Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I’m leaving early tonight and hanging out with Ceila as we do at this time of night – 3 in the morning – every two weeks.

We used to work together on nights and now this is like our homage to that. Usually we go to Dennys but tonight it’s drinks at her house and whatever she’s got to eat.

I was talking with coworkers about my bipolar, and how my ups and downs go. That superhighway of emotion on which I’m driving in a brakeless car. But the meds put up off ramps, speed outs, and guard rails. Instead of a wild and out of control turn, I slow down. Dr Black wants my ups and downs closer together. Once down, I can’t get out. I can’t.

I am kind of trapped though. I’m lucky enough to have a job and have people who are cool with things and try to understand or at least don’t judge me too harshly. I have taken the bold and unprecedented step of being more open with my new coworkers at Sacred Heart. But I’ve been at the VA for ten years, they have a high tolerance for me. If I ever left, if I did something with that public health graduate degree I want, I’d be starting over from scratch. It took a long time to establish my territory here.

So it’s like I can’t leave. Here, they get me. I can talk about my meds or suicide or my labile mood. They can ask things like “did you take your meds?” if I’m not acting right. They deal with me and tolerate me and a few of them even like me.

I don’t want to start all over elsewhere. I have tried to get out of where I am many times though. I’ve had over 75 job interviews at the Spokane VA since 2017. I worked another job here part time once, helping out another department. I applied for the job there when they finally posted it but still didn’t get it. Now that I’m ten years in, there doesn’t seem to be much point.

I only bring it up because degrees are only worth how much they can get you to advance. I think that’s terrible and education for education’s sake is valuable. But if I’m paying 20k for the degree, I damn well better be able to advance in some way with it. A CNA will never advance.