DISCLAIMER:  this blog is a method of release for me and with that release i hope to let go of some of the great shame I have held through the years as I have dealt with my mental illness, bipolar.   I hope to also educate whats its like through my journey and to even help others around me learn how to help me when times are tough.  Know that I am ok.  Sometimes the darkness is rough but I want to share it all knowing that i have the help I need and Im finding my way through to the light again. With Love Liana

At long last our next flight is ready to board.  My eyes are burning, my head is exhausted and I find myself laughing as I observe my family of kids, all experiencing the effects of a brain shut down after missing a nights sleep and still trying to function.  Im surprised none are falling over as I watch them shut their eyes as they stand waiting in line.  Their lazy bodies looking like they may fall over any minute.  My mind unsure if I would be quick enough to respond.  Probably not, I feel like shit and cant be bothered responding to anything right now.  Already I have had two vomiting kids and two blood noses.  The list is about to grow.  I hope my kids will get some fucking sleep.  I know I wont and I can cope with that, just, but if they dont I will have to put them on a chain just to keep them safe as we continue with the last leg of our journey.  This is the time they come close to making mistakes like walking into buzzing traffic, forgetting that they are no longer in Australia where most people will stop for you.  Here they will feel the effects of a flying motorbike skimming their legs.  Ouch!!

I was right, no sleep for me and as I observe my kids hopping off the plane I see they havent slept either.  Red eyed, staring off into the distance.  We arrive and Im so pleased to feel the air cooler than bangkok.  I hear the kids mutters of jibberish their sentences unfinished and Im far from understanding anything they have to say. My own mind just as jumbled.  I have decided today to be completely real with my teacher Tomh.  Right from the beginning of this trip Im going to tell him exactly how I feel so that if I find myself slipping into a low I can get the hell out before the darkness takes over me.  Acceptance, is what this trip is going to be for today and this day forward. Its about acceptance.  Ive been through this all before and got to a point where I did accept that this is how I operate and there was nothing to be ashamed of but for some reason maybe just because it was time for me to forget myself so that I could remember me again I am going through that part of life again.   I feel so good about this.  My week of the weed has reignited my energy for working my shit out and how I can get through my days better.  I can tell that Im back, present in my body as my smile is back.  Its not only on my face but I can feel it in my heart.  I check in with him, he looks like he hasnt slept in weeks.  I tell him my head is aching and the lack of sleep is shutting me down.  He smiles, and replies that he is about to fall over.  Hes super exhausted.  Awesome, I just realised how much it helps me for my teachers to be real.  Often they just look at me and smile, making it super hard for me to always be the one to say, I feel like I need to sleep for the next 15 hours.  Again making me feel like I dont operate as well as others even though I know from their short fuzes and the eye rolling and bitching that they too are exhausted.

After a long journey where I find myself sticking my head out the window checking out any old school motorbike coming my way we finally work our way through the city chaos and we arrive at our hostel.  Much  better than expected, this one carrying an air of comfort and character that is often missed when paying ten bucks a night.  Scored.  Nothing can explain the joy I feel when I arrive at my room and find it spacious enough to do some stretching, an extra bed to lay my crap out on and a light that is not blinding.  Oh and clean!!

After checking in we take a much needed break for a quick nanna nap.  I remind the kids of respecting eachother and keeping quiet.  Half an hour later I find myself out in the hall way, kids giggling too wired to sleep.  Wondering up an down the hall way.  I remember the days I loved to be wired and keep myself awake for days, pumping my body with whatever substance I could get my hands on loving the feeling of being not quite in the same life story rolling by as everyone else around me.   A whole other story or a billion stories erupting from my mind, keeping me loose and giddy.  But those times have changed know that I understand how dangerous this is for me if Im to keep myself more in the state of balance.  How times have changed,  now I find myself telling them with a great big smile to shut the f up!

So what else kept me from having the much needed nanna nap?  The endless ridiculous questions that come from a group of nervous kids on their first day in country.  I layed on my bed listening to the kids discussing outside my room wondering which room I was in.  I could hear one kid freaking out, he had forgotten his tooth brush and after a few moments laying there deciding whether I should get up to them or not, l came to terms with the fact that laying in bed listening to them freaking out over shitty things wasnt going to help me rest anyway.  I opened the door and asked them if what they wanted to ask was important enough to wake me up when I hadnt slept since I left the comfort of my bed and my man back however many days ago.  We were definitely at the beginning of an expedition as my kids replied….wellllllll….yes!!  to which they unleashed their apparent very important queries to me.  What can do, I left my tooth brush at home?  and miss, I have a big dilema I cant find my water purifier!!!!!  you can imagine my responses, with a smile.  these kids were new to the experience still had the cutest looks on their faces and no idea.  There was much to learn and the first learning respect of down time and what the hell is an important question!

The foodies group lead us out after our rest and through the winding Thamel streets to a cozy outdoor restaurant where we induldged on the local cuisine.  My head was thumping so bad I considered ditching dinnner but decided against it instead to just be honest and let me family know I felt like my head might explode.  Conversation was ridiculous and funny as between our scattiness and headaches our talk consisted of conversations from another world in between the kids looking like they were about to loose their heads into the plates in front of them.  Thomh was quiet, and it was nice, nice again to hear him say he felt terrible too.  We all made our way back to the hotel, only just surviving as my kids missed being hit by passing motorbikes and trucks that swerved at the last minute.  It was time, I picked up some incense and we all trucked off to bed.   Thank fuck for bed. Good night my loves.

 

 

DISCLAIMER:  this blog is a method of release for me and with that release i hope to let go of some of the great shame I have held through the years as I have dealt with my mental illness, bipolar.   I hope to also educate whats its like through my journey and to even help others around me learn how to help me when times are tough.  Know that I am ok.  Sometimes the darkness is rough but I want to share it all knowing that i have the help I need and Im finding my way through to the light again. With Love Liana

A wildflower seems fitting.  Not only do I just love them but right now it fits to describe myself as one.  They are beautiful.  Most of the time I feel wild and free to roam anywhere, free to be me.  Growing in all different directions, all different colours, in all different varieties.  And beautiful.  I grow in the sunshine.  Even when my petals fall I still feel beautiful and free.  But sometimes, just sometimes I feel like a weed, the kind that some people see as a pest, something growing out of control, the toxic weed spreading like wildflowers, infecting everyone around me with my ugliness that ouzes out from within.  It feels as though my petals all look the same and boring, my stem can’t hold me up in the strong winds, I feel limp and fragile. But this fragile state is so slow in coming that I do not see it creep in.  It is quiet and it comes up from behind me, sneaking in and draining me of my goodness.

This was the week of the weed. I can look back now and see the symptoms slowly seeping in but even as I became the observer my strength to hold me disappeared along with the sunshine that explodes from my petals.  No matter where I looked I saw nothing beautiful.  As crazy as it sounds I didn’t even really see my love fade away until its death was upon me.  The slow death was coming and although I was aware that my mental state was sliding there was nothing I could do to stop the confused thoughts of a mental mind from taking over me, breaking me apart from the core.  I know it is not me, its the illness as I begin to see life through another lense.  One that is not based on reality.  My reality becomes foggy as I loose my ability to cope with things, loosing my smile that I love so much and on most other days comes as easy as my breathe.

As I lashed out at my man I knew I was chemically out of balance, my mind creating such dramas.   Everything bigger than what it should be.  But then again maybe I’m wrong, maybe it is big the issue in my sight. Maybe it’s now I can suddenly see it for what it is.  Or maybe, just maybe again its a reflection of me, that I’ve made it into something bigger just because I can no longer cope.  My mind feels exhausted and confused.  This week hasn’t taken much to push me over the edge.  A slow sunday driver, frustrating me so much that the words that escape my mouth and the intensity frighten me.  Who is this person? My man’s own frustrations pushing me so far I want only to escape.  There is no room in my life for someone elses short fuze when my own is burning so out of control with no relief in sight. I’ve been scared as I observe the person I was turning into.  And not one bit of me liking who I was seeing.  Any love for myself gone.

Today as I throw down my wizard pills I remind myself to be thankful and remember the past six months and just how good they have been.  They have been so dam good.  How sorted I have felt.  How in control. I have loved me.  All the bits that go with it.   I have felt something wonderful, something unlike what I are feeling now.  But when I get like this its hard to remember how great it has been, its as if everything becomes something so distant, so far away from me that I begin to wonder if it ever really was real.  I find myself questioning the weekend past, did I really enjoy myself that much, was it really as wonderful?  My wizzards pills and CBD oil have maybe been saving me from destroying myself these past months and today I am thankful.  Thankful I have woken and are breathing.  Thankful I woke next to someone who has faith in me and is still there even as I try to push him out the door and into my past.

Today is a new day.  Yesterday was the day I woke up choosing to be the person I wanted to be.  Today I woke up choosing differently.  Although I have no control of the imbalance that takes over me, I have control in the acceptance I can have for myself while I experience myself as the dying weed.  Today I have accepted my behaviour and the ugliness I have felt in myself and with that comes my freedom.  I have a  new bag of pills a bottle of CBD and new knowledge that prehaps these two have been my saviour.  Along with the self care and joy of having my hands in clay.  I have felt again what its like to have no support chemically and I dont want to feel this again.  Travelling turned out to be a greater gift in so many ways, again my observations of my soul, one who requires constant self care to keep on top.  But not only that but to keep myself in a place where I have something to give.  But even with all my observations showing me what I need I know that the darkness can attack me at anytime. I can never be ready for it.  Never can be prepared really.

This week of the dying weed I found myself unable to say how scared I was.  Fear I was going backwards, loosing my grip on reality.  Sad that I was creating a drama and one where I wouuld be left alone in the world, the place where I think things are easier.  But I know they are not, rather just lonelier.  Im still learning.  Learning what it is that I need, knowing when to take the rest that I need and the helping hand.  Learning that it is ok to be me.  Acceptance.

Finally its time.  My bags are packed again.  Not well and maybe with a few things missing but Ive done these trips and travelled often enough to know that even if I’m missing something, I can cope.  It’s my mind I only have to worry about.  As I travel to the airport with my team, I feel the energy of acceptanace take over me. I begin to feel my love radiate out of me.  My petals beginning to glow again. Oh I feel like me again!  Thank fuck, I have missed myself!

Now I sit back at the airport smiling.  There are great big mountains ahead of me.  Some of them are going to be easy to climb and others not so much.  But I have my people, who walk beside me and never make me feel anything but brilliant in all of my darkness.  Thinking of them right now makes me smile.  You are my gifts and sharing with you my journey has helped break down so much of the shame I have carried.

Now I am here in Bangkok watching my new group of kids.  Eight of them.  All eagar, excited and nervous but keeping it to themselves.  Maybe a few of them a little scared to share how they are really feeling right now.  Why is that we can be scared to share something that all of us experience? feelings? Why can it be so hard to get it out or even to identify how we feel? Is it the shame attached to feeling something that may make us seem not as strong ? Maybe make us feel less than someone else? Im hoping just sharing this blog will help me keep breaking down the shame I carry that pops its head up here and there.  These kids have no idea yet, but they are about to get thrown into the fast pace of travel and challenge and with it exhaustion.  Pushing them to grow through experience.  Learning to make mistakes and how to get back up and keep going.  We are all learning, my learning again right now to accept the way I work and not be afraid or ashamed to talk about it and to what I need to do so I can not just survive this trip but really live it.  Proud to be me, however my body and mind decide to play.

As my team and I sit talking about some guidelines we could follow to help us look after eachother, I’m excited.  The signs of a team who are keen to grow and get the most out of their trip are right in front of me.  I’m tired, feeling fried but I’m smiling and ready to board our next flight.  Kathmandu here we come!