GOING MAD GOING MAD At 8am I attempted to reach my therapist. The last three times she was supposed to come see me she was a no-show. She could not speak with me today because she was absent due to illness and the psychiatrist could not see me until June 14th. Today I am pissed. I do not know why but something irks inside me screaming to be set free. It is anger in its rawest form, passion in its purest structure, and fear in its most heinous disguise. Why I ask myself. After more than a year of peace, why have I encountered this burst of evil forcing its way from my core wanting to cause destruction to everything in its path? However, its main path of devastation is me. Not being able to sleep last night was nothing new. However, I could tell something was not quite right when insignificant events started to aggravate me. The sound of the phone seemed much louder. My ears started ringing. The sound of my mother's voice, who is my best friend, made my skin crawl. Anyone asking me a question put me on the offensive. Also, I had become convinced during a severe anxiety attack during the night that I had leukemia. My belligerent screams were heard between chaotic grumblings. My salty tears washed a sad, confused, and strained face. Am I sad? No! I am angry. Angry as hell! I am livid because I cannot chase the fear away. This deviant fear gnaws at my heart causing it to miss beats in rapid succession. A fear in respect that I am going to die TODAY and I will not have the chance to make up for the disarray I have caused in my children's lives. Anxiety rules my every waking thought. When I am able to finally sleep it last only a few hours because anxiety finds me there too. It creeps into my dreams creating horrific nightmares causing me to wake shrieking, crying, and gasping for air. The conundrum of sleep has now become even more complex. My body grows weary from exhaustion induced by insomnia. Now, because of the nightmares I wish not to sleep at all. This morning I fell to my knees screaming with all the air bursting forth from my lungs. I cried violently, slamming my fist on the floor. My head had a sensation as if it would explode if I relinquished bellowing out this uncontrollable rage that had appeared from nowhere. Then within minutes the vomit came. Collapsing onto my back I resumed screaming like a banshee and weeping uncontrollably. Finally, my shaking body sprang to its feet. I felt the compulsion to run. To run anywhere as fast and hard as I possibly could. I went outside where I saw my son being disrespectful to my mother. It was more than I could suffer and I flew into an even greater rage. I rarely raise my voice to my children. They are young adults now. This morning I shouted obscenities at my son for being rude to everyone. I told him I would no longer stand quietly and allow him to be disrespectful to my parents or me. He started to argue with me so I rushed over and stood only inches away from his face. He yelled for me to move because he was leaving. Not wanting to allow him to run away from me, he tried to pull into the road to leave but found me sitting in the middle of it. He ran into the road and pulled me out of it as I fought with him to leave me there. I explained to him that I loved him so much I was willing to die for him and I was going to prove it. He slung me into the yard as I kicked and cried. The next thing I know he was in his jeep squealing tires and escaping as quickly as he could go. I dashed back into my trailer crying louder than ever and vomited again. I hit the speed ball trying to alleviate some of the continuously building fury. I had this driving need to hit something and pound it hard. The speed ball was not enough though. I punched yet another hole in the wall. I wanted to hit someone but I did not want to hurt anyone for the life of me. At this point I was petrified of lashing out physically at another person. The only choice I had left was to hurt myself. And that is what I did. It had been over a year since I had last cut myself. I thought that demon had left me. However, this morning when the wrath and mania was oozing out of my very pores I had to release it somehow. I could not risk hurting someone. I took my trusty razor blade and made two 11/2 inch slashes on my inner forearms and watched the red evil from inside me gush into the drain. When my daughter came to the bathroom she calmly said, "Ok momma let me have a look. Yep, you're gonna need stitches again. I'll quickly get ready to carry you to the hospital. I think you have lost enough blood now, let me wrap your arms up for you." Though, I did not feel I had let enough of the blood flow. I wanted to drain out as much of the malevolence from within my body as I could before reaching a dangerous point. However, I had found a relative amount relief. At the hospital I received seven stitches in my left arm and eight in my right. I begged them to wash my blood because I felt it was tainted but the doctor assured me once I had my usual shot to relax me I would not believe that way anymore. I refused the shot because it puts me into a deep, deep sleep that my family has a hard time waking me from. The doctor, a long time friend I grew up with, begged me to reconsider and to take the shot of Geodon and Ativan but I still refused. While the doctor was sewing me up I asked God if he would forgive me for this too. Disquietude over failing God keeps my mind entangled in a web of delusions. Or are they delusions? I do not know anymore. If only I had more faith in God I know this trepidation would dissipate. The discernment to know true forgiveness of self continues to elude me. I believe God forgives so I reflect continuously on why I cannot find it inside myself to do the same. I pray relentlessly each day, sometimes every hour, begging for his help and forgiveness of my sins. I wonder if God ever decides that enough is enough. He does however know what our future lives entail. Maybe I am already doomed to be infected with this demonic beast that haunts me and is meant to torture me to the end of my days. This is what the doctors inform me. However, I do believe in Gods healing power yet today I let God down again as I did my family. I am still pissed but not as much as I was earlier today. Now the guilt is settling in. There is so much shame.

What is inside crazy all about. It is about many things that happen when mentally ill. It will be about my personal journey through a crazy, twisted maze of a mad mind. I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1, severe in July of 1999. Since then I have been on a roller coaster of insanity with some brief stable moods in between devastating depression and melodramatic mania.

Knowing where to begin is not as simple as you may think. Mainly because I really can't pinpoint where the beginning of my ride on the crazy thing began. I hope to help you understand better a misunderstood disease. I hope to make you laugh, cry, and do both at the same time.

If you too are a sufferer of a mental illness I look forward to hearing your stories as well. Through this I hope my own understanding of this illness will become even more clear to me. I have researched everything under the sun about Bipolar but know I still have much more to learn. And a life experience is the best way to do that.

 I have much to say, many stories to tell, and questions to ask by growing a community here at Inside Crazy. After some deep meditation, my/our journey will begin down the rabbit hole.

See you soon. I hope.