I hesitate to write this

But last night the stress of trying to keep everything current with no money coming in (well, theoretically there's money coming, but it hasn't gotten here and I'm not sure when it will) got to me, I got very upset to the point of what I used to call an emotional storm. I used to have those fairly often, but haven't had one in years. It's almost like an emotional seizure. You get so emotional, you get so caught up with anxiety and depressive thoughts all at once, that you can become dissociative, or in my case last night, you want to hurt yourself, and you have suicidal ideation. Usually they last about 20 minutes, leaving you exhausted. Last night's was about two hours. It included intense crying, and I really had to do a lot of self-talk, as my best friend couldn't deal with me, and it never occurred to me to call a hotline, which is what I should have done.

Today I've felt drained and hung over. I haven't gotten much if anything accomplished, although I did try. And I found out there was a check issued today by the unemployment office, although it won't be here in time to keep a debit from causing an overdraught. I was trying so hard not to let that happen. But I'd been told some of the money should come in mid-April, and the unemployment was supposed to be automatically deposited a week after I was finally able to get benefits. Neither of those were the case, which proves that in case of finances, don't believe anyone unless they put it in writing, and even then, be suspicious.

Still, things should eventually get better. I'm still looking for work every day, applying for jobs, and I should have money coming in, as Sunday I request my next benefit payment, which will be for a full two weeks and hopefully they'll have the automatic payment set up by then. I'm even getting my tiny refund from the state on Monday, according to the credit union. It's just none of it was in time. But there's worse things than overdrawing an account. I know my reaction was over the top--it's a known issue I'll discuss with my therapist and psychiatrist. But it was still scary.

I should add

That just because I'm having suicidal thoughts doesn't mean that I think I'm in any danger of carrying them out. It's not the kind of ruminations that you get with standard depression. It has to do with my moods, which swing rapidly when I'm under stress. But even then, my mind talks me down. I tend to get these emotional storms that last about 20 minutes or so, and if I can ride them out, I'll be okay. If I felt I couldn't do that, then I'd check in somewhere in a heartbeat--especially now that I don't have to worry about who would take care of Cerys. But at this point I'd be running away from things and it would only make it worse. So I'll stick things out and hopefully they'll improve.

Self-anihilation is something I do with relative ease

When I was married, I moulded my entire personality to what I thought was expected of me. I did that with my parents, with my schools, and finally in my marriage. It was only after that was over that I slowly recovered the buried personality that was me.

And yet, I'm still an incredibly passive person who doesn't feel that she deserves anything good in life. I'm not sure I'll ever escape that mindset, although I've made it my life's work to do so.

What I do know is that for months now--a year or two, even--I've been doing great emotionally. Now with the stresses of bills and Cerys' death and the continued strain my psychology places on my everyday interactions, I feel like my life is unravelling rather quickly. I realise it will get better. But in the meantime I'm having thoughts of just giving up and obliterating everything about me. I'm crying uncontrollably often. In other words, I'm slipping back into depression, and it scares me. I don't want to go down that road again. If it continues much longer I'll see about having my meds adjusted. The last couple of days have been particularly bad, and I didn't have my Lamictal. I have that now and can get back on track. But it scares me how thin a barrier there is between doing fine emotionally and suicidal thoughts can be. And the fact that the days are shortening isn't helping particularly.

The best course of action is, of course, action--action to meet my problems head-on to dispel the anxiety I'm having. That's so hard for me, though. But it's something I'm going to have to do, or I'll spiral right down. At least I did start back at the store tonight--although I was slow, we got everything done for truck night, so that was an accomplishment, mostly due to my direction. So maybe I'm not a total screwup. I'm just having a month where I feel like everything I do is for naught. I can't seem to get things right the first time, except at work, where I'm still doing fine. But I always did better in that arena than my personal life would indicate. I don't want a return to having depression drain the colour not only out of life, but endanger my livelihood as well, as it did before.

Oh, well. Here's to feeling better tomorrow. One good thing about being bipolar/borderline--emotions are like Kentucky weather, just wait a little while and it'll be completely different.