Eye of The Tiger

Chapter Three

I was diagnosed with insomnia and bipolar 1 when I was twenty years old. Insomnia is a sleep disorder that causes people to have difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or both, even if they have time and a bedroom environment conducive to getting restful sleep.
     Bipolar 1 is when a person has manic episodes that last for at least 7 days (nearly every day for most of the day) or by manic symptoms that are so severe that the person needs immediate medical care. The depressive episodes occur as well, usually lasting at least 2 weeks.
     Insomnia has been a big problem for me. I don’t get as much sleep as I should. I usually get 2 to 3 hours of sleep on bad nights and 4 to 5 hours of sleep on good nights. And when I’m manic, my sleep decreases even more. I’ve had a few bad manic episodes over the last few years. The worst one happened last year and resulted in...... Nevermind. The important thing is that I’m on new medication, Zyprexa, and it’s working really good for me. I feel a lot more stable and balanced.
     My mood isn’t that bad anymore. I have less depressive and manic episodes. But keeping a job is still hard at times. I’ve worked at a lot of different places, trying to keep a job and failing miserably. The reason it’s hard is because when I’m good, things are great. But when I’m bad, things are horrible. What I mean by that is when I’m manic, I can feel like super woman and get a lot of things done, including work. But when I’m depressed, I stop doing everything, including work. And I’d end up getting let go from my job.
     But thank goodness, I still have my job as a behavior technician and it’s only part-time. It helps to keep my mind off of my own problems and what happened last year.
***
     When I wake up the next morning, I look at my phone and see that I have 1 missed call from my mother. I take a deep breath and decide to call her back.
“Paige, I’m so glad you called me back honey,” my mother’s loud voice said.
“Hi, mom. How are you?” I ask her quietly. I don’t really feel like talking. But after hearing Emma talk about missing her mom, I feel guilty for some reason. I guess because I still have mine.
“I’m doing good now that I hear your voice. Paige, please don’t worry about what happened when,” she started to say but I cut her off.
“Mom... I know. You don’t have to say it,” I told her.
“Honey, you need to talk about it instead of holding it in. You should know that. It’s not healthy. We’re not judging you. We love you so much and I was hoping that I could come out there and visit you soon,” she says and I let out a quiet sigh.
I knew she would want to eventually.
“Thanks mom. And of course you can come visit me. I’d like that,” I said, and I really meant it. I realized that I did miss mom.
“It’ll be so much fun! We can go shopping, watch movies, have a girl’s night... Just like we used to before,” she said but I stopped her.
“That sounds like fun. Listen mom, I have to go. We’ll make plans for you to visit soon. I have to go now. Love you,” I told her.
“Okay honey. I’m looking forward to it. Love you too,” she said and we hung up.