A little crazy...aren't we all?

Yes. Definitely. Maybe. Ummm. No?   I'll get back to you on that.

Drop me a line:  Maggs@alittlecrazy.net

I can pinpoint right about when things changed for me.  It's not their fault, or my fault.  It just happened.  When I was 8 years old, my little sis was born.  For all purposes on this blog, I shall refer to her as Sistah.  I remember the day she was born.  Parent's day at school.  All of the kids were reading short stories and such.  I waited.  Waited.  Waited.  Finally, a call to the principal's office and hearing the news of my sister's birth.  While mom was in the hospital, I was home with Dad.  I love my father, but he's not the best caretaker.  After Mom and Sistah came home, I became invisible.  The poor kid was always sick and was very high maintenance.  She put a lot of stress on the family.  I could do nothing right.  It just happened this way. 

I can honestly say that I don't remember the last time I felt close to my parents.  When I was 14, my brother was born.  He'll be referred to as Lil Bro.  If I didn't exist before, I really didn't now.  Becoming a teenager, hormones taking over, need I go on?

I knew in high school that I was different.  I had a temper that was out of control.  Mood swings that would come out of nowhere.  I remember countless arguments with my parents.  "You are so moody you must have some sort of chemical imbalance!"  That's not an exact quote, but pretty close.  That was around age 15.

Shortly thereafter came the self-injury; burning and cutting.  I went through an identity crisis every month, it seemed.  Changing wardrobes, hair color, piercings, make-up.  Anything I could do to change who I was.  Changes occurring only on the outside couldn't make a dent in what needed to change inside.

Next, I took up smoking.  Then drinks here and there.  Then it was marijuana.  How I managed to keep up good grades, graduate, and head to college is beyond me.  The drug addiction led to a few acid trips, but I felt like crap afterwards and never attempted again.  College was a great rush until I was dumped by the first guy I ever slept with.  I sank into a deep depression that lasted the better part of six months.  My school was five hours away from home, but I found myself heading back every few weeks to stash up on weed.  I dropped out of classes, went to a few.  I was below part-time status and should have been kicked out of the dorms.  I couldn't get high enough or stay high enough.  You'd think that a car accident while stoned would wake me up, and it probably would have, had I been caught under the influence.  I went below the radar on this one.

My parents talked me into coming back home at the end of the year.  I hated them for it, but damn it, they were right.  Had I stayed out there I never would have survived.  They were in denial about the drug abuse.  For two months all I did was smoke and drink.  It's all I could do to numb the pain.  My friends actually stopped hanging out with me because they saw I was an addict.  How odd that your weed-smoking friends would ditch you.  The only reason I cleaned up was because I met my future husband.  The straight-arrow I needed to shape up.

Less than a year later, we were married in 1996.  I was having a lot of problem with work (authority figures).  Mood swings, shopping sprees, identity crisis after crisis, all textbook of borderline and bipolar.  Oh, I hadn't mentioned that, had I?

That's because it took until I was 20 years old to be diagnosed with major depression and began Prozac.  My psychiatrist was just starting out and she had me try every psych med known to man.  I even tried Lithium which did nothing.  Honestly, the drugs might have worked had I went to therapy regularly and followed my medication regime.

Years later, a new psychiatrist and I played the same game with medications.  One day I saw my open chart, which also had borderline personality disorder in addition to depression.  What in the hell was that?  I was NOT crazy and I sure as hell didn't have multiple personalities!  It was clear I was ignorant when it came to a diagnosis of borderline.

My psychiatrist didn't bother to tell me about it, so I went through five therapists who couldn't help me.  Had we known what the exact problem was, we could have taken a different approach with therapy.  In Summer of 2003 I became a mother for the first time.  I stopped all of my meds before I became pregnant (Seroquel for sleep, Prozac for depression) and didn't start back up on Prozac until right before delivery.  Granted, I had a lot of major complications but I also spent my pregnancy in a dark depression.  This was supposed to be a happy time!  A great contributor was dealing with the consequences of pre-pregnancy manic shopping sprees and the whim to start working on my masters degree.

Finally, in March 2005, I snapped.  Work problems became too much.  I was abusing Ambien nightly as I found if I stayed awake after taking it I would feel as if I took a Xanax or smoked a bowl of weed.  I cut and burned very bad.  I was ready to check myself in.  I had a heart-to-heart with my psychiatrist and talked about every symptom I've ever had.  Well, come on, you only tell the doctor about the aches and pains and not the good, right?  At 28, I officially received my diagnosis as Bipolar Disorder II and Borderline Personality Disorder.

My blog dates back slightly before what I like to call "the breakdown". 

So here I am now, 30.