so that’s your weapon choice?

My mother has been upset with me ever since she found out I was in the hospital. It got even worse after she found out why I was in the hospital and what I had done to get there. I don’t know how to get her to understand what mental illness is. It’s like she straight up doesn’t care. She’ll tell her friends that she’s worried about me and then turn around and hurt me.

This holiday season is going to be horrible for me because I’m not allowed to go home for Christmas. Yea. Not sure why suddenly she won’t pay for my plane ticket home. My mother won’t speak to me or buy me a plane ticket home until I get a “real job.” I’m not quite sure what a real job is anymore. I mean, I make real money and pay real bills with it. So wouldn’t that mean that I have a “real job?”

It’s Halloween today and I can’t even be all that happy like I want to be. My best friend/sister keeps telling me not to worry about my mother that she just isn’t worth it. I have her momma and that’s all that matters doesn’t it? I don’t know. I feel abandoned by my mother right now. She is choosing to use a job as a weapon against me. My mother is choosing to use Christmas against me to try and get me to do what she wants. She’d love nothing more than for me to work inside an office sitting down all day. I don’t want to sit at a desk all day in front of a computer. I don’t want to be cramped up all day inside of a building with probably no windows no link to the outside. Not all offices have big windows for people to look out. Sorry that this post is a bit shorter. I’m just not feeling much in the writing mood.

the thoughts took over – Trigger alert post

Okay so I apologize for my long long delay in posting. I lost my computer for one thing so I’ve been computerless. I get to use one of my sister’s computers when they’re not home or something. There was that and then I also ended up back in a psychicatric hospital…again. I started having suicidal thoughts and tried cutting again. I went to church the next morning because I didn’t want to miss and I needed to talk to my pastor. Thankfully he helped me through the night by praying with me over the phone and then I was able to talk to him at church when I went that Sunday. I love my church Resurrection MCC so freaking much. Well anyway, after church I started feeling better so I tried to tell my sister that I didn’t really feel the need to go to the hospital anymore. That obviously didn’t work because first she called the hospital I was in before but they wouldn’t do admissions on the weekend. That hospital then suggested that she call the police which sent me into a ball of tears at which point I called my girlfriend and started bawling my eyes out to tell her what was going on and what was about to happen.

While waiting for the police I started freaking out and thinking that they were going to take me out of the house in handcuffs which incidentally never happened. Though I was kinda surprised they only sent one officer given that I was suicidal and had tried to cut. Because it was Sunday and because I didn’t have any new cuts that he could visibly see, he gave me the choice. Either have him call more officers to take me out themselves to a psychicatric hospital or have my sisters drive me there. It took me a few moments but I agreed to let my sisters drive me. Of course it wasn’t going to be that simple. The next thing he said was that he was going to follow us out to the car, and then said he was going to follow us to the hospital to make sure we went there. Obviously a good idea considering that I would have tried to convince my sisters that I was okay and didn’t need to go and detour us back home.

I was then admitted to Ben Taub hospital in Houston, Texas where I first had to chill in the medical emergency room and get checked out there before being moved to the psych er room. I spent three days there waiting to be admitted to a hospital somewhere. The only cool thing I really got out of all this was that I got to ride in an ambulance. Way cool! I was expecting at first to be taken back to the hospital I had been at when I first got admitted to a hospital. Nope. I was being taken to Harris County Psychiatric Hospital. I didn’t feel comfortable my first couple of nights at this hospital mainly because they put men and women on the same ward. I had never been on a mixed ward like that and I had no idea what to expect and it was nerve wracking. Either way, nine days later I had made several friends, been sent to my room four times because another person on the ward flipped a shit and got us all into a time out, and got new meds that are helping me. Plus a full diagnosis of what I have. I am bipolar 2, major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety. It’s a HELL of a lot to take in and I don’t know how I’m going to deal with all of it. The most I can do is take everything one day at a time right now. It’s all I really can do. Until next time. Sorry I didn’t go into more detail. You can leave me a comment with questions if you want or message me if you want to know more about my experience. I’m trying to forget about HCPC currently.

– Harley

new life

*sorry for not posting in a few days. been super busy*

It took 24 years for me to finally meet Jessi and I think God planned it the way he did. Sure it took a lot longer for her to find me but He had his plans for both of us. Anyway, after she saved me and I moved in with her things started to get better. I was feeling a bit happier but there was still something pulling me down. I was only fifteen minutes away from home and that was getting to me. My mother could still control my life because I lived close enough that she could get to me without any trouble.

Now, rewind about a year and let’s go to the conversation about moving. Jessi and I were sitting on the couch watching something on the TV. Can’t remember what exactly, but she was talking about how badly she wanted to move back to Texas. It was where she was born and it’s where her entire family from her dad’s side lived. Almost instantly I blurted out, “Can I come with you?” I didn’t really think it through first before I said it. I waited for her response which was a simple “Yea.” We started saving money and of course my mother had her doubts saying she’d believe it when she saw it. She was being all negative about it saying that something would surely come up and that we’d never move and blah blah.

Fast forward to October 2014 and I’m living in Houston, Texas. We moved at the end up May into the beginning of June. It’s been a rough several months. I went through a break-up, job hardship, money issues. It’s not been easy. Moving 1500 or so miles away from my mother was a good thing but it was a major change in my life that caused the symptoms of bipolar to arise.

I’m pretty sure I’ve always had bipolar but the move to Texas and out of my mother’s house was a huge change. That simple move triggered the symptoms and caused everything to fall into place. I was getting angry over little things, going into moments of mania. Then I’d swing the other direction and get super depressed and start crying uncontrollably. I remember one time I just started throwing things and screaming. One time I was screaming F you this, and F you that flicking my best friend/sister off. It wasn’t like me at all and so I found an outpatient program at a behavioral hospital near me and I admitted myself.

So things were going pretty well at first. Though the mood swings and fights were happening still and so I moved from Intensive Outpatient Program to the Partial Hospitalization Program. Again, things were barely improving and one night I got so depressed that I went into my closet in search of my old box cutter from a previous job. I hid it in the clothes I pulled out of a tote and left the closet. Jessi thought I was in there trying to kill myself and was just about to check on me when I’d come out. Yes, I was having suicidal thoughts but I could never go through with it.

The blade was too dull to cut too deep so it still left visible cuts but they weren’t bad ones. I did all that behind her back the second she left the room when I went to my bed. I kept looking up to check for her hoping she wouldn’t see. I hid the blade to use for another day and went to bed. The next morning in PHP I broke down and admitted to cutting. I couldn’t hold it back and I was just a mess of tears. My therapist asked me if I felt like I needed to go inpatient and I nodded my head. I was suicidal that day with the thoughts and the cutting was only the beginning. Everybody was sent on break and I was asked to stay behind where I broke down further and just cried my eyes out about why I’d cut and where I’d cut. She walked me over to the intake door and let me wait outside while she went in to let them know I’d be coming in soon. Immediately I called my sister who was still sleeping and cried as I apologized and told her that I was being admitted inpatient. I should have let her come up right then but instead I told her no. Told her to come up later with some of my things so I could have more clothes.

The intake process was long and upsetting still. I told the guy everything and he asked questions that I answered. While waiting I started crying again wishing so much that I could have turned back time and stopped myself. I got my picture taken for my hospital id bracelet and then was taken to my unit on the ward. I’ll detail my experiences another day. This is all for now.

– Harley

how am i going to keep on going…it’s getting worse (best friend saves me)

So I’m going to skip over all the crap about college cause that’s boring as hell anyway. Basically at this point in my blog I’ve now graduated from High School and everything is seemingly okay. At least that’s what I’ve been portraying to everybody since the scars and harm isn’t visible. Everything from here on out is all mental and emotional abuse related. Mom is still making cracks about my weight. This time she steps it up an ante. Now she’s saying I’m going to eat myself to the size of a blimp. That I’m going to have to shop in a tent store for my clothes. OH and then she’ll turn around five minutes later and say she’s only trying to help me. I’m not quite sure how that was supposed to help me. Made me feel bigger than I was. I really think she’s just jealous of me and honestly pissed that I don’t fit into her “perfect” life. If she wanted a perfect life with lots of money and perfect children in her eyes she should have married an actor or another famous person. Nobody said she had to marry my dad. She was the one that said ‘Yes.’ Nobody made her. Whatever.

So I went to college and then I couldn’t find a job. I was searching and putting out resumes. Only two radio stations called me back for an interview. One was in Pennsylvania but I didn’t have the money to go for the interview. My mother suggested asking them if they were covering the fare for the plane because a lot of times when they really want you they do that. They have for my brother several times (though his career involves his PhD he acquired). They obviously never responded back because I was still living in Michigan. Then another place contacts me and I make the hour drive out there for an interview that failed again. He twisted my words when I asked if the person taking over at night could WATCH ME go to my car. Not WALK me. I would be getting off at one am in a desolate isolated town. Forgive me for wanting someone to WATCH me go to my car. Whatever. I kept trying but couldn’t find anything. I started working in fast food at a Burger King because that’s all could find. I’d put out dozens of applications but nobody was hiring and my mother couldn’t understand that either. I was constantly being screamed at about why I couldn’t find a better job. I once responded that I can’t walk outside and yell, “I need a job!” and someone will go, “Okay! You’re hired!” That ended with me losing a ‘privilege’. Yes at like 20 years old my mother figured that if I was living under her roof she could treat me like a child. *rolls eyes*

A couple of years later I moved into a retail job. Now, I was always having issues with my jobs but my mother had to always comment that there must be something wrong with me. What? Am I defective now too? Just grand. I never stayed in one job for more than two years and I knew that was a problem but I didn’t understand why. The new job I was surprised that I’d stayed four years at but that didn’t last long. I had been written up in the past but some of these write-ups were two or three years old that they used against me. They fired me on the grounds that I wasn’t being nice to customers and I was dragging the entire store down when I came in upset after my mother grilled me until i felt like a piece of utter shit. Oh and I had come out to them about being a lesbian a couple of weeks before they fired me. Coincidence? I think it’s not, but I couldn’t prove that. I fought for unemployment and lost because once again. They used stuff against me, PETTY stuff at that from when I first started working there. The judge sided with them and I thought that was so wrong.

I was jobless for about two months and in that time I impulsively and blew through a five thousand dollar CD I had to gain more money. I regret that so badly and I’m still upset with myself for doing that. I finally got a new job at a small drugstore that I stayed at for about a year before I had to quit and move to working midnights at a grocery store. My mother was getting worse and I was heading towards suicide. I had the thoughts and the urges to cut and the only thing that kept me from doing that was my best friend/sister, Jessi. She was the one friend I had that saved my life. Jessi was and always will be the reason I am still alive today. I moved to midnights so that I could live at her apartment and share her mom’s bed until we could get my bed over there.

In between all of this my mother started to yell and cuss and throw fits either towards me or my dad. She used to throw food in his face. Slam stuff, lunge at him aggressively. Then the phone would ring and she instantly became a different person. SHe was sweet, kind, and happy. She’s probably ultra cycling bipolar for sure. I’ve been reading about bi-polar so I better understand it since I was diagnosed with it. None of my friends want to be near my mother because of how she is towards me.

There was a night that I was terrified to go home because of her. I honestly did not want to walk through those doors. My friend Seilor needed me to watch his kittens while he went out of town. It was an emergency and I didn’t have time to ask my mother for permission. I figured they’re kittens, they’re quiet and clean. Well, my mother found out they were there and called me with a terrifyingly angry tone. She screamed into the phone demanding to know what she’d found when she went into my bedroom that night looking for something of hers. I had been out clubbing with friends so my happy and excited mood turned to pure terror. After I hung up I was bawling my eyes out because I was having a panic attack. i feared my mother’s reaction when I came home. Jessi was with me along with our friends Lizziy and Fred. Lizziy was pissed. Like so fuming pissed at my mother for the way she made me feel. I found out later that Lizziy couldn’t say anything because she was basically gritting her teeth and fighting the urge to tell my mother off. They helped me pack up the kittens and take them out to Jessi’s truck to get them to safety. Jessi took the furbabies to her apartment to watch them for me for the couple days until Seilor returned home. I was so grateful.

By meeting Jessi one night when we went clubbing, my life was saved.

– Harley

I still don’t understand…

Why does my mother hate me so much. Despise me on many occasions. It’s not like I was a mistake pregnancy of hers. She CHOSE me. She filed the paperwork to adopt a baby because she wanted another child. She told me that she’d had like I think two miscarriages before she turned to adoption. How can someone who chose to adopt me regret it so much?

By this time in my blog I’m in my mid teen years, 15-17 years old. When I was sixteen I was on my high school’s radio station. It took me until my junior year to finally get onto the radio station but before that I was the student assistant for the station manager. I was interested in going to school for communications at that time which is why I was approved to be his student assistant. It was still an educational course for me because of that. I was fifteen when i started there and tried out the first time for the radio station’s after school program. I didn’t get in of course until my second attempt at sixteen years old in my junior year.

I had a lot of fun doing this actually and at the time I really wanted to go into radio. Now, not so much but I’ll leave that for a later post. Anyway, on April 18, 2005 (yes I remember the exact date, and time actually), I got into a bad accident. I did survive but honestly I was freaking lucky. I went about my business at the radio station as usual and actually got to do two shows that evening. Someone didn’t come into the station for their after school show and we had someone from the paper interviewing our station manager and getting pictures of the DJ during their time slot. I got lucky enough to take over that spot and got my picture taken for the Observer. It was really exciting and totally nerve-wracking at the same time. When I got out my dad picked me up as always and everything was going great. I was talking about the upcoming Radio Auction that we were going to be having the following month. We get home and I talk to my mom and tell her the same things while giving her auction information cards to pass out when she got to work (today was a good day with her).

So after I got done talking to them I ran upstairs to get my headphones, cd player and my small backpack. I changed into a pair of pink shorts and I left my light blue radio shirt on then raced back downstairs. The joke with me and my dad when I went out was that I had to take his phone in case I got lost. So I had to take his phone and I put that in my backpack cause I didn’t have pockets. As I was riding I was jamming to the Beach Boys’ song I get around. I wanted to go through my friend, Mariel’s neighborhood but I’d chosen to use the cross walk with a light rather than the cross walk with just a stop sign. I was almost to the end of the street which meant I was about to get back on the sidewalk. The moment I saw his car my body froze up and I literally couldn’t move. I was paralyzed with fear as I braced myself for the impact. I heard and felt him hit me but before I saw anything else, everything went black. The next thing I knew I was on the ground in complete confusion. I couldn’t really see much but my dad said that there were like eight police cars, three firetrucks, and an ambulance. I was taken to the hospital where x-rays showed that I’d only shattered my entire wrist. I know it’s crazy that I said ‘only’ but it’s true. I wasn’t wearing a helmet so of course I did get a helmet lecture. Considering the fracture of my wrist was called high impact I consider myself very lucky.

After that day my mother stopped being nice and worried about me. She started questioning me like a criminal as to why I was at that intersection. Why was I going to that neighborhood. Why this, why that. Literally treating me like a juvenile delinquent. For one thing, I had never been arrested, never smoked, never did drugs, never had sex. In fact at sixteen I was still a virgin. So to this day I can’t see what I did to make her treat me like a juvenile delinquent 85% of the time.

I’m pretty sure before I got into that accident was when my friend Stephanie blurted out that something was going on in my home life. She did this in front of the police officers that worked at our school, and in front of office staff at our school. So of course when my dad took me into the office to explain to them what had happened they kind of looked at me like they were unsure. They didn’t believe the car accident story and first and really I can’t blame them. I was sent over to the school nurse immediately after my dad had left to head off to work and I had to tell her exactly what had happened. Thankfully they didn’t make a big issue about it in front of my dad and let him leave because honestly he’d never hurt or touch a hair on my head. With my mother things DO get better. Please stay tuned for more updates.

For now this is all. I’ll add more to this later. Work starts soon.

– Harley

everything does get better…but i had to live in Hell first

Growing up in my household should have been a hell of a lot easier than it was. My mother was bipolar but she had this ‘everything must be perfect always’ attitude. If something didn’t fit in with her perfection it was to be gotten rid of. I remember as a child I was always fearful of her. I never knew what she was going to do or when she would do it. She flipped on a dime and then when someone called her she was all happy and joyful again. Sometimes I think she might have schizophrenic symptoms along with the bipolar because she’ll talk like someone is in the room and there is absolutely nobody but herself. It’s as if someone asked her a question and then she was answering them. I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Let me go back a little bit.

When I was a kid I remember there were times that she got upset with my dad and she made me and my brother pack stuff up and she’d drive away with us. My mother blamed me for us having to return because I wouldn’t stop crying in the car. I think I was six when this happened. I’m sorry that I started crying because you were angry and ripped me away from my daddy.

Later there was another time where she made me choose. Or at least she tried to. She was standing outside in the garage staring in with keys and bags in her hands. She was ready to leave again and she demanded that I choose between her and my dad. I started crying and ran to the staircase where I curled up in a ball not wanting to choose. My dad was furious and he screamed at her asking what type of mother she was to make me choose like that. I’m a total daddy’s girl even if my dad didn’t always have the courage to stand up to my mother and protect me the way he should have. I’ll get into that later though because there’s a story behind that too.

For years I had to endure my mother picking at my weight and whatever else she felt like picking at. I have a sensitivity to some types of soap so when my hands got irritated they would turn red. My mother would make snide comments saying it looked like I was wearing gloves. When my lips were chapped she said people would think I had a disease. She once said I looked like an African Ubangi Woman because my lips were chapped. That all happened before I was even fifteen years old. I was still in elementary moving into middle school during these times.

The teasing from her never stopped and it didn’t help that I was getting it in school. My dad sat idly by and basically “let” it all happen. Again I will go into detail about this later. Please wait for that post before major judging happens. Her favourite way to punish me was to smack me with her hands or her infamous wooden spoon. She took it a step further than just the typical spanking which would actually mean that she abused me. My mother liked hitting me in the head with her hands and the wooden spoon. I’m sorry but once you starting hitting someone in the head for punishment it’s no longer punishment. I was too afraid of my mother to say anything though. She was smart too because she never left a mark where a teacher or other staff member at school would ever see it. Her preferred abuse was emotional and psychological. Physical was lesser of the two but it was still there. I’ve convinced myself that I deserved it all but it’s all a blur. What did I deserve and what was just my mother overreacting?

By the time I got to high school I was more timid and preferred to be alone. I had friends it would seem but in actuality I had only two. Fred and Stephanie. They were the only two that would hang out with me outside of school and in school. I didn’t want to participate in school activities and would just go to school and back home. I did go to some dances but I was awkward and sometimes my friend Stephanie would push me away for whatever reason. I never really understood.

By this time in my blog I’d say we’re at fifteen/sixteen years old. I’m going to end it here for tonite but I’ll have more to come.

– Harley

i lived through this and i’m still alive?

Being diagnosed with any kind of mental illness is difficult. Being told that you are on the bipolar spectrum and are basically manic depressive is really hard. This is a type of issue that can destroy relationships. It can destroy your career and very life if you let it go undiagnosed. Mine went undiagnosed for probably over ten years because my mother couldn’t possibly admit that I didn’t fit into her “perfect” world. By having me actually diagnosed with something would mean I was “imperfect” by her standards.

My life has been a major emotional rollercoaster ride and it won’t stop anytime soon. I’m thinking it might be best for me to stop and rewind to the beginning. Tell you about myself in this first post that way when I post more updates and journal entries you won’t be so confused.

I was born in Detroit, Michigan in November of 1988 to a mother who was so completely unprepared to even take care of me. I was lucky that she didn’t choose to have an abortion. Clearly there was a part of her that cared enough to go through with the pregnancy and then put me up for adoption. I spent a few months living in a small house with a woman and her husband whom she had to take to the doctor quite often. For my foster parents who wanted to adopt me this meant that I got to spend more time with them than most other kids who were in the foster care system. It took a few months but sometime in 1989 I became fully adopted and no longer had to live in the foster care system.

Growing up I had everything I could possibly need. Right? I had a roof over my head, food to eat, my own bedroom. Two loving parents and an older brother. Things couldn’t possibly get bad from here…Yea that’s what I thought too. My mother started to notice at a young age that I wasn’t going to be “perfect.” I was flawed and it was totally obvious when you would compare me to my older brother. My brother loved school and he excelled at it. School for me was a struggle and it was really difficult. I apparently threw a chair when I got angry in elementary school even though I don’t remember any of this. I don’t know if I “blacked out” at that young of an age or what. I’ve never had a “black out” with anger since that day but then again, who knows.

My mother confided in my godmother for advice on what school to send me to and soon I was removed from public school and enrolled into a private elemenary school about fifteen minutes from where I lived. I guess for right now I’ll focus on my school and then move back to life at home. Okay so basically I started at the new school and everything was okay until the outbursts and “tantrums” occurred at random. These really only occurred in elementary school only because by middle and high school I was very awkward and got bullied and teased. I couldn’t even eat in the cafeteria in high school. I always felt like everybody was starting.

Alright back to elementary school. The “tantrums” that I had involved me screaming and crying while throwing stuff from my desk. I remember just throwing just out of my desk but I can’t remember what even happened to cause me to do that. Then there were times when I was on the ground screaming that I couldn’t wait to get out of that school and go to a different school. I’m pretty sure my mother was informed of these problems but I don’t think she ever did anything about them besides punish me to the extreme. Oh that’s right. I can’t forget the countless therapists and psychologists she sent me to over the years for various things that I can’t even remember anymore. I know she insisted there was a problem with me because I’m so loud when I talk. They did hearing tests but found nothing to show that I had any kind of hearing issue. I can’t remember all the things they did with me or even what they might have diagnosed me with. I think one of them might have said I have ADD but I don’t. It’s actually ADHD and then the manic depressive disorder. *sigh*

Eventually during middle school I was sent to a place called Bacinski’s Best of Friends. It was a tutoring school thing that offered group tutoring and individual tutoring. I participated in both at various times because my mother wanted me to get extra help in school. Oh and she also thought that the group tutoring with Miss Bacinski would help with my loudness. This carting me back and forth to these appointments stopped I think about sixth grade which made me happy.

Middle school was rough and it didn’t help being teased by people that were my so called friends. I don’t really understand why they had to do things and say things that they knew would hurt me. There were times they would take my food from me at lunch and mess it up and give it back to me. Or my personal favourite *insert sarcasm here* they would try and force me to eat tapioca pudding. I lied and said I was allergic but that never stopped them. I went and told the principle but he basically just brushed it off like whatever. He didn’t want to deal with it which left me vulnerable and essentially alone to fight my own battle.

High school got a little bit easier but not really. I still felt awkward especially about my weight. I had been teased about my weight in middle school and the insecurity continued with me through high school. I was nervous about eating in front of the other kids because I didn’t want to be stared at. I didn’t want to be judged based on what I was eating at lunch. Eventually I had to start eating in the classroom of my best friend Fred’s teacher. Mr. Johnson was awesome and he’d allow his students and myself to eat lunch in his classroom while he was there. So yea. School for me was difficult and extrememly awkward even through high school.