After a month of basically being non-functional between my cptsd acting up, a depressive episode, and a mixed episode, I don't know where to begin to pick up the pieces and get back to work. I'm not quite clear headed as I try to get things sorted out. I still have my anxiety bothering me. I'm still pretty emotional, but this is because it's that time of the month again.
I am vexed because I am sufficiently terrified of having an allergic reaction to the vaccine for Covid-19 that I am having a hard time thinking when it comes to getting the shot. Add to that the fact that it's a crap shoot as to when vaccination times are available anywhere and we're not sure who is giving out which vaccine, there's a lot of unknowns that are making it hard to get through this process.
I am so frustrated and tired of not being able to just do things like I could before bipolar came on the scene. It was hard with just the cptsd in the picture, but I could bulldoze my way through to some extent and make things happen. I kinda collapsed afterwards but I made shit happen even when I wasn't feeling well. Now, I simply don't have the energy to do it anymore. I remember having the energy. I'm so angry that I can't force myself past my fear and make this happen.
It is complicated by the fact that in the time it took for me to go from absolute terror to 'I think I can do this.' (which was only a few minutes) all of the open time slots for getting the vaccine were filled. I'm so frustrated with myself I could just about cry. I can't do that, however, because the boys get scared when I cry. I spend a lot of time forcing myself to be stoic about difficulties and misfortune because anything else distresses the kids. And when I am in a depressive episode, I have to work even harder not to break down because the kids know I'm not well and they worry about me.
It makes me feel awful that my sons worry about my welfare. I feel guilty for it. And there isn't anything I can do to magically make everything all better. Because, there is no cure for diabetes or bipolar. I do my best to put on a brave face and push forward. But it is exhausting and gets harder whenever my brain isn't functioning properly. April was a bad month.
I started the month out mildly depressed. Then there was the whole business about Cuddle Bear getting a psych evaluation that triggered my cptsd and then a serious depressive episode hit for two weeks. The depression acted as a trigger for my cptsd and I was having emotional flashbacks left and right. Then the mixed episode came and just wouldn't go away. It was awful. By some minor miracle, my brain was close to fully normal when it was Sunday. I wasn't Fighty McFightface but able to keep control over my responses to everything and hold my temper in check.
There was stuff that pissed me off, but I focused on my knitting and did my best to ignore it. If I could have gotten away with just leaving, I would have because the longer we were there the less I wanted to be there. The kids had a good time. Beloved was feeling kinda how I was, tired and like we were just bodies there. It was Easter. It's a Christian holiday and we're not Christians. There wasn't a lot of 'Yay, Jesus is Risen.' going on, but there was a good deal of discussion about how much they disliked not going to church because they missed their community.
I swallowed my bile and refrained from making comments about how they should be thankful for the fact that they have a community and can practice their religion safely, with out any restrictions on it. But, the inconvenience of Covid-19 protocols brought out complaints about how it wasn't the same and some grumbling that the government was treading on people's toes. If I was still in a mixed state, I would have made those sharp comments and that'd be when the fight started.
I am so angry with how being inconvenienced is a bigger problem in their minds than the public health hazard of Covid-19. I figure they just all forgot I am part of the population it could kill. I figure they all just forgot that I have been stuck in my home unable to even go out grocery shopping for the last year. And I know that there was no consideration of the negative impact this would have had upon my mental health. But, you know, the fact that they couldn't go to church on Easter with out making a reservation or going to a Zoom session is a bigger problem than the idea that someone could catch this thing and be an asymptomatic carrier and kill people.
If you list to the way they tell it, Covid-19 is dangerous to people who are in nursing homes and over the age of 60. It's been a year of this kind of talk. Throw in some comments about "oh, so-and-so is diabetic and in frail health and they've been stuck at home all the time" while ignoring me sitting right there, it has been a hard year of keeping silence. And now they're acting like the vaccine is no big deal and saying that people who are worrying about allergic reactions are nervous Nellies. And some indignation that they had to wait for the lines of people who were ahead of them.
It's been made clear who in my life give a damn about other people and who in my life just care about themselves. It's unfortunate and disgusting. I don't know what to do about it. A part of me says I shouldn't go around them. Because I don't want to be where I'm an afterthought. But they'll tell me that I am taking it all wrong if I do that. It feels like going into my parents' house and I am coming to hate it.
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