The Noise

First off let me say I’m sorry for not posting for a while. You see part of this disorder is mood disorder, mine being bipolar type 1 rapid cycling. This means I have manic phases and I have depressive phases and they interchange very quickly from one to another. That doesn’t mean the phases are short, however, my manic phases are usually much shorter than my depressive phases, it just means that basically if I not one then I am probably the other. I don’t really have an in-between or normal phase. Lately, I have been going through a very rough depressive phase and I have not been able to write anything. So I decided to try now to see if it helps me break out of this bottomless sea of depression somehow. So here goes nothing.

   I’ll tell you about the noise. The noises are hallucinations and paranoia mixed for me. Medication helps deal with the major outbursts that make me want to end my life sometimes but it doesn’t stop the backhanded comments or the chatter of a crowded room nor does it stop the paranoia from hearing someone behind a door or making sounds in a quiet room. This is why I say it’s never quiet and when the voices cease the noises fill the silence.

    I’m in a constant state of noise and confusion putting me in an anxiety ridden mental state at all times. Another thing that happens when I have all the noise filling my head is that I forget things. I forget entire conversations and sometimes entire days at a time. I forget things my kids ask about and then I cannot find them temporarily, or my husband will ask me to do something important and I will completely forget and it can mess with his career. As you can see the anxiety is rising in me right now just thinking about it.

     So obviously these things can have a profound affect on a person. Seeing as though I am a parent and a wife, I have duties to uphold and most of the time I feel as though I can’t hack it (more so than normal mothers). I also fear losing the memories of my marriage and my children growing up and them being replaced by false thoughts and bad depressive days. My manic days are causing problems because they have been known to cause me to spend thousands of dollars over the course of my illness thus far, which in return creates financial and marital strain.

    I can say one thing. I will probably never have more than an entry level job, and that’s on the chance I can handle the pressures of a job. I used to want to be something. Make my parents proud. I wanted to start from the bottom and become the best and say hey I did that on my own. Well now it’s not likely for me. Now I just want to not screw up my entire life and live through the worst days. I haven’t worked recently enough to qualify for disability and the last time I tried to get SSI we had too much money to qualify but not enough money to afford assistance for me at home. We are military and move around quite a bit so we aren’t really anywhere long enough for my paranoia to allow anyone new into my home anyways. 

So that’s the noise, voices saying I should go kill myself or simply pointing out how screwed up of a parent I am and how my kids will suffer because of me, or the guy on the other side of the door speaking but not loudly enough to hear what he’s saying, or to the doors slamming in my home but no one is awake except me, or simply the mumble of a crowed office or lounge where everyone’s speaking but no one really says a word, just noise The are the some of things schizoaffective disorder does to me. That’s just the tip of the illness iceburg.

-Schiz and Giggle

schizandgiggles.com@gmail.com