I have a few secrets. One, I used to steal when manic. Yeah, I knew it was wrong, but I was so sick I didn't care. I stopped before I hit age 18; I could probably blame the antidepressant for that, because, as I look back, it stopped when they took me off that antidepressant.
An antidepressant by itself, for a bipolar person, is very, very, bad. It sends us into orbit. Our mood stabilizer is our thermostat, it keeps us from going too far in either direction, and tempers the manic effects of an antidepressant.
My other secret, probably the darkest one, and one I have not shared on here until now: I used to pick at the soles of my feet with a safety pin. I started by picking at a wart, on my left ring finger. I really used to worry I could never marry, until I got rid of the wart. One day it just peeled off.
So, I went after my fingernails.
When I was about 10, I bought a pair of nail clippers. I realized I could clip the skin around my nails, then pick at it as it grew back. My hands were always a mess.
I imagine my therapists could ascertain my stress levels, just by viewing my hands. I could probably tell you my state of mind if you showed me an old photo of my hands.
Anyway, as I got older, the depression worsened, and as I went into 8th grade I picked up a bully, Scott. He was pretty relentless. I had him in several classes, and his name and mine were sequential for an alphabetic system, so I always sat behind him. He used to make cruel comments to me for hours a day. He wasn't the only one.
One day, I found myself with a safety pin. I opened it and started using it to dig at the skin on the soles of my feet. I'd make a flap, and then pull at the flap. Then I'd do it again. Now, my feet were a mess, too.
I'd pick at my acne, too, but I think every teen does that. At least, the ones who don't care about scarring (not that mine is bad, as you can see from my photos). I had a tremendous amount of stress and the picking really seemed to take the edge off.
The problem of course, I had a limited work area. I never moved on to anything else like cutting, but sometimes my feet were so sore it hurt to walk. Everytime I got stressed, I'd start to pick.
I have to say, the picking abated when I was taken off the antidepressant. I remember one day I had some blisters when I worked with Ron, and I just stared at them, thinking "I don't want to pick".
Now, I do everything possible to value my feet. I wear comfortable shoes. When working with Ron, I wear steel toed shoes, so he can't run over my feet in his wheelchair (happens pretty often). I never, ever, wear heels, because they hurt my feet. If I want to hurt my feet, I might as well start picking again.
I stare in bafflement at women who wear high-heeled shoes to discount stores, grocery stores, or, my favorite, the bus stop. I once saw a woman wearing high heels, and using a walker. She kept falling over, only to save herself by catching the handles. It was apparent she was in great pain, but she wanted to wear the "pretty" shoes.
I hated the one job where I was required to wear heels, and circumvented the policy by wearing low-heeled wedges, instead. When I did distance running, I spent my money on comfortable men's running shoes, because the women's shoes were tight and painful.
A Nigerian immigrant once told me he knew I was happily married. I hadn't even spoken a word to him, didn't wear a ring, and rode the bus solo. "How do you know?"
"You are wearing comfortable shoes" he expostulated "A happy, married, woman always wears the comfortable shoes. The unhappy married, or single women, wear the high-heeled fancy shoes."
I thought it was a very interesting theory.
And now you know my big secret.
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