So, I've been doing a lot of studying lately and I've come up with a few theories. There wasn't much else to do while I laid in bed with a migraine, since I couldn't bear to look at any light so that ruled out watching movies, playing games, texting, or social networking. Sloppy language skills. I still have no idea what I'm going to write about for NaNoWriMo. My brain feels a little bit scattered but I'm going to try to stay on topic as much as I can.
So, I'm PMSing, which is never a thrilling time for me or anyone around me. This time, though, it is WORSE. I can't really say why. I don't really know. I've noticed a few things, though, that in retrospect may have been early warning signs of an impending migraine. Earlier this week, I started seeing lines in my vision. I thought it was because of my phone screen, but it would happen even after I had looked at the computer screen, or no screen at all. It was really weird. Everywhere I looked was lined, like a display on a television with bad reception. It really freaked me out. I know that this is all an illusion, a hologram, a trick of our eyes. What is it that I'm really seeing? My conscious mind can only process a tiny fraction of the information that's flooding into my brain, what am I missing? If this is only a glimpse of the picture, what does the full picture look like? Could I even imagine it? Do I even have the capability to conceive of how that might appear? But I digress.
I was seeing lines and I was a little concerned. A few days before my migraine, I was having those manic naps that I've described before. When I'm manic, I have a lot of energy and it isn't a nap that comes from being tired and worn out like naps usually do. In fact, they have happened immediately after drinking espresso or waking up. It will come with no warning, and I have no ability to fight it -- as if I've been drugged or something, my whole body will just start shutting down. Then, I immediately drop into the deepest sleep that could ever be imagined. I start instantly dreaming, and it's like I can physically feel my consciousness go down, deep, into this place that I couldn't struggle back from if I tried. I am helpless to resist it, it holds me down until it's finished with me. Then, 15 to 20 minutes later, I wake up confused and disoriented. Sometimes I don't know where I am, or what time it is, or where my kids are. I feel like it's been hours, and am shocked to see how little time has actually passed. Anyway, those are my manic naps. I don't know yet what it means.
At the end of my mania, I feel less and less happy and more and more irritable. Everything bothers me, everyone annoys me, and I just don't have any patience for anything. So anyway, on Friday all of this seemed to come to a horrible crescendo. Remember that dream I talked about? I think, in retrospect, that it might have been foreshadowing. I didn't realize it at the time, but now that I review the events of Friday, it seems to make sense.
Before I get started on all of that, though, did I mention that I got a job? I can't remember if I did or not. I think I did. Yayyyy!!! Okay, so back to Friday.
It started out like any other day. I dropped Tristan off at school, and on the way back, I noticed the most beautiful rainbow I've ever seen in real life with my own eyes. The sky was kind of orange and it was raining a little bit, and right there was a giant, full rainbow with a hint of a double rainbow arching right across the street. I pulled into a parking lot to take a picture. The rainbow was so big that I couldn't capture the entire thing in one shot, I had to take two. I remember that I used to be a person that rarely saw rainbows, or shooting stars. I had never seen a shooting star until like a year or two ago. By now, I've seen four or five. I had only seen one or two rainbows before this past year or so, and now it's like I see them all the time. This was the first time, though, that I saw a whole one. Here's a picture:
Okay, so anyway, then I got home. I can't even remember what Joth and I were talking about, or what started the whole thing. I just remember that we were in the shower, and we were getting ready to get out. He had his arm across his chest and I asked him for a kiss. He gave me a kiss, but being the ultra-sensitive person that I am in the state of mind I was in, I noticed tiny little things that he may not even have been aware of. I knew this. I knew that most likely he wasn't even conscious of it, didn't decide to do it or even know it happened -- much less the reason for WHY -- and it would be unfair to criticize or complain or hold him responsible as if he had intentionally hurt me. He leaned forward to kiss me, but it felt like a part of him held back. His arm remained across his chest. No other part of him touched any other part of me. It didn't really feel like he was 100% there. His lips touched mine, but our hearts and souls didn't connect.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but I can feel it when we're both fully present and connected. It's not something I've ever felt with anyone else, and it's not something that's there all the time. He can't control it, I can't control it, but sometimes there's just a wall. And that wall always makes me want to cry.
I didn't say anything, but he saw this look on my face. He asked me what was wrong and insisted it was nothing. Like I said, I knew it wasn't his fault. But he continued to probe. Did I kiss you wrong? Was my kiss not good enough? I told him it was nothing like that and not to worry about it. He grew increasingly anxious and I began to get exasperated. He got upset and left the bathroom, then came back in and threw a clean, folded towel INTO the shower. This would normally not be a huge deal, but I had just washed every piece of laundry we had and folded all of the towels. In came another towel and I just lost my shit. I started shrieking about nobody ever caring about whether things were clean or not, and I'm tired of being the only one who gives a shit about this or that or whatever, I was just going off. I was being irrational and ridiculous, and I knew it. Normally, this is where I stop. That in itself is bad enough, and Joth and I still have to repair things and it does do some damage.
But then he came in with his phone and started recording me, which enraged me beyond any possibility of you comprehending. This was an all-consuming fury of livid hatred. I was seething. Any lines that I had taken care not to cross, any bridges that I had marked sacred to refrain from burning, in that moment any respect or care or sensitivity went out the window and I just wanted to set it all ablaze. Things changed in that moment. I knew that I was being unfair, but when he started recording me, I felt like a spectacle. A freak show. No longer a person. Like I was being put on display and disrespected, dehumanized, mocked. And it wasn't fair. Why would you try to shame me like that? You have had your moments too. As frustrated, incredulous, shocked, and confused I was...I never recorded you. I felt betrayed and hurt, and that was all it took to snap any final tethers to restraint.
At the same time, my head began throbbing. POUNDING. The more angry I got, the more I felt like the incredible hulk. Except, instead of bursting out of my clothing, I felt like this bigger, angrier person was going to explode from within my skull. I swear that I felt my brain throbbing, growing, swelling, trying to escape from my eye sockets and splinter my cranium into shards. There was no way that my skull could contain this chaos erupting inside of my brain. The more I yelled, the more it hurt, and the more it hurt, the meaner I got. Until finally I just couldn't take it anymore and I dissolved into tears. I didn't even know what was happening to me. I didn't know what was wrong with my brain. I didn't mean to say all of those horrible things and I had no idea how to make it right. I found myself, as I have many times before, desperately wishing that life had an undo button.
We went to pick up the kids and I sat in the passenger seat, clutching my head in agony. By the time we got home, I felt an overwhelming urge to vomit. I hadn't eaten anything, but my stomach began spasming as if I had ingested some toxic thing which needed immediate expulsion. I raced up the stairs and into the bathroom. I dry heaved for a while, then I went into the bedroom and covered my head with the blanket. All of the light, any of the light, was like a drill directly into my eye socket. I couldn't bear it.
I laid in there in the darkness from about 3:30 until the next morning. The migraine lasted at least nine hours. Every time that I would think it was subsiding, I'd do something dumb like look at my phone and it would begin again. Throughout it all, Joth was bringing me coffee, offering me food, trying to find the pressure point on my palm to help with the pain. We didn't speak of the horrible things I had said, it was too big a subject to breach and my brain wasn't capable of having that discussion. It was the giant elephant in the room. He knew, and I knew, but I didn't know what to say. No way would a simple apology suffice. This was the worst thing I had ever done, I said the worst things I had ever said, and I had no right to be forgiven. As I laid there thinking about it, I tried to justify it for a moment because it had started by him reacting to a face that I had made and that wasn't fair. But no, what I said was inexcusable. A trillion times worse by far, unjustifiable. I knew it.
I learned that before a migraine, electrical changes in the brain occur a few days beforehand. This could explain the lines in my vision and the weird coma naps. They occur when dopamine is high (as it is during mania) and there is a sudden drop in seratonin. I reflected on my experience during mania. This is just a theory and I haven't researched it, but when mania starts, it feels like I am extra energetic and FIRE is high, but also WARMTH. I.e. the positive traits of the fire element -- motivation, energy, passion. It occurs along with happiness, compassion, joy, and contentedness. Then, at the end, the fire turns to its negative qualities -- without the warmth. Rage, aggression, hostility, anger. It's still energy but it's a different kind of energy.
So my theory about why this may be is that when dopamine and seratonin are both high, this gives me the pleasurable, euphoric mania. Then, for some reason, dopamine remains high and seratonin drops. Depending on how quickly and how drastically the seratonin drops, this sets the stage for the perfect migraine conditions. I could be wrong, but it feels like a plausible possibility.
Anyway, Joth and I talked about it and I think (hope) we're going to be okay. I plan to get insurance through Kellogg's once they hire me in, and in the meantime I may be able to find something in the marketplace for a reasonable rate so that I can try to make sure this doesn't happen again. Joth has been very patient but I don't want to damage our relationship beyond repair (if I haven't already). Well anyway, this is long enough and the kids are here so I'm going to see what they're doing. Last night, Joth's mom took us all to Zoo Boo at Binder Park Zoo and the kids had a really good time. There was some trick or treating and a hay ride, and for the most part, they behaved themselves. Okay well this is really long enough. Bye!!!!!!!!!!!
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