So, I've been in Chicago basically my entire life. I recently moved into one of the more upscale neighborhoods, right off of *mod edit*. Many of the residents are senior citizens, and I've never met a bigger group of children in my life. They are educated, affluent, and organized, and they conduct themselves as if the building were a high school. To illustrate:

1. I'm judged solely by my appearance. I'm an attractive girl, but I'm really heavy on the black eyeliner and eyeshadow (never going to change) and I have visible tattoos. Usually I just get the cold shoulder, and when people *do* talk to me it's in a somewhat apathetic and condescending tone--until they learn which unit I live in. Then they try and pack pedal and kiss my ass. Seriously people, are you kidding me? I'm a really nice person, and I was that same person both before and AFTER you learned that information.

2. The residents are SO fake. I'm a talkative person anyway, but when I'm manic (which is a lot of the time) I can talk your freaking ear off. They pretend to be nice when they're talking to me and then I find out (either by eavesdropping or by talking to this other bipolar drug addict in the building) that they're really just two-faced.

3. They ask me about the scars and cuts on my arm. It's exactly what it looks like. I f**cking cut myself people, and I've been doing it for the past 17 years. It's pretty evident that people that do that are hurting enough as it is, why would you make someone's pain worse by asking and making them feel more uncomfortable and ashamed than they already do?

All I'm doing tonight is chain smoking and eating gummy bears while having a marathon of Orange is the New Black. A bottle of wine and a bottle of Vicodin would be GREAT, but that's not going to happen anymore. I'm giving this ridiculous AA thing a shot and it actually sucks a lot less than it used to. I hope it stays that way. Vicodin did more for me than anti-depressants ever did, but Vicodin will turn into heroin again and then I'll be dead. Which doesn't sound so bad half the time.

I'm now on 1200 mg of Trileptal instead of 600, 20 mg of this new stuff called Brintillex instead of 150 mg of Effexor, 900 mg of Gabapentin, and .5 mg of Xanax three times daily as needed for anxiety. I take every single pill as prescribed, I exercise and eat well, and I'm abstinent from drugs, including alcohol. Why on EARTH am I still having manic and depressive episodes? The biggest bitch of it all is that I'm having the restlessness and non tangential thoughts associated with mania but none of the euphoria. What am I supposed to do with that? My graduate school classes start the week after next and my brain is still woefully out-of-control. This is why bipolar patients are prone to noncompliance: when it comes to the depression, a person can only take so much pain before they break. This is why people become drug addicts, cutters, and alcoholics--there has to be something to soften the misery. I think it's pretty cool that my psychiatrist was willing to give my Xanax after the assault even though I'm a drug addict. There are scars on my back and stomach from where they burned me but the wounds have largely healed, and my mom helped me pay for an abortion. I won't give birth to something that was conceived out of hate and anger, I'm sorry. I won't ruin two lives. I'm trying my best to forgive the people who did this to me. If I live the rest of my life angry and resentful, then they're still in control of me and therefore, they win. They've taken enough of my joy. I'm also trying my best to keep in mind that those guys more than likely suffer from sociopathy or something. My disease makes my moods go from extreme highs to extreme lows. For others, they're programmed to get pleasure from hurting others. That's the only reason I've found for someone to give such pain to another human being. You know, we're all stuck here living on this ridiculous planet, and life is hard enough as it is. I don't understand why we have to make it even harder for one another. That's all I have for now, I'm about to fall out on the computer.

Well, here it is. My ex-boyfriend and I were sharing an apartment, only weeks away from me moving out. I show up to therapy, and he's waiting for me in the waiting room at my appointment time and takes my f***ing keys from me. He caused a scene, yelling and physically forcing himself into the private offices. Other patients were in session, including one who was undergoing hypnotherapy. We had to call security and file a report, and he is now banned from the building. The Chicago police department received a phone call as well. Who does that? Psychiatric facilities are places where people are supposed to feel safe, and he completely disrespected that, in addition to humiliating me in front of my therapist. Moreover, where did he expect me to go with no keys and no money? By the grace of GOD my mother happened tone downtown that day. He didn't know she would be there, he was just totally cool with me being on the street. So my mom and I drove to the apartment and took my stuff back to the suburbs so I can sort it out, only to move BACK to the city tomorrow. I'm 30. I'm too old for this sh*t. And frankly, I'm just tired of the hurtfulness. He's always been controlling and aggressive, I just never thought he could be so callous and selfish. The best part is that after taking my keys, he expected to sit in my session with me. I have given up countless personal DBT sessions to get him to understand Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder, and he still is woefully ignorant. Our lives were impossible because of his inability to learn about mental illness. I'm tired of literally being thrown to the curb. I'm not a bad person, I'm not a mean person. I struggle with stuff that I wish to God I didn't have. I'm not drinking or cutting or getting high over this (for now) so I guess it could be worse. It's just this constant feeling of rejection and invalidation is really disempowering. I feel like I've been reduced to nothing, and that I'm worthless and undeserving of love. Never again am I allowing a man to take this from me. Never again.

Are people actually supposed to live like this? This isn't living, this is just sh*t. A normal life involves healthy interpersonal relationships, activities one enjoys, some sort of happiness at all. I'm 30 years old and one of my girlfriends works in home healthcare and she goes, "You're on more medication than most of my old people." Seriously, three pills for the mood stabilizer, four for anxiety, one for sleep (that doesn't work), one for depression, and one to block the alcohol and opiate cravings. We don't even really know what the long-term effects are for ONE of these medications, let alone all of them put together. I'm doing everything the doctors are telling me to do, and them some, and this is still the hardest period of my life. Alcohol was killing me. My damn liver shut down in October. But at least I would have died happily. I knew that whatever happened, whatever some callous asshole said to me that day, a couple drinks and it was all gone. No more. Game over. Vodka was my best friend, and my best friend damn near killed me. With my emotions going all up and down and sideways it's exhausting, and I still can't sleep. There has to better way than this. In a world of massive uncertainty there is one thing I know for sure. At this rate, I'm not going to make it another 30 years. There's this black cloud of emotional torture that follows me everywhere I go, and no one understands it. I'm all alone on this one. My ex-boyfriend would always try to tell me how much he was there for me and blah blah whatever. Really? Unless you're sitting inside this sick and twisted brain of mine holding my hand through these feelings that drive a person bonkers, then I'm all alone. The only one stuck in my head is me, and that's how it's always going to be. F*ck. My. life.

Dear Horrible and Incurable Insomnia,

Thank you for completely taking over my life and only letting me sleep every other day. My circadian rhythm is quacked and everyone close to me is starting to think I'm more of a crazy person than I already am. It feels awesome. Now I know you're just trying to be nice, but I really don't need your help in looking like a crazy person. I'm pretty good at doing that all by myself. I would tell you to go bother someone else, but no one deserves this. No one should know what this feels like.

But seriously, you can feel free to go away and let me sleep because now you're just being rude. I would never do this to you. Screw you in the face.

Love,

Faye