Know what I wanna say ? You trust the one whom you know can not be trusted ? You wouldn’t even call me yourself ? Fuck you. I got my own family to run. I’ve put enough efforts into you. I’ve cared enough. I do care about your dog and am concerned about him, though.

My dad is an alcoholic.

We went on to talk about many subjects, among others Winston Churchill. He’s a hero to both of us. He was talking about the guy and then said “he was manic depressive”. I stopped him. Told him “Dad, that’s what I have, it’s just another name”. Then came something else that took me by surprise “well I have that too, I think”.

Now, one can ask themselves why I am more lenient toward my Dad. There are multiple reasons. First, I know, and understand he grew up in uneasy times, that his dad was very hard, a very very hard man. Never had any affection while growing up. “Well, it’s the same for your mom” might one say. Not it isn’t. She was loved. Ok, she grew up with nuns. Bur her mother loved her dearly and so did her family. She hides that constantly. Plus, and most importantly, my father doesn’t use his childhood as an excuse as my mother does.

Something else: he’s intelligent. I’ve always admired him, always have been a daddy’s girl (“til I realize he wasn’t perfect after all). My love for books, my thirst for knowledge, my curiosity, I owe it to him. My love for music too. I have his brains. Not hers. It is he who bought me my first real book.

Other ? He never, ever, ever, laid a hand on me. Never even shouted at me. I can’t count the times my mother slapped me, yelled, insulted me. It’s ridiculous.

I know he’s a complicated man, very sensitive even if he won’t show it, clever, cultivated, talks multiple languages…Did I mention his love for dogs ? He speaks like me, a lot, fast, jumping from subject to subject.

I know that if I wanted to talk to him I would get sound advice.

And  I know he loves me. That I am sure of. Him, I can forgive.

Nature is well done. It shows everywhere you look. On your window, in the Savannah, in the Everglades, in the Amazon….Everything works as it should. Only when humans get in the way does it stop functioning.

Human beings are not natural. This shouldn’t be. We shouldn’t be so self-aware, so selfish. Destroying everything in our path because, hey, we’re humans, we have intelligence, we have speech, we can do whatever the hell we want ! I wait for the day Mother Nature is gonna fuck us all. Because I have faith in that, I know she will. She’ll get tired of us and wipe us out.Look what we’ve done to “our” planet. Hey dude, it’s not “our” planet. We’re merely passing through. How audacious, how pretentious to think otherwise. Dinosaurs lived here before us for MILLIONS of years. Do you honestly think that we could last that long ? Seriously. Look at the damage we cause. Think about what we deserve.

Dolphins are incredibly intelligent. Close to us in that regard. Do they murder each other ? Rape ? Steal ? Destroy ? We are parasites. Big parasites. And I hate us. I hate human nature.

I guess that being diagnosed bipolar, to some people, might feel pretty awful. “What now ?” And that was exactly my question “what now ? what do we do to fix this shit?” I didn’t stay in bed for days crying over my miserable existence. I haven’t had much luck in my life (hello mom and dad). Yet. I will create that luck.

Mister held me in his arms and told me that since we’ve been here, since I’ve been diagnosed, well he kinda told me that all through that I didn’t give up, I kept on fighting. And I thank him for reminding me of that because I didn’t realize. Looking back these last months, since my diagnosis in june 2010, I’ve been through new meds, stopping meds, side effects, ups, downs, urges to kill myself or runaway. But I’m still here. Today I even made the decision (with my pdoc, never make a decision on your own about the drugs you’re taking without your psychiatrist) to stop the Seroquel. I’ve come to hate the Seroquel. It makes me sleepy (I sleep half of the day, no matter what the day), and it lowers my blood pressure quite heavily. It was my beacon somehow because it was the one med who stopped the mania. Now I take Lithium. Around 1200mg a day, a normal dose for a bipolar person. Since I started taking lithium, some changes have occured. I talk more. Laugh more (real laughter, not a gentle hehehehe, no, a real guttural belly laughter). Play more with my daughter. And I have human feelings again (for instance I’m again able to cry watching a movie, I get shivers when I hear something awful or amazing). Will it stop the mania ? Only time will tell.

So no. I don’t give up. I’ll keep it up as long as I can. I’ve always been a fighter, I just never realized it. Never embraced it. That’s what I do. I open my big mouth and say I don’t agree. And I vow to never stop doing so.

Also, for the record, I would like to thank genetics, good parenthood, Mister and yes, myself, for creating the awesome little being that is my daughter.

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.”

I don’t care about New Year’s. Never really did. Then on december 31st, 2006, my uncle passed away, not even 55 years old. Aneurysm. Unpredictable, but yet it happened. I still can replay the phone call from my dad on and on in my head “I have bad news”. Then I thought he would tell me his dog (whom we all dearly loved by the way) had died. Then….”Philippe is dead”. How do yo compute that ? My uncle ? My only uncle that I so admired, so loved ? Dead ? On New Year’s eve ? For the first time ever in my life, I heard my father cry. After that, I had to break the news to my brother. Which was worse than anything: Philippe was his Godfather. And I had to do it. Call my brother. Tell him. The day after that, January 01st, 2007, we spent the afternoon at the morgue. My uncle was lying there. Dead. My dad and older brother were both crying, and I did my best to comfort them. There was that misunderstanding, that mistake. My dad was furious that his little brother had passed away first. Everything was over. His parents were long gone. He was the only one still standing. The older one.And I was looking at that corpse, expecting it to jump up and say “whooohooo, fool you !”. Because that would have made more sense. Of course, he didn’t jump up and made a bad joke. He’s gone now. Forever. And it doesn’t make sense, it’s unfair. Some people don’t deserve to live. He was not one of those people. Fuck life. Seriously, fuck it. What good comes out of it anyway ?

I will not talk about the funerals. It seemed out of this world, surreal.

I remember getting back to work on january 02nd. Everybody wishing each other a great year, health, whatever. And I was walking like I was on some sort of could, floating. “How is this possible ? How does the world not stop ?”. The world didn’t stop. Life went on. You wish it would stop for a moment. That the whole world acknowledged your pain. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t know and doesn’t care.

The reason it struck me so hard ? We have just a small family. Since my grandma passed away, it was just my dad, my uncle and their kids. To this day, I have no contact whatsoever with my cousins. And on the side of my mother, I thought everyone was gone. Long gone. Until she came last Wednesday and casually said that there was still family. A few minutes from where I live now. She raised us making us believe there was no one left. And now suddenly I know I have great uncles, great aunts. Another family. And I just don’t know what to make of it. She lied, as usual. Why, I don’t know. Do I want to meet them ? Yes. I want to go and say “hi I’m Paula’s granddaughter”. It’s my blood. My kin. My family. But it’s never that simple, is it ?

If I have to go to Brussels just for that, God help me, I will.

I know that while I was on the phone I played pretend really well. Dexter-like. Ooooh call me when you get any news and blah and blah.Then I hung up, and Mister asked me what was up. I answered. Then he asked me why I was pacing. “Because I don’t feel a thing”.

So, Mister had a good idea: let’s stop adding or removing meds from my daily diet for at least a couple of weeks, so my body can rest and I can figure out where I want to go with which treatment. Now that’s the best plan I’ve heard in a long time. So thank you, Mister.

Then, on 31st december of 2006, my uncle, my dad’s brother passed away. Suddenly. Aneurysm. Of all days, the last day of the year, one that was supposed to be joyful. It was the first time ever I saw (or in this case, heard) my father cry. The phone call. “Philip is dead”. “What are you talking about ? What Philip ?”. At first I thought he was going to say that his dog had died. It was surreal. I loved my uncle, even though I didn’t see him as often as I should have. Would have. Could have. I rememver walking into the building where I work on the 2nd of january, looking at all those people there, asking myself “why on eart won’t time stop ? how can we go on like that?” He was the last link between the two parts of our families. Since then, I barely saw my cousins. Last time was like 2 years ago. Then there was the breakup with me and my part of my family. I don’t have any parents anymore, I have to admit that. And I do admit it and sometimes it gets to me.

So yes, my dad did have a dog. He was called Paddy. At the beginning it was my dog, but that’s a long story and it’s not relevant here. Paddy was an incredible, amazing dog. My brother and I used to say “he’s not a dog, he is THE dog”. Paddy passed away two years ago now. A bit before Christmas.

I never knew any of my grandparents except my grandma, my dad’s mom. The others passed away before I was even born. I know basically nothing of them. What I know makes me want to almost change my name, at times. And she’s gone. And her second born, the one with the witty humor, the sarcasm, the one I could most relate too, passed away too.

Do I love xmas ? Hell no. You want one more reason ? On the 1st or 2nd january of 2003, I lost an unborn child. Wittingly. I had an abortion. Not proud of it. I’m not gonna give the details, nobody needs to know them. You don’t get through that without any scars. I didn’t have any support back then. Nobody tried to reason me, support me. I was just nuts because I had stopped my medications and smoking all at once. Does that make you a rational being ? Hell no ! And nobody helped.

So,..do I have any reason to rejoice in this time of the year ? Fuck no. I hate it. It makes me sick. I know I’m gonna get depressed. Well, that’s what it is.