Summer vacation is finally over and I have the computer back.  So the question is, why didn't I try to report back here for so many months?  Truth is, I couldn't tell you.  All of a sudden I emotionally fell to my knees.  I struggled out of bed, I dragged my feet, I spent the summer taking the kids to their psych appointments (lots of those), and I didn't have a thought in my brain.  No inspiration or irritation to write about.  No emergencies or entertainment to discuss.  Nothing.  I laughed when I needed to (and only half the time it was sincere) and cried in the shower or alone at the pool.  I missed my friends, but at the same time I didn't feel like I could be a good hostess, spacing out and forcing back tears.  I'm still on Risperdal and I was feeling semi-emotionally stable.  But the pain finally took over.  My arms are so weak and some days my joints feel like I'm going to break my bones.  I've had to rely on the kids more than usual because I just wasn't getting things done.

And my eldest daughter, gosh, she's really taken up my slack.  She has her own demons to fight.  She's been on geodone for most of the summer.  Her hallucinations are gone.  She misses them.... and since she told her pdoc, he's placed her in therapy.  Like you're not supposed to miss your childhood friends. 

She and I are both teetering on a manic loop.  She gets excited and laughs and finds things to do like make brownies from scratch. (Yeah, like I'm going to stop her on that one.)  And I've has some kind of cleaning bug.  I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed down my dirty carpet with a scrub brush.  Only the dog was impressed.  I'm back to vacuuming the walls.  I hate the house and I want to throw everything away.  I see nothing wrong with that... until three months down the line when I need whatever I've thrown away.  It's always three months.  And if I lose anything, I always find it in the laundry.  It's God's way of telling me to fold my clothes.

I miss my brain.  It doesn't write anymore.  It doesn't have ideas anymore.  It doesn't make the right decisions either, as pointed out to me by my husband.  So' I've stayed in the background as best I could.  Look where it got me.  I miss my bp family, too.