Ups and downs

I don't understand these ups and downs.  How I can be so alive at night but so dead during the day. I find hope in planning for the future but it's difficult to do when your partner in life isn't on the same page. My discussions on retirement with my spouse seems to be a trigger for his insecurities. After 15 years he's really brought to light that we do not have the same interests or goals.  As a matter of fact I don't recall ever hearing him set any goals. He lives in the moment which is fun but we're not in our early 20s anymore. I manage a tax office and see many seniors who live solely on OAS and CPP.  That's not a life. You work your entire life to retire and live. I'm tired of this small community in this tiny corner of the world. I want to see the rest of it. I don't want to spend the rest of my life 9 to 5 until the day I die. I think of my life and it's not what I want. The monotony of it all.  A never-ending war with myself every morning and the anxiety of leaving the house it's like breaking down a brick wall every morning. The fight against the hands on the clock to make it to the store first and then to work on time and hoping that the car is going to start in the dead of winter, it's like I hold my breath until I make it to my destination. Hoping no one says anything to set me off because in that moment I don't know how I'm going to react. I fight with the present and dream of a future to give me hope to fight with these mood swings and battle my anxiety everyday but I'm not living. I'm just hoping for that day I can start to live. I feel alive in a wind storm when the cold rain hits me. I'm alive when I'm in tune with nature---when the waves roar on the beach while the sun sets. I'm alive when I'm lost in the brush and have to find my way back. I'm alive when there's some sense of adventure. When I was a teenager I would just disappear for months. I would hop on the bus and go to Toronto without knowing where I was going to stay.  When I was a kid I wanted to hop on trains and live the life of a gypsy.  When I got older I just wanted to back pack through Europe. I never wanted the stereotypical because I'm not stereotypical. Trying to blend with people is like lying through my teeth. 90% of my day consists of me being depressed and faking a smile. It's become painful and difficult to the point that I call off work on average once every two weeks. On average once a week I burst into tears on and off over the course of the day for no reason other than I'm just inexplicably sad. Other days Im alert and hyper and ramble a mile a minute to the point where my clients ask me to slow down. They must think I'm on crack. But I'm not. I drink everyother day because weed I find makes me paranoid. I'm having a hard time finding a good perspective on life. You live you work and you die and deal with bullshit in between.  It's cut and dry but it's fact. I have no other interests other than making it through the day so I can get up and do it all over again. But I have dreams. I don't think I'm ever really awake. I think that's why I took such interest in that poem A Dream Within a Dream Edgar Allan Poe. I still have it memorized from eighth grade! I made the honour roll that year with a 98% in science in spite of missing half the school year.  I used to get panic attacks before leaving the house to go to school or anywhere else really. My palms would sweat and I would hyperventilate. I was never diagnosed with a social anxiety disorder but I feel it's safe to assume. The anxiety subsided some when I started smoking weed. You can lessen the intensity of the anxiety but you're only burying it. I have had anxiety ever since I can remember. There is not a prescription in the world that can help you.  Ultimately it's due to a fear of trusting people. It's a fear you have to face everyday. Some people are afraid of spiders. That's every now and then you need to face that fear. That's as simple as walking or looking the other way or having someone else kill it for you. But when you have to face people everyday and deal with the anxiety of it everyday of your life for 35 years it is mentally physically and emotionally exhausting. I've attempted suicide three times. I even kept the rope in my closet.  I lived on the 13th floor of an appartment building and I would wake up 5am every morning and tie that fucking thing around my neck then to the balcony climb on a chair but I could never do it. When I was 16 I asked for help and was thrown a box of pills. I have sought help for so many years. I'm now 35 and found out two weeks ago that I'm bipolar. After that many fucking years of being told I was attention seeking or that if the pills didn't work there was clearly nothing wrong with me or that I'm level headed. I know I'm fucking level headed. And I know I'm fucking smart. That's not the problem. It's me against me and there is no way around it. I used to write a lot then and ive recently gotten back into it. I find it helps to sort your thoughts out especially considering three quarters of the time your mind is racing and you head is spinning and nothing is making sense like Alice in fucking Wonderland. Not having a label for any of this or understanding it I described it as an inner child screaming because she was oppressed and sometimes she would get the better of me and take control. When you try to suppress your emotions for so long they burst out of you with such an exaggerated intense force that you can no longer control. That inner thing can send you for a loop.  Multiple sexual partners drug and alcohol abuse and being a runaway. That's how I coped. That's how I got into a lot of trouble. When you're a teenager it's more acceptable. When youre 35 and married with two kids and no license because you have this rediculous fear of killing someone on the road and you have a social anxiety disorder, where do you go to escape? It's frustrating. Especially when you need to keep your shit together in front of your kids. I'm lost and living the same life on loop because I don't know how else to be. My husband says I need to get out more. He's a social butterfly who lives in the moment. I'm socially inept and prefer to live in a dream.