Today is the second straight day I woke up with this feeling – no, it’s deeper than a feeling – that I had done something wrong.

Back in the days before I was diagnosed with depression and before I quit drinking, I woke with this feeling – sensation – every morning. Every single morning. A heaviness in my chest. My mind racing to find a wrong and them chomp onto it like a pit bull.

Often, there was a wrong. I drank too much the night before. I was a rotten mom. I had lost it with a public official I was interviewing for a story. If I could not find a wrong, I threw the back of my hand to my brow and indulged my impending martyrdom: my husband (now ex-) neglected, disrespected and ignored me; it’s sooooo hard being a working mom; must I do everything around here?

And if that didn’t explain the feeling in my chest, I could nibble on a resentment which marinated overnight: Will you look at those rich, thin, beautiful women? They are so ignorant and vapid!; Of course I would rather be home in an apron, backing chocolate chip cookies and watching Oprah but some of us women HAVE to work; Oh, great: They promoted another white guy.

This is what the brain of a dysthymic alcoholic sounds like. Constantly searching for the bad in every person and situation. Fuel for a miserable life and major depression. Then I quit drinking, began therapy and started taking antidepressants and mood stabilizers.

The clouds parted. I learned to identify rather than compare. I was taught how to stay on my side of the street and to make an amends. But the most important lesson I learned was the difference between guilt and shame: Guilt is the feeling that comes from having done something bad; Shame is the belief that you are inherently bad.

Guilt and shame were so tightly intertwined in my psyche that I often could not distinguish one from another. Did I do something bad or do I think I am bad? Hmmmmm. If I had done something bad I need to …

It is 5:23 am. I have a been up for 1/2-an-hour. I have a hellish day in front of me.

I have been given the inane task of creating an interactive database and posting it on the paper’s website as quickly as possible – which is never quick enough for my editors. They tip-toe up behind me – because I have a startle issue and I jump six-feet in the air when my concentration is broken – and they ask “How’s it going?” Over and over this will happen – tip-toe, jump, question – tip-toe, jump, question – tip-toe, jump, question.

“It’s going,” I will tell them.

Creating and deploying interactive databases on our website is NOT in my job description. It is part of the job description of a woman who is on VACATION. I am in investigative reporter. I am not supposed to be doing this – how shall I say? CRAP!

A couple of years ago – before I was diagnosed with hypomania and prescribed a mood stabililzer – this situation would have sent me richter. Back then, editors tip-toed up behind me hoping to dodge the wrath of Christine. If you are not bipolar – even mildly bipolar like me – you probably cannot understand the significance of my current reaction to this situation.

Yesterday, I vented to a couple of co-workers, who actually listened without looking like I was about to punch them. Even after my computer crashed and was whisked away by the computer guy, I did not explode. I sighed, not realizing that my editor’s, editor’s editor was standing behind me. “I heard that sigh,” he joked. “Just breathe.”

“Hey, I’m cool. Bob is the one doing the Lamaze breathing,” I said – making all of us smile – even Bob, who sits next to me, endures my whining and still offers to help me.

You are probably reading this, thinking “Man, what a self-righteous bee-otch. She should be grateful to have a job.” You are absolutely correct. The funny thing is, I actually am capable of having that thought today. This would not have crossed my mind several years ago – before the mood …

I have not been a fan of hip-hop/rapper Eminem (aka Marshall Mathers). There is something about artists who espouse misogyny, homophobia and racism that kinda grinds me. Especially when they do so in the name of “art.” I respect and defend his right to do so. But I do not like his art or the influence it has on his 10-year-old followers.

All that changed this morning. In an interview on the cover of the Arts & Leisure section in the New York Times Mathers speaks about his addiction, depression, recovery, art and why it all matters.

“I don’t know if I’m exposing myself,” Mathers told the reporter. “I’m kind of just coming clean and exhaling.” Yes, Marshall, you ARE exposing yourself. And I admire the hell out of you for doing it. It’s one thing for someone like me – a middle-aged journalist – to speak openly about my alcoholism, depression and bipolar. It’s another thing for someone like Mathers to come clean.

Recovery from any addiction does not change WHO your are. It changes WHAT you are. Mathers gets this. He is still Eminem and Slim Shady. But he is no longer a selfish, self-absorbed and self-righteous addict who used the First Amendment and his art as an excuse for his addict-behavior.

Losing your identity is among the greatest fears of a recovering addict or alcoholic. Who am I without my drugs and alcohol? Will I still be liked? Will I still be cool? Will I be able to do what I did before without drugs and alcohol. Mathers, God bless his little bad-ass heart, answered all those questions in this article.

“I was the worst kind of addict – a functioning addict,” Mathers told the reporter. “I was so deep into my addiction at some point that I could not picture myself doing anything without some kind of drug.”
Exactly. Whether it is sober dancing or sober sex, this is a huge fear for us and was for Mathers, too.
“The deeper I got into my addiction the tighter the lid got on my creativity. When I got sober, the lid just came off,” Mathers said. The …

Here is my problem with exercise: I am addicted.

My “food issues” love exercise because I can eat more without gaining weight. My mania loves exercise because exercise is – well – manic. My alcoholism loves exercise because you can’t be a drunk if you can run that far and fast before 6 am. Even my depression loves exercise because the sports I like – swimming, cycling, running, weight training – I do alone.

I have promised my therapist that I will not exercise more than four times a week (scuba diving does not count. It’s just floating). But it’s not easy when everyone around you says, “Well, if you gotta have an addiction it might as well be exercise” or “Boy, I wish I had that addiction” or “At least you have a healthy addiction.”

What is a “healthy” addiction?

It has been nearly 11 years since I had a drink or a drug but I still struggle with my exercise addiction. Actually, I’m lying. I don’t struggle with my exercise addiction. My therapist struggles with my exercise addiction. That’s the problem. Despite years of sobriety, my addict brain can still convince me that this addiction is better than that addiction. Sure, I look a heckuva lot better than a crack addict, but we are both addicts. Any addiction – to drugs, alcohol, food or behaviors – is toxic to me, my depression and bipolar.

I can easily – and have – been addicted to my work. If I am not careful, I could become addicted to that TV show House. Why am I torqued about this right now? Because every night about this time – 9:30 – I start thinking about tomorrow’s workout. If it is Wednesday night I start planning for Thursday 7 am boot camp. Some people decide what they are going to wear tomorrow. I decide what I am going to work out – abs, glutes, biceps…

I like to think that today I have a handle on my exercise addiction. Back in the days when I did triathlon and ran marathons I worked out six, sometimes seven days a week. Sometimes twice a day. I …

There is something to be said for taking suggestions. The last thing I wanted to do on Saturday morning was go to the beach with my girlfriends. I wanted to stay in bed. But my therapist said I needed to get out and attend a codependency group and there was one at the beach Saturday morning.

It was a gorgeous morning but I sat in the back seat in silence, flat, numb and wiping the occasional tear. “I don’t really want to talk,” I told one of my girlfriends when she asked if I was okay.

Here is the really annoying thing about depression: You go some place that everyone thinks will make you happy and the happy place makes you even more miserable. Then you get frustrated because you KNOW you should be happy at the beach with friends on a beautiful Saturday morning.
You are standing on the exact same stretch of sand as that couple holding hands and those teenagers throwing a frisbee. So, why am I so miserable in the same stunning environment that makes everyone else so happy?

In fact, YOU were on the same stretch of beach a couple of weeks ago and you felt great. Everything – the sand, the sun, the smell of suntan lotion – is exactly the same as it was two weeks ago. How can I possibly have such a different reaction when everything is completely the same? Intellectually, I understand it is my depression. The chemicals and hormones in my brain are out of whack. But emotionally I beat myself up.

This time, I surrendered to the suggestions of my friends, therapist and psych nurse. I got a really good night’s sleep with the prescription sleep-aid from my nurse and adjusted my meds exactly as she had instructed. I stayed close to my friends, who respected my silence and understoood my need for company. I went to the meetings my therapist suggested. I made mental lists of the upside of all the downturns in my life lately. I stayed away from my Sarah McLaughlin CDs. I even went to my book club dinner for the first time …

It starts like this: the muscles in my face, just below my eyes and around my mouth, go completely slack. The top and back of my eyeballs ache and an exhausting dull pressure deposits itself on each temple. I am tired. Very, very tired. I just want to curl up in a fetal position in my bed, under my covers, and sleep. But life goes on. I have stuff to do. So, I do the stuff I have to do, with my long face and empty eyes. Sometimes I just stare. If you asked, I would have to really think what time and day it is. I want to be alone – except for my dog. I am sliding and I know it. I wake up and tell myself this is going to be a good day. And it is, for a couple hours. Then I start sliding. Sometimes I run home at lunch for a nap. I drink coffee and Diet Pepsi to stay awake. I don’t look at people when I talk to them. I look past them.

Wednesday my editor called me into her office. She knows me and my illnesses. She gets it. Several years ago, upon returning from a two month leave after a deep depression, I asked her to spot me. Keep an eye on me. Reel me in when you first see me start to slide. Please.

“You asked me to let you know. You are flat,” she said. “I see you’re having trouble focusing.” Gently, she asked me to call my doctor. I reluctantly agree. 

“Today?” she asked.

“Yes,” I sighed. “I hate this.”

“Why? Because it means you’re not perfect?” she asked – not sarcastic but genuinely concerned.

“No,” I told her. “If there is one thing I know it is that I am not perfect.” I have two divorces and a string of bad relationships to prove it. 

“I just hate this,” I explained. I hate having depression and bipolar. I hate that every time something bad happens to me, I can’t seem to control myself and my emotions like other people. I hate that I get so sad and scared. I hate …

I hate alcoholism. Everything about alcoholism I loathe. It is evil. It is toxic. It kills, robs and cheats. It has devastated my life. 

I direct my anger and rage toward the illness and not the people afflicted with it. That is not to say alcoholism is an excuse for bad behavior. It is an explanation. Alcoholics, like myself, must make amends for our wrongs – whether we were under the influence or under the influence of the “isms” that turn us into human napalm bombs – scorching and maiming the lives of the innocent who just happened to be in our way.

Even ten years after my last drink this disease still afflicts me. I will never, ever be cured. And I must never, ever forget that. I still make choices in my sobriety that are wittingly and unwittingly driven by this disease. Sometimes I watch myself do it. Like watching myself hold my hand over a flame, knowing I will get burned but doing it anyway. “Why?” I ask myself. I knew the consequences but still I continue to put my hand over the flame.

After years of taking suggestions and working a program I have come to think of my disease as an alien hibernating in my body. For days and months it sleeps. I make healthy sober decisions. My depression and bipolar are in check and I avoid situations or relationships that will disturb my serenity, sobriety depression and bipolar. Then, like that little alien in Sigourney Weaver’s chest in the movie Alien, that evil little guy unexpectedly awakens and rips through my chest, teeth-bared, writhing, thirsty and clawing at my other mental illnesses.

I am left stunned and wagging my head: “What the hell was that?” “Where did that come from?” It never ends. I must be constantly vigilant. I must test my motives, like a diabetic tests her blood. 

It has taken years, and many raging swings of a foam bat against a pillow, to separate the disease from the nasty words, neglect and embarrassment caused by my own alcoholism and the alcoholics in my life. I think of my parents’ cancer, and how …

My therapist says I am “isolating.” I tell her I am not. I just like to be alone. “No,” she says. “You are isolating.” “No,” I say. “I just like to be alone.”

We go back and forth like this for awhile. Then she tell me that I have been isolating my whole life and reels off a few examples. Once again, she is right. When I was 7-years-old we moved from northern Wisconsin to Southwest Michigan. I went from being a pig-tailed tomboy in a small rural town to the new kid in a town with country clubs and summer cottages and family vacations to Vail. We belonged to the Elks Club, our summer vacations were to our relatives’ farms and a veil was something girls had to wear on their head during Mass. 

So, I took up competitive swimming. The perfect sport for a kid who doesn’t fit in. You get to be with other kids but you don’t have to talk – in fact, you can’t talk. The fashion-playing field is leveled. Speedo made only a few bathing suits back in those days: A bathing suit was a bathing suit. I kicked butt, swimming butterfly for the blue ribbons as much as to pummel the country-club kids who made fun of our vending machines and “rustic” locker rooms.

In seventh-grade I transferred from a middle-class Catholic school where we all wore the same uniforms, to a public junior high-school where kids wore button-down collared shirts, corduroy Levis and sweaters tied around their necks. I took up solitary pastimes, like reading, writing, listening to my albums and playing the guitar. I tried to fit in but always felt left out – until I discovered alcohol, which made me the life of the party.

The first two years of college I fenagled my own dorm-room. I lived alone, but among a floor of other co-eds. I felt most comfortable in either a bar or the library – where I was not expected or encouraged to carry on a conversation.  Even today, a library is my favorite public venue. It took decades to find a hair salon that didn’t make me …

It looks like a teacher caught sexting a 14-year-old student at a Christian high school might use the bi-polar defense.  I read the story this morning. Geneva Henry, the 29-year-old mother of three kids under 8, admitted to police that she sent lewd text messages to the student but “blamed” her behavior on bipolar.

 It makes perfect sense to me. That is classic behavior of a bipolar 29-year-old mother of three caught in a manic episode. I am not saying Geneva is innocent. But I am not going to roll my eyes at the first whiff of a mental-illness defense either. For some reason we consider paranoid schizophrenia a valid mental-illness defense. But not bipolar. Why? Because most people do not understand the episodic features of bipolar.

 “Expansiveness, unwarranted optimism, grandiosity and poor judgment often lead to an imprudent involvement in pleasurable activities such as…sexual behavior unusual for the person, even thought these activities are likely to have painful consequences…Ethical concerns may be disregarded even by those who are typically very conscientious…” according to the DSM-IV.

Even worse, many people don’t accept that this is a REAL illness. People with tuberculosis often cough. People with bipolar often act bizarre and break the law.I am not saying we should forgive the bipolar their trespasses as we forgive the paranoid schizophrenic for theirs.  But let’s not label bipolar a Twinkie-defense. Let’s give bipolar and Geneva their day in court. 

I am probably in the worst occupation for a middle-aged, bipolar woman with depression and alcoholism: reporter at a daily newspaper. I live with perpetual deadlines. I must be creative and productive under pressure. I am constantly bombarded with the sound of police scanners, telephones, reporters and editors hashing out stories. I don’t write happy stories. The people I write about have either done something wrong, had something wrong done to them, were caught doing something wrong or witnessed something go wrong. Sometimes it seems they all want to yell at me. Sometimes I wish I covered golf or fishing. 

At ground zero during the November 2000 election recount, I developed a muscle spasm in my left eye. By March 2001 I was in the hospital with pneumonia, exhausted after weeks of reporting about hanging and pregnant chads. Speaking of pregnant, I worked 12-hour days as the lead reporter on the William Kennedy Smith rape case – pregnant and stupid enough to miss my last trimester check-ups rather than miss a day in court. I gave birth 10 days after the verdict. 

I do not have an off-switch.

Of course if my illnesses could speak, they would tell you that I have the perfect job. Little Miss Bipolar would tell you how exhilarating journalism is – your mind has to race to keep up with what is going on and the constant stream of tension and anger is so invigorating! Mr. Alcoholic would remind you that every good journalist has a bottle in the drawer and every good newspaper has a bar across the street. And my depression would tell you how grateful she is for the endless supply of stress, sleep-deprivation and racing thoughts – washed down with a stiff one after deadline.

I have been committing journalism for so long – almost 30 years – that this lifestyle, pace and drama seem normal to me. I don’t respect my stress because I don’t recognize it as stress. It’s my life. I am used to it. But that does not mean it is right or good. It isn’t. I learned that after my last major depression three years …