2026-01-30
I had another meltdown yesterday.
It's been about a month or two since my last one, and they never get easier to deal with. I hate it when I hit myself and bite myself. All the electricity in my body puts my nervous system into overdrive. I cry so deeply. The worst part is that when I'm having a meltdown, it feels as if there's no one to console me. I feel completely and utterly alone. All I can do is sit on the floor and sob until it all stops. All that's left is a deeply wounded aftermath. My body is depleted. It can seem like there's nothing more I can do to keep living; there's no energy left to move forward.
Yet despite this seemingly ineffable conclusion, I move forward anyway.
I went to the gym, worked out, and went to a men's gathering hosted by some folks at my parish. The men's gathering was good. It felt nice to get out of the house and not have to worry about things going wrong. When I'm at home, the only place I really feel safe is my bedroom. Everywhere else is a minefield. Some of it is unavoidable, but a lot of it is the result of deep and wretched sin. It feels good to get out of the trenches.
As I continue to rack up more time reprieved from psychiatric maladies, I feel the battlefield I'm in revealing itself more and more each day. I knew that I was sick, but I now have an irreversible knowledge of how sick I was and I pray to God that I never have to go back to it. The depression and mania are something that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. With bipolar disorder, there is a common narrative that it can be a "superpower," which isn't necessarily bad or false. If anything, it's a silver lining and can help make the best out of a bad situation. However, it's still important to acknowledge its profoundly devastating impacts and just how hard it can be to live with it—let alone when it gets bad.
Coming up, I have an assessment appointment with a physician regarding my application for SSDI. I initially applied in December of 2023. I was denied the first time, and now I'm going through the appeal process, with the assessment appointment being a critical component of my case. Bipolar disorder is one of the leading causes of disability in the United States, and I have a mountain of medical evidence supporting my case. I've been hospitalized several times, been to all different kinds of treatment programs, and have been on so many medications it makes my head spin.
I know that I can't work. I have a good work ethic and can work hard, but the main cornerstones of gainful employment are stability and reliability. People need to know that you can come to work every day—that you are in a sound condition to do so. Bipolar is characterized by instability; trying to predict an episode is like trying to predict a tornado or a hurricane: you can know it's coming, but there's not much you can do to stop it. Sometimes, an episode can come out of nowhere. More than that, stressors and triggers are often unavoidable aspects of life. There's no amount of sheltering you can do to keep yourself away from every trigger; the storm just has to be weathered.
It sucks because I would like to have a "real job." I think that it's important for people to give back to society, considering how much it gives us. There are many problems with society: wealth and income inequality, bigotry, violence, war, and daytime TV—just to name a few. However, there are way more good things that we receive as a result of living in human society (in the US, anyway): toilets, sewage systems, clean water—and, of course, the goodwill and generosity many of us willingly offer through our labor and kind hearts.
That goodwill is something I want to contribute to, not just take from.
So even if I just have a little blog on a small corner of the internet where I get to tell my stories and share my thoughts, that's fine with me. I hope that you find something useful out of all this.
I'm rooting for you, every step of the way.
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