I’m alone here with really no friends at all, I still feel like this is where I’m meant to be. As for my stuff, it’s not like I have a whole lot of it. When I left K I also left most of the stuff with him. I guess that, since I didn’t know at the time where I was going to go or what I was going to do, it just made more sense that he take the stuff so it would be usable for at least one of us. At that time I had no way of knowing that, in just five weeks, the stars would align and I would find myself back here in NM, trying to start over, to start fresh… to claim a life I had never had before — a life for myself, not for everyone else around me.

I also won’t just up and take off because the fear of homelessness is ever-present. I can’t really describe how terrifying that is to me, other than to say that once one lives that life for a while, one never wants to go back to it. It was a terrible, scary, exciting time in my life, that’s for sure, but in a way the longest nine months of my life. I don’t know how friends I had then (and people I know now) could have stood it for years and years. (One guy in my IOP classes was homeless for seventeen years; another guy, twenty-seven!)

I’ve not been doing so hot, mentally, for a while now. Even on those days in which I feel more upbeat, more positive, there has been this low, underlying depression. It seems to be getting worse and worse all of the time. I’ve gone from hardly sleeping at all to wanting to do nothing more than that. It is pretty much all I can do to stay awake at times; more often than not I just let myself nod off. Even though my sleep is filled with terrors and flashbacks, horrible dreams and vivid grotesquery, I’m finding it is still preferable to staying awake and trying to deal with a life that is bearing down on me.

My bills are paid for this month, mostly, and I have a lot of food in the house. And that’s the problem. I over-shot my budget in a big way by paying too much on a couple of bills (much more than the minimum due which is what I really should have done for this month at least). And I stocked up my freezer and pantry because I was almost out of everything. Being so low on food meant I had to spend a lot more than my usual grocery run, thus cutting into an already-strained financial situation.

So now I feel like a terrible pet parent. I don’t have enough money to properly take care of Popcorn right now which really makes me want to throw myself off of the balcony. I mean, she relies on me for her life to be as great as it can be. And she IS really happy and a lot of fun. But I didn’t set aside enough money to cover her much-needed nail trim, so she’s sticking to everything when she walks on the carpet or jumps up onto something. And even though I’m very diligent about keeping her litter box scooped and as presentable as possible for her, I don’t have the money for cat litter and litter box liners. I have never not put my animal(s) first when dealing with monthly budgeting and bills. I’m so disappointed in myself and feel really badly, like maybe she would be better off with someone who has more disposable income. I have just one option: ask K to help with Popcorn’s expenses. He has always said he would, which is nice considering the “child support” agreement was really only about Mickey. When Mickey died almost two years ago and I got Popcorn, K kept the agreement but for her instead of my sweet Mickerdoo. It’s great that he is so willing to help me with the fur baby. But with all he has going on right now, and how I’ve recently been lectured by him for being a financial fuck-up, the last thing I want to do is to say, “Hey, you know how you said you’d help with Popcorn? To just let you know? Yeah, well, even though you’ve bailed me out with other stuff recently (in a huge way, by the way), I need more help because I fucked up my budget and forgot to put Popcorn first.” It’s always such a double-edged sword with K when he is being nice. Trust me, I “pay” for any help he gives me from time to time. Five years after leaving him and over a thousand miles away from him, we’re still tied to each other in a way I never anticipated. A lot of the reasons, lately, are due to the major financial hits I’ve taken since the clinic dropped its programs I needed with pretty much no notice, causing me to lose over $250.00 each month in available income… you know, grocery money and car expense funds.

Speaking of K, I’m a little confused right now. No, that’s not true. I’m not confused by his actions. I’m not even surprised, really. I just don’t get it: why is he STILL asking me to come back? Granted, in my heart of hearts I know the answer: he needs his maid/launderer/cook/secretary/handyman/etc. person back. It’s not really about loving me. I mean, when we were in counseling during our eleventh year he finally came out and told me what I had always known: he had never loved me at all. (So why in the fuck did I spend still another eight years with him?! Shit!) I guess I was an easy mark because I’m, sadly at times, a caretaker. I do as much as possible for people I care about, many times as a detriment to myself and my own wants and needs. I put the other person first all the time. It’s only here in my diary that I am as self-centered, as selfish and egotistical as I seem to be. In real life I’m pretty much a slave to almost every person I care about. Most of the time I don’t really begrudge when my friends take up a lot of my time with all of their life stuff, even though I don’t really get to talk about what is going on with me. When K and I met I fell fast and hard, like I always do. He was apparently looking for a one-night stand (which I have never had). Maybe when he saw that I started helping him clean up his apartment and do his many loads of laundry — the day after we first met each other (no sex yet, either, by the way) — he thought to himself, “Gotta keep this one around!” For whatever reason, even though he said those three little words first, he never loved me. Our relationship was over before it had time to get started, and we lived the next nineteen years in a rut. He was a lot happier than I was because he didn’t have to do anything at all other than go to his job. Anything outside of his work

was taken care of by me, and usually while he would go out and fuck around on me. He did that a lot, even though he’ll only admit to one time. We had words more than once over the years about it, believe me.

So, all of that said, and taking into consideration the fact that he sort of found someone kind of like me (neat freak, cook (the new boyfriends loves to cook and I always hated to do it… still do), does things in a certain way so that K doesn’t have to do anything… you know, basically another me but, according to K, at least the new one is attractive, with a nice body, etc. Just a couple of months ago, this new guy moved from SoCal up to WA state to be with K, and from the very beginning I can tell that they are clashing in a huge way. Granted, they have to adjust and adapt and compromise to learn to live with each other. I just don’t see, from what K tells me, that either one is willing to budge on a lot of things. It shouldn’t bother me… shouldn’t even involve me… but K calls me and over-shares way too much about his new relationship. I mean, do I really need to know about the problems in the bedroom? No, other than I know that being with K intimately is like having a large fish that’s been landed on shore flop around over or under one… just not enjoyable. It seems like the new guy has his little idiosyncracies in the bedroom, things which K doesn’t see the point of doing. It’s not that he won’t, or doesn’t want to. K just doesn’t see past getting his own rocks off… the other person doesn’t matter. I used to half-joke that I would say, “Okay, I’m ready to start,” and he’d already be asleep, finished.

I know, I know… long-winded. I guess I’m just confused as to why, for the past five years, K has wanted me to come back to him. I’ve told him flat-out that I will not going to the NW again, that I have no desire to ever live there again. He’s thrown my difficult financial situation at me, telling me it’d be better there because the arrangement we had for a lot of years would kick back into effect. Um, no thanks… that arrangement literally almost killed me. And now, even with his new boyfriend living with him, he’s ready to kick him out at a moment’s notice if I were to agree to go back. What? I mean, I know I’m amazing and wonderful and all that… at least in the ways K needs me to be, i.e. indentured servitude shit.

It’s all so confusing, not because I’m even EVER considering getting back with K. It’s just, really, why are you so much nicer to me now than you ever were when we were together? Why did you treat me like shit for all of those years and then expect that I would just up and come running back at your first invitation. Fucker, I left YOU, for Heaven’s sake!

I don’t know what to do. I didn’t even know that shit was on my mind this morning. All I really DO know is that I want to go back to bed, to hide away from anyone and anything. It wouldn’t bug me too much if I never woke up again, really. I’m so, so down, so defeated… so worthless a human being. Even the good things I’m doing, such as getting off of morphine and taking these classes which are helping, are just not seemingly worth it to me anymore. I’ll keep going, and keep working on the morphine, because I know that this depression will go away in time. It may be a long time or a short one, but it does go away. I just hope I can make it through, again, this time.