Just "stuff"...I guess :::sigh:::

Sometimes there's this stigma attached to mental illness. Some people say that mental illness is a way for people to make excuses. Some people simply don't believe that mental illness exists and that you can control all of your emotions like a light switch. Some people think that mental illness means that you must be in a lower "social class" if you are diagnosed with a mental illness. All of these things are not true. Yes, you can decide whether you're going to sit a wallow in your self pity and do nothing to try to change the way you feel or you can make steps that will help you. BUT, there are circumstances where medication is necessary along with therapy and the person doing THEIR part in getting well. I have been diagnosed with Bipolar II, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Depression, PTSD, SAD (seasonal affective disorder), and insomnia. Especially with Bipolar...there is an imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain that can cause the roller coaster of emotions that those with Bipolar feel. Bipolar is a BIOLOGICAL diagnoses. Without medication, most people do not do well. Statistics have proven this. *I* have experienced this. I see a therapist, I do the things she suggests to help myself, but not long after I put the medications back in the medicine cabinet and decided to try to fix my issues without them, things got messy. I can't control my emotions...I feel like I've lost control of them (at any rate)...and that makes me even more angry, because no matter how much I want to stop feeling irritable, I can't do it. I've tried different things (exercise, reading, writing, listening to soothing music, etc) and they just don't help. And the fact that I can't control the fact that I'm feeling irritable is making me even MORE pissed off. And PLEASE...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not tell me that I CAN control it unless you've been diagnosed with Bipolar and know what it's like to experience it. If you don't believe that such a disorder exists then you need do a little research. I'm so sick of hearing that it's all up to me as to how I feel. To a certain extent that is true. But, at the same time, it's also not completely true. Yes, I can wake up and choose to be positive and think positively, but that doesn't mean that, that feeling of irritability just disappears because I'm choosing to be positive and think positively. That uncontrollable feeling of irritability is there because the neurotransmitters in my brain are imbalanced and NOBODY can control neurotransmitters. If the serotonin level or dopamine level, etc is low or high, there is only ONE way to help fix that and that is by using medications in conjunction with therapy and exercise, meditation, etc. So before you bitch at me because I'm choosing to go back on my Bipolar medications...do a little research. Yes, medications are not always the answer, but I've exhausted all other possibilities and I'm sick of this irritability I'm feeling. It comes and goes in waves and I try to think of things that could be triggering the irritability and there really isn't anything. Yes, I have the normal everyday stressors that most people have, but there really is no reason that I feel so damn angry all the time that stupid little things set me off. The fact that I can't control this irritable feeling and the fact that there is no real reason for me to be feeling irritable makes me even more pissed off and I end up more irritable. Believe me, I have tried EVERYTHING and things were going well for a while and then, all of a sudden, for no reason at all, things came crashing down. Nothing particular has happened (except that a few weeks before I had stopped taking my meds). I know that all of a sudden I started feeling the deep sadness and depression of my grandmother's death. It just hit me one day, completely out of the blue, with anything triggering it, and it hit me hard. And, I haven't been able to get out of it for a while. I'm stuck in this rut of guilt because I remember looking in her eyes while holding her hand tightly and promising her that I would be there when she passed. And I wasn't there. (It was not my fault I wasn't there. She was not showing the typical signs and symptoms that most cancer suffers show shortly before they die. In fact, she was showing somewhat the opposite). I know that one of the stages of grief is anger and maybe that is part of my irritability. I don't even know what the point of this post is/was. I just feel better after I write. Well, actually, I do know what one point of this post was...please do not judge me and my inability to control my irritability, because *I* am the one feeling it, not YOU, so how could you possibly know that I could control it if I wanted to if you've never actually experienced it? I mean, for real...seriously do you think I ENJOY feeling irritable and miserable all the time? Do you think I enjoy feeling like throwing a table across the room???????????????? No, those feelings are not enjoyable, they are not fun. If I could control them simply by thinking and being positive I would, but I can't. I'm working on it. Stop telling me to "do something about it or stop bitching about it, because I am, and, have been doing something about it). That's all I can say.