Does anyone really know? I sure as heck dont.

So I had an IEP meeting about 2 weeks ago. Not many people have IEP meetings so I shall explain what exactly it is. IEP ( or Individualized Education Plan ) meetings are basically all of your teachers your case manager who is appointed by the school or school district (usually a special ED teacher) your parent and you sit in a room and talk about how to help you do the best you can in school. Sounds nice, group of people who just want to help you. Ehhhh not so much.

So lets do a little math equation here shall we?
bipolar mother who hasn't spoken to you in days + teacher who you really do think of as your own mother + math teacher who has depression and anxiety + science teacher who quite possibly could be a Russian spy (its a theory I have) + case manager who is trying to say she understands exactly what you are going through + history teacher who clearly doesn't want to be there + extremely anxious student who is sobbing and being asked 40 million questions at once while going through withdrawal from her medicines= well you can prob get the picture, it ended up being not so fun.

So then I couldn't say much. But now I feel compelled to go on a rant and yell at my computer and scream to the Internet world what I wanted to scream to those people back then.

Really? You understand what I'm going through? Really ? You know what its like to have to prepare 6 months in advance for a day trip you are taking with your HOSA club to a competition? You lay awake at night day after day after day listening to your mind go in loop non stop wondering what bad thing will happen next and think of ways for you to prepare for it? You are afraid to go to bed at night because you know that you wont be able to sleep more than 3 hours before you are startled awake by something in a dream you had, that caused your mind to have a panic attack? You wake up most mornings and just know its going to be a bad day because you have this feeling in your gut that you will in fact be having a panic attack today its just a matter of how much energy you want to use fighting it? You know what its like to only be able to feel 100% safe in 1 place in the entire world, and that be a classroom ? You know what its like to not be able to trust your own therapist to the point that you cant share everything that is causing your PTSD in shear terror of what she will do with that information? You know what its like to have to mentally prepare yourself for 3 hours to take a shower? You know what its like to not be able to go to church for months at a time and even when you go you have to sit in the pantry because that's the only place people wont see you? You know what its like to have a mother, or anyone for that matter, say they understand ? Because NO ONE understands!

No one. Not your mother, not your father, not your crazy possible spy teacher who wont let you out of class when you panic so you are forced to panic in the middle of class, not your class mates who stare at you like you are some diseased puppy, not your friends who you tell all of this to and they cant even come up with a response ( not that you expected them to ), not your own doctors ( YES that is plural! ), Not your pharmacist who knows you your mother your brother and your grandfather by name who gives you speeches on how these medicines you are taking will kill you if you do the stupid stuff teenagers do like drink or smoke or any of that crap, and not even you. Not that you are stupid enough to drink or do drugs. I mean gosh the benzos already cause your pupils to dilate so much that your own peers come and ask you what drugs your taking because even the stupid high school students can tell its no where near natural to look like that.

Do you know what its like to not understand whats going on with your own body? Your own mind? Do you know what its like to be laying in bed typing and still have panic to the point where you have to keep stopping to take a deep breath because you are not sure you can go on much longer? Do you know what its like to have missed full units in a class because, despite the fact you were at school that day, you had to be in another room panicking and talking to your therapist through the lessons.

Little things become huge things. I was able to complete a trip to Old Navy last weekend. I haven't been able to do a simple task like shopping for a pair of pants in months. I haven't been to a movie since Ice Age 2, I don't even feel safe in my own house even with CPI security!

So really? With all do respect do you really have a freaking idea what its really like? Because if you do, and have any tips, please tell because I'm hanging on by a piece of thread over here.

Submission unto God isnt as easy as it sounds ( and it sounds pretty hard to begin with! )

Waiting is hard. Waiting to meet someone. Waiting to move out. Waiting to fall head over heels in love, get married and have kids. Waiting for my kids and my husband and live in the house I'm designing and be a nurse on the weekends and stay at home with my kids during the week and greet my husband when he gets home from work and all of that. And yea it will be totally worth the wait I have no doubts but gosh darn it I don't wanna wait.

But I don't want to be a teen mom and I don't want to be married now and I don't want any of that because I know the statistics. Rationally I know the marriage will fail and I will be alone ( I mean who would really want to marry a single nurse with a preteen child? Honestly, I wouldn't blame anyone from running the other way and screaming) and have a baby to raise by myself and one day I will have to stand in front of God and explain my actions and I don't know what I would say I mean like " Sorry buddy but your whole 'plan' wasn't working out too well so I took matters into my own hands" Somehow I have a feeling that wouldn't go over too well. And I don't know I just have doubts. I want NOTHING else in the entire world than to be a mother. I mean since I was 2 I have wanted to be a doctor, actually a neonatologist and and world renown fetal surgeon. Have pregnant mothers-to-be lining up just to talk to me and coming to me as a last resort so I can help them and hopefully I would know how. But I wanted that however I gave all of that up because I wouldn't get to spend time with my kids And I mean I'm a teenager and Ive already given up so much so that one day my kids will have the childhood that I never had and will never have. I can accept that my chance came and went for days of running around care free pretending your a dinosaur or a princess, coloring the sky brown and the trees purple, sitting in a sandbox making a village and pretending I'm the queen, all of that; but my kids still have those days to come and I want nothing more than to have them and watch them play and use those smart brains God will give them (Lord willing). But that's exactly it. Lord willing. He knows that I want this more than anything else in the world Ive given up my life's dream career Ive settled and yes a neonatal NP will be a marvelous job but its not what I dreamed of. My dreams have changed for kids that God may never even allow me to have; and that bothers me.

I see my 30 something year old math teacher with this emptiness in her eyes and I know from talking to her and from just my hearts feeling's when I look her in the eyes that she wanted kids. The 'American Dream' the suburban little house with the family of four a boy and a girl and the gossip that the mothers have and the neighbor that makes everyone crazy and all of these little things people take for granted. But I look at her and know she was here in my shoes. Right here. One of those little "Elvis stood here and picked a daisy" annoying signs is sticking out of the ground in front of me. She was(and possibly still is) praying for a family, planning for one and God didn't have it in His plan for her. I don't know what she sacrificed for those kids. She wants and she could still have them, but well I don't know. Just what if Gods plan ( the big picture here, not like if I have enough spare money to go to a movie or something insignificant like that) isn't the big plan I want. There is no negotiating with Him, its His way or well, no. That's just it its His way and no other way and I love God and don't get me wrong I do love Him more than anything and I am thankful for everything I have and the life I have been so graciously been given but still, some days I just wonder if my family of 6 will ever exist. I want my babies! I want all of them! I want my baby girls. Isabelle Temperance Bree, Meredith Lynn Juliette, Addison Lucy Lita, and my baby boy Jacques Richard. Jacques will have a 2nd middle name as well but that's where I left room for my husband's input on a name. I don't have them now and I long for them I long for a child, but not now.

But still. What if God doesn't want me to be a wife or a mom? What then? That's the hardest part. Trusting that God knows and hears my needs and wants and will provide. Trusting my entire life in the hands of someone that I have prayed to, begged and pleaded for things to, cried in tears of thankfulness for those wonderful things in my life that I do have.

There is no doubt in my mind that God will provide for me in the best way ever imaginable, but submission is a hard thing to do. So I will put one foot in front of the other and trust that God will give me what I need. Because that's all I can really do. That's all any of us can really do.

Trust: Its a delicate thing

So last April I had some tests done and the report came. It was sent to my mother only because I am a minor. I saw it lying on the kitchen counter one day and read it even though my mother and therapist advised me not to. OK, sure I was in the wrong I will admit that and I apologized for my wrongdoings. But this brought up something Ive been thinking a lot about latley; Trust.

Trust. A 5 letter word meaning take all my deepest secrets, fears, desires, hopes and dreams; grind them into a hamburger and devour it. How do you know if you can truly, deeply, 100% trust a person? Some people have the whole " I will trust you until you prove me wrong" attitude while others view it as " I have no reason to trust you so prove it to me and then I will trust you". But really, what is trust? Honestly, does anyone really know?

We all need to be able to trust a person, at least one single person in this entire world of billions of people. But how do we find those we can trust and better yet, how do we deal with it when someone betrays our trust?

Do we choose to ignore it and hope it goes away or do we face it head on, battle axes raised screaming at the top of our lungs in hopes that we will feel better later? Do we bottle it up until it explodes or do we do something productive and hope we can make ourselves feel better afterwords? There are so many ways to deal with it, but what is the right one?

Trust is a delicate thing. Any and all relationships are biased on trust. From a baby trusting they will be fed, to a girl trusting that her heart wont be broken by a boy, to even a pet trusting that when you hold them you wont hurt them. Its a beautiful bond that not only is an unspoken and universal but also a bond between two beings that truly holds humanity together. Once it was said that "All you need is love" and I honestly think that is not true, however, all you need is trust.

But what happens when someone betrays our trust? We have all had to suffer through it; learn from the pain and hope, pray and guard our hearts a little more securely, build walls around ourselves in hopes that we can avoid that feeling of betrayal. And finally find someone new to trust.

We build walls, not to see others struggle to gain our affection, but to protect ourselves from that feeling that no one on earth ever wants to feel. Pain.

its 3 am do YOU know where your children are ?

So ya know how bipolar is also commonly called Manic Depression (because those are the 2 most common, and extreme, states) well someone should rename it to WHY-ARE-MY-FAMILY-MEMBERS-STILL-FREAKING-AWAKE-AND-SCREAMING-AT-EACH-OTHER-AT-3-FREAKING-AM syndrome.

Yes because that is my life. The ONLY time everyone is asleep in my house is between the hours of 4-4:30 am. On a good day, everyone is dead to the world then.

Here's our sleeping schedule
Dad 8pm-6am (that lucky little bast... (no, only use nice words) ...duck )
Brother 3am-5 or 6am
Mom on a good day 4am-4:30 or 5am
Me whenever I get the chance, heck last night I finally got to sleep at 7:30 am

As you can see, its like living with a newborn baby. Oh plus the fact that we have enough sleeping pills in this house to knock out a herd or elephants. But does anyone use them OF COURSE NOT!!!!!

Bipolar people are notorious for being able to function on 2 or less hours of sleep and not being sleep deprived even though they can continue this pattern for months at a time. Why my mother informed me the other day that she only gets 20 minutes of REM sleep a night and hasn't had a dream in over 3 years. (how that woman hasn't died from exhaustion, don't ask me, I guess its just another mystical gift of the disease)

So lets recap here its now almost 3am, my mother isn't home, my father has been out cold for hours and what is my brother doing? Why watching Jerry Springer of course! I mean WHAT ELSE DO PEOPLE DO AT 3 AM? SLEEP? PSHHHH SLEEP IS FOR WIMPS!

Isn't my 'normal' routine pleasant ?

Drive with Caution

So I mentioned briefly that my meds have been changed. Its not usually a big thing but this time one of my benzos is being taken away, it was a fairly low dose and its been replaced with another one and yea Ive been through med with drawl like 25 times in my life. Even been through the worst one to get off of, effexor... ughhhh. So I had to just cut this one ( adivan ) cold turkey and it takes a little while for me to notice so its been 24 hours and ive already had a few doses of the new one tranxene. Ive heard its a good med but all it makes me do is sleep. No joke I have never fallen asleep in class before but today I fell asleep in each and every single class I had, and for lunch I sat in a chair, curled up in a ball, covered myself with my jacket and slept for 40 minutes until my next class. I wanted to be awake more than anything but I have to wait this med out a week before my psych md will change anything.

Either way I thought that I should tell a few of my teachers whats going on so they don't think I'm just slacking off or anything, I mean I have a medical reason I mean heck its written on the side of the bottle to be warned of this ( safety while driving heavy machinery) so I told my 1st pd teacher this and she shrugged at me and said that she didn't care what was happening as long as I did my work. Real compassion in that one Hun? I didn't want to tell my next 2 teachers in anticipation of the same response, however when i told her she didn't give the apathetic response I had been getting but she truly cared. See she has been struggling with depression ( as am I ) for several years and she is the sweetest outspoken loud perky person i have ever met and honestly it was mind boggling to hear her say that she was suffering with it. I love that woman, shes a fantastic teacher and now I feel like I have someone who actually gets it. Someone who may of had the worst night in history but still drags themselves out of bed, gets dressed pops their daily pills and drags themselves out the door. All the car ride putting their cement smile on for the day and telling themselves that no matter how you feel you will laugh and be goofy and have fun today and then as soon as you go home you can lay in bed all afternoon and fall asleep and repeat the whole thing again and again and again and again. Someone who will be there for me ( now dint get me wrong I have my best friend who truly understands this and helps me out at moment's notice ) But finally someone who knows first hand what its like.

Therapists may try to understand but its one thing to study a behavior and read about it in a book and a completely different thing to have to deal with it on a every day basis.

Prayers PLUUHHHHEEASSSSSSS!!!!

My 4 year old cousin has H1N1 which is horrible on its own but she ALSO has Shingles ( a form of chickenpox ) At the rate she is going she is going straight to the hospital. Do not pass go do not collect 200 dollars. She tends to spike extremley high fevers so with all of this she could end up with a 104 fever easily. She cant keep anything down including water so that just screams "GIVE ME AN IV!!!" She is the only cousin I have and she is such a wonderful, spirited child who loves everyone she meets. Camille and I are so close we dont even say " oh hey theres cousun Camille" its more of " hey look its my sister Kathryn" I pray she is better before halloween because she was looking forward to that so much she is going as a queen her mom is a witch and i dont know what my uncle is going as


At her age with her fever and her previous health conditions, I ask all of you praying folks to drop to your knees in prayer for her. If you dont do praying, could you atleast hope the best or give kind thoughts to her?


Thank you all!
<3 Kathryn

I Passed!!

So today was my day to go to the psych MD and see how my medicines are going. Were making a few changes on mine just to lessen anxiety. Out of the 3 major anxiety disorders, I guess Im just lucky because I have them all! YAY! no, not really. What really bothered me was when my Dr and I were talking about my anxiety attacks and he turned to me and said something similar to " its ONLY adrenaline..." Now that bothered me. It made me feel like he doesn't care or understand. It was an extremely insensitive thing to say and I don't think he realizes how much that bothered me and I know that he didn't mean to hurt me but still. Just because he didn't mean it, doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.

But onto good news. Because I have a long family history of bipolar and i live in bipolar land there is an insane risk that I will develop bipolar disorder one day. So about 4 times a year I have to go in and answer what seems to be 30 billion questions and talk about random things ( today we talked about school lunches ) and then, almost magically, he tells me that I don't have a mood disorder. Its always a relief when he says it because the last thing in the world I want is to be bipolar.


But that's a different story for a different time... For now im just extatic that I dont have it !