So, I've been smoke free for 4 weeks and 2 days. I'm 35 officially now. I always said (to myself) that I wanted to quit by this age. I was out today at the outlet mall. My father-in-law was generous enough to take me out to a certain pricey purse store there and I had my pick of the store. What?! Yes, "Go pick one" he says, "and no looking at price tags! Just pick what you want." I pretty much crapped my pants, but I managed to pick out a gorgeous leather powder blue purse with a matching wallet. Wow, talk about being queen for a day! My family never had much money. And what money we did have, was usually spent towards my mother's interests. At least that's the impression I got. So, ya, this was pretty incredible for me.
Anyway, my point when I started writing is this: after a month of not smoking, I'm noticing my sense of smell is getting better all the time. We were in one store, and I could smell the chocolate shoppe that was next door. I felt like a baby who figured out that they could clap their hands, just fascinated.
I'm starting to allow myself to be around smokers now. Family members have been good about not smoking in the car if I'm riding with them, and I appreciate that. However, I'm still with them when they light up after getting out of the car, so I don't really see how that's helping. I know I could walk away, but I don't really mind the smell. I mean, it's not pleasant, and I think to myself, "I used to inhale stuff that smelled like that?". But, it doesn't make me gag or anything. I was telling my husband, that it's not the smell so much that gets me, but the physical and visual presence of a cigarette that makes me uncomfortable. I'm gonna have to work a bit more at getting comfortable with thesight of cigarettes. It'll come with time though.
I am experiencing the most dreaded drawback of all to quitting smoking...weight gain. I haven't weighed myself in a while, but I can feel it. You just know when you've put on a few. I had a difficult time with another person letting me down, which I posted about in an earlier one. I was supposed to get a treadmill handed down to me and I planned to use it for exercise. That unfortunately fell through. This person has flaked out time and time again when my husband has tried to take him up on the offer. I had my hopes up so high for this, that is was almost all I could think about. Maybe this is the day, maybe this weekend, maybe for my birthday, maybe......never. What a jerk! If this guy only knew (or cared) how much I was let down. I mean especially with this Colorado winter, if it's not freezing, the sidewalks are icy. It just sucks. Meanwhile my husband and I are going to save money, little by little until I can get one. And that one will be brand new, so HA!
Anyway, as you may know from earlier posts, I have bipolar disorder. No, I don't get a little hyper, and a touch of the blues. I get obsessive organizing, shopping sprees (when I have the slightest bit of money), a kind of "Super-woman" way about me. The opposite end is what I have been going though for the past week or so. Uncontrollable crying fits, everything and anything accelerates my misery. This is also why I haven't been blogging for the last couple of weeks. I did not want to embarass myself with rantings of how the world hates me, yadda yadda yadda. Until I had more experience handling this disorder, that's exactly what I used to do. I almost lost a good man to it, too. The man who loved me from top to bottom, inside and out, had enough. He couldn't deal with my self-hatred anymore and he couldn't fix it, so he left. Thankfully, only temporarily.
This time around, however, we were both much better prepared. He handled me like a pro. He kept his distance a bit because #1 he couldn't change what was happening, and #2 he didn't want to be in path of my breakdown. I can't blame him, I would do the same thing. He didn't totally abandon me, but he didn't hang around leisurely either. You know, it's gotta be so hard for someone that has no first-hand experience with a mental disorder. I can't say that I would be able to be as patient as he was/is. His patience with me is one of the major reasons I love him so much. No one is more there for me in terms of that than him.
Worse than merely being around someone with a disorder like bi-polar, is actually having to physically live through it yourself. Can you imagine trying to interact with someone, when you're trying to hold back tears that have no cause? It's torture. It's embarassing. Can you imagine crying, and crying, and crying, not being able to stop, as every misfortunate thing happening in your life speeds through your mind? Can you imagine? Most people can't. Family members are no exception. In my experience, it's one of those "You had to be there" type of things. You will never know unless it happens to you. The words that come out of your mouth are not yours, they're your mind's words, taken over by the disorder. I'm tellin' ya, those people that say "It's all in your head", THEY'RE the crazy ones. There is no controlling a chemical imbalance by sheer will. It's simply impossible.
I've been suffering with this disorder for over 20 years. Thankfully, I have educated myself through therapy, counseling, books, and my own research to recognize if a bad period is approaching. However, I'm still learning how to handle myself in the middle of one. Medication is what's supposed to prevent that. And I'll be the first to admitt that I have never been religious about taking it. More often than not, I do. But I have always held great resentment towards the fact that I have to take medicine just to be OK, like everyone else. What makes everyone else have the natural disposition to be happy or "normal", and I'm here feeling and acting like the psychotic version of chicken little? ("The sky is falling, the sky is falling!") But, a few years ago, I just decided to make peace with it. It is what it is, and there's nothing I can do about it. I simply have a chemical imbalance that alters my mentality and makes life unmanageable unless I take medicine to maintain myself. And that medicine not only benefits me, but those who choose to be around me....God bless 'em all!!
So, I'm fairly confident that I have returned from the "dark side", and hope I stay for a good long time.
Friday, February 19, 2010
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