out of control

just before the end of today's appointment with tdoc, she asked a question that I can't even remember, and in answering her, I said that I felt as if everything was out of control. And then did a mental double take, because I had no idea where that came from or why. Been bothering me all day since, because I've always figured that I had full control of my life, barring the standard sort of things; car crashes, taxes, invasion by aliens.... whatever the external issues might be.

The rest? I have always been lucky enough to have intelligence, a close and loving family, enough skills to keep myself employed in a well-paid job - or for it to have been my choice when I was doing other things. I thought about the parts of my life as it is now. I still have all those gifts, but they don't mean any kind of success any more. They are gifts. Not things I have earned in any real way. And I haven't used them properly, either.

And all the other areas that feel inevitable too; the steady withdrawal from real-life relationships, from day-to-day interaction with people, from things that I used to enjoy. The regular, steady drinking just to take the hurting edge off. The insulation of getting fatter every year, so that it seems sufficient reason not to involve myself in things....

I don't know why it suddenly surfaced as the revelation of the day, but ultimately, there's only one thing that I really don't have any kind of control over. And that's this whole depression / bipolar / madness..... whatever label I give it, it's the real issue underlying everything else. It's the one thing that never goes away, that consumes more of who I really am every year, that lets me take two steps forward before it drags me down the entire f-ing flight of stairs. Everything else is just the decoration on the bipolar cake, and no matter what I do to change things, to make healthy lifestyle choices, nothing changes the rottenness underneath.

I have to believe that the meds will make a difference sooner or later, and that pdoc's skills will find the right ones. That seeing tdoc will help until then. That if I keep trying to do more good things and less of the destructive ones, it will help too.

But on a day like today, where I caught myself holding the dude and just inhaling his scent, and all the longing and the isolation and the eternity of the last few years seemed too much...... yeah, guess I am out of control. Only thing left to see is whether this train makes the next station before it derails for good...