I saw the movie "Reign on me" tonight.

I feel compelled to address a few things.

First, this is not a movie review. That gets done on the "other" blog. Second, I think Adam Sandler's performance was extremely courageous and did not make a mockery of mental illness. Third? Anyone with a mental illness would benefit from seeing this movie, especially those with delusional tendencies or severe post traumatic stress syndrome.

I walked into this movie with great trepidation. I didn't think I could handle a movie that made fun of mental illness. I mean, Adam Sandler plus mental breakdown equals funny to most people. If you are going for a comedy, forget this movie. It's not that at all. What it shows is someone who is losing themself, their grip on reality...slowly, one breath at a time...and what happens to us when we don't get help. Worse yet, it shows what happens when we DO get help.

Sometimes, intervention is not needed. A person just needs to be.

I say this because this is where I am at right now. I want to get off my pills. I feel like nothing right now. Nothing. I felt like my illness defined me...and in some peculiar way, I liked that. Now, there is no more mania. There is very little depression and I feel like every other poor dumb useless fuck on the planet. I miss mania with all its hypercreativity. I even miss depression. It gave me an excuse to be alone for awhile and wallow. But now? I wake up on time. I go to work. I function. I exist. That's all I do. Exist. Before, existing was a fight, an everyday uphill battle to succeed. Now? It just sucks. I am normal, except for the fact that I have to take eleven pills every single night to keep me that way. So, am I really me or am I now a manufactured product. ME was mentally ill. ME still IS mentally ill...but was given enough pharmaceuticals to place it on hold when it is inconvenient for me to be sick.

Its like cancer. It doesn't go away. It goes into remission with the right treatments, sure, but somewhere, in your body...it is still lurking, ready and waiting to make a comeback when you least expect it. So, what happens when it all comes back to me? More pills? More therapy? What next? I take anti-halucinogenics to make those whispers go away and the things that I would see crawling on me disappear. Part of Post Traumatic Syndrome, they say. I call bullshit. I say it is just my bipolar disorder worsening. Worsening. Worsening. So, lets cyphon all of the emotions right out of her...til she feels, hears and sees nothing. She still has the same problems...she just has no awareness of them. Geodon, Lamictal, Prozac, Klonopin and Trazadone.

I am a very sick girl, a highly functioning bipolar schizophrenic.

It's a long name. It's a life sentence. Every single night my husband hands me nine pills. Nine. I take two prozac during the day. I take a Trazadone at bedtime and of course, one or two klonipin when I feel the bugs coming back or realize that "they" are still watching me.

When I was allowed to exist without medication? I was so blissfully ignorant of all of this. I just got through whatever the day held for me. Depressed? I slept through it. Manic? I cleaned my house to exhaustion, wrote books, letters, blogged, had sex, exercised...and whatever else I could think of doing. Hypomania would be appreciated right now. Anything. Anything to lift me out of this mundane existance.

This is bad. When I get bored, bad things start to happen. This is when I pick fights, get confrontational, get bad attitudes and become the bane of everyone elses existance. This gets tricky. I do high risk things to whip me into that "rush" feeling. If I knew where to buy cocaine, I'd be using...it's that strong of an urge.

But, I would never replace one drug for another. Adrenaline is my drug. My life is getting so boring. And I feel me, whoever I am, slipping away into the background of mediocrity.