Grief and cycling. They feel so alike. you get up, take you meds, have a ciragette, crawl back in bed and sleep some more to shut out the world and the pain. Only they are different because the pain is different, I think.

 

And then some healing goes on and you feel as if you have made peace with the loss you have had...you level out and begin to live a normal life...you laugh and play and work and worship and...boom out of nowhere, not knowing the trigger, never finding the trigger, you are grieving again as if it just happened yesterday.

 

And you have to fight...you have to fight to make the right choices and not drink alcohol with your medication and not crawl into that black hole you haven't seen in years that was so comfortable. I have to fight because I don't want to end up there again.

 

My 20 year old daughter died in July of 2002 and I have somehow felt that I have been fighting hospitalization ever sense. Yes, I have seen my pdoc and my therapist on a regular basis. I have been given new meds, but just as before, they are not compatible with my chemistry. So, after 6 months, I am back to Ativan and Topamax. Hey, I am not complaining. For four and a half years it was only the Ativan.

 

I guess I would be fine if I could understand the road one travels on this kind of greif. I say this kind, because I have lost many people in my life and realize that there are many different kinds of grief. This time my heart is so broken, not only for myself, but for my 2 year old granddaughter. She doesn't know how to express her grief. She is such a joy in my life and brings such laughter with her...laughter is healing to a bipolar on the down side...and such joy and light and activity. I love having her with me. Then when I am in one of these down sides, because grief snuck up on me and pulled the rug out from under me...I can't see her like this. She has enough scars as it is.

 

My  soul aches...my heart breaks...I want my daughter back...and then there are the pangs of guilt, fault, and if only's that sound so bipolar. It has been six months and I have not ended up in the hospital. I am hoping that I won't. But many more days like yesterday ... and what I feel like today... I wonder.

 

I guess I finally found a place to get things out. Thank you. purplerain