I'm back.... what this really means.

    I'm back.  But what do I mean by that? It's notjust my return to writing, blogging or even hanging out with the knuckleheads I love at Mantana.  It means for the first time in a long time I am back to feeling like myself, a self I have not seen in almost two years. It means I am almost  all the way through a depression I thought would  never lift, and I would be stuck there, forever.

   I am Bipolar. I also have PTSD.  Only the ones I love and trust the most know the reasons for my PTSD.  But I'm not afraid of admitting  being Bipolar. It runs in my family as sure as diabetes runs through others. The more light that can be shed on this mental disorder, the less stigma it will have.  I work every day to control my behavior. One thing I can point out: while I may be "high" and feeling invincible I am fully aware of the possible consequences of any bad behavior. I just don't believe the consequences don't apply to me, because I am Sherri Jean Hunt Smith. When I'm "High" or "up" ( I hate the word manic.  It's too much like maniac) the rules just don't apply to me.

  But it's the flip side that I have been struggling with for  the past two years. What is the downside of the high, of the up? Depression. It started slowly. At the time I was a stay at home mom. It was normal for me to spend a good part of my day taking  naps and surfing the internet.  I would stay up into the night , writing, blogging. I got into a couple of facebook games like Farmville and Cafeworld.  My house work started slipping and my daughter was sometimes late to school.  No one noticed how far I was slipping since G was working in Arizona and I was still in Louisiana.  Most of my contact to the outside word was through friends or  strangers in  places like the grocery store or the bookstore. It's easy to get a boost from those places, but it doesn't last long.  I also started live in sweats and t shirts.  This was not my usual  standard of dress.  People around me accepted  that I was a stay at home mom and wanted to be comfortable.

  I thought going back to work would snap me out of my funk.  I went to work for a telecommunications company as a customer service representative. With the high sales quotas and a supervisor I could not stand, ( let just say if she was on fire , I would bring marshmallows to  make s'mores)  I sank deeper and deeper.  I began wearing  tshirts and jeans to work.  I stopped  wearing full face make up. I stopped  wearing  even eyebrows and lip gloss.  I stopped combing my hair.  I was dead inside. 

   G was home, and he did everything he could.  Where work had  been my solace for years, safety and security was now found in my home and family . This was an epic paradigm shift. It may be the only good thing that came out of this  time.  G and I celebrated 10 years together that summer,  and I had never loved him more.

   I could not leave my job as it was needed  to pay the bills . G's job in Arizona had come to a halt as the recession crept into most of the homes in America and my beloved G was forced to run a fast food restaurant.  There seemed to be no end in sight. This was just my life.  I was sad.  But it went deeper than that. I was just existing. 


   Luckily a change at work was coming.  We were changing from sales to collections.  This meant  no sales and a new supervisor.  I  could make the collections quotas. I went from being an underachieving sales agent to a fervent collections agent.  I made and exceeded my  work goals.  I trusted and respected my new supervisor.  I even got to travel for my company to assist with a conversion.  To make things  even rosier, we moved into a new house .  The friends who had been sleeping on my couch finally had their own rooms and we became the Bo-Hilly's.


  Bigger news came withing weeks of moving. G was able to go back to off site catering. Even better  almost all  of the Bo-Hilly's went with him, leaving me to hold down the fort with the help of a female member of the Bo-Hilly.  Things were looking up financially, but without my G , I fell apart again. I started having panic attacks  at work.  They became daily occurrences.  Before, my panic attacks had been  less than one a month, though they had been  more frequent during the previous year.  I was perplexed.  Things were getting better, so why was this happening now?

 Luckily, the telecommunications company where I work has excellent insurance and a program that allows employees  up to 8 free sessions with a counselor.  I was mailed a list of counselors. I'll admit I chose the one with the  best address.  That was  all the way back in November.  I  now have once a week session with a very nice therapist. 

 Digging out of this depression has been some of the hardest work I've ever done.  Every week I  sit on a couch and cry my eyes out as I explore an issue I have buried. Facing yourself in the mirror to find out why you are self destructive, angry and sad  is scary.   With the help of my therapist and my willingness to do my weekly homework is helping me get through and get better. 

 My goals are a little different, and it's sometimes insane when I look  at a list that includes things like "wear a real outfit" "wear make up" " Practice good sleep hygiene".  I have a mirror on my desk at work. If I don't like the way I look ( a very good indicator to how I am feeling) then I have the tools to change it.  It's these elementary steps that are helping me to beat depression.

 This is how I know my therapy and other work is effective: I look more like the "Me" my friends and I know. I'm back to living in high heels.   I'm back to being a  redhead.  The internal radio station clicked back on a few days ago. I am writing. I am writing again.


 So yes, I'm back. " Back" is a huge accomplishment.  "Back" feels so good.