New Start

Dating and relationships are hard under the best of circumstances.  Being bipolar - well, I wouldn't call it the best of circumstances.  I generally shy away from anything that might be a romantic connection because I hate the idea of wondering how they feel, how I feel, if I can control my moods around them, and if I should tell them - hey, I'm crazy.  There is NO good time to bring that up.  Someone let me know if you've found otherwise.

The stress of it actually can be a trigger for me and make me uberparanoid.  About everything.  I also have serious doubts about my ability to withstand heartbreak.  Now, I know I don't need to enter every relationship thinking about the what ifs and jumping into the future...but quite frankly, I find it fairly difficult to just completely ignore it.  To some degree, I must be utterly girly and overanalyze.  But because I hate this, I usually avoid it.

Usually.  Recently, in an effort to take more chances and to determine what it is I want and like in my life, I agreed to meet a couple new people.  One of whom I met tonight.

All I can say is I am certainly glad I did. We will see what happens.

So I don't believe in god*

or any other higher beings, so to speak.  I believe there are things humanity doesn't understand and certain mysteries....but yeah.  In my set of beliefs, a celestial or group of celestial beings doesn't really factor in.  I spent a lot of time and effort coming to that conclusion and while it's not always the most comfortable, it is what has made sense and continues to make sense for me.

Don't be fooled though - in a nice atheistic twist, I do pray.  Not to anything, not with the expectation of being heard and definitely not with hopes of an answer.  For me, prayer is really a way for me to speak to myself.  I hear voices, not in the schizophrenic way although hey....I'm not ruling anything out, but in a way that the various aspects of myself are reflected and together they suss out for what I'm looking for. It's a way for me to determine my wishes, whatever they may be.

Today....today, my prayer is to have the courage to live life beyond it's boundaries and to exist outside the lines.

Wondrous Wednesday

This sums up a lot of things for me right now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6vVR63iwMg&p=E206F8B11787820B&playnext=1&index=69

I'm really loving this video.  Not only do I love Modest Mouse and especially this song, I'm fascinated by the images the creator(s) chose to go along with the song.

Please note I in no way own this video, the music, or any images.  No copyright infringement intended.

Living Life

When watching tv with my roommate tonight, something came up that reminded me that when I was high school, I went through a pretty intense phase of wanting to drop out of school and start living what I considered an "adult" life.  It actually got to the point where I brought it up with my mother a couple times, which is a sign of what a big deal it was as during that time, I was not highly communicative and especially not with my family.
I bet you anything my mom doesn't remember this at all.

The thing is, I wasn't part of a circle where it was part of the social norm, or structure I guess, for people to drop out of high school. Really quite the opposite I went to a fairly prestigious all girls private boarding school where most of the student body came from well-off families and dropping out....well it really just wasn't done.  And it most certainly wasn't done in my family.  I didn't want to quit because I disliked my school; I actually really enjoyed going there and I had a lot of friends.  What I started to hate was the idea of being in school, of continuing to learn what I was told to learn, and then the idea of living the prescribed lifestyle of college and business job and etc., etc.  I was never a big fan of school as I found it boring, but I was able to deal with it and focus on all the other parts of school (besides classes) I did enjoy.  I think I just became afraid I would be bored for the rest of my life.  That's actually I fear I still have - being bored for too much of my life.

I remember thinking that I would be entirely satisfied by moving to some tiny town, getting whatever job was around, and just living my life.  Perhaps I would have been.  But I sincerely doubt it would have been as smooth and easy as I kept projecting in my head.  It's easy to glamorize things when you're not having to live them.

Answer to everything

I am, at the best of times, considered to be a bit "absent-minded".  Also a bit...quirky and...odd.  Probably not much more than other people, but quite likely more publicly especially when with my good friends.
This is where being bipolar comes in handy - I get to laugh about it and anytime I'm called out to answer my oddities...I simply have to say, "because I'm crazy" or some variation thereof.  It works so well for so many things!! Examples:

"Why did you leave the bag of rice in your bedroom?" - Cause I'm crazy.
"Why won't you eat the first piece of cheese?" - Dude that shit weirds me out.  And I'm crazy.
"Who are you talking to?" - Myself. Bitch, I told you I be crazyy! (ok, I've actually never said that - but along those lines)

The thing is, I never mean it seriously.  I mean, I am crazy - but it's not using my bipolarness as an excuse.  It's just fun to me that I get to be light-hearted about it and make fun of myself.  I like laughing, I like to find the positive or ridiculousness in something and this does it for me.

Because I'm crazy

STRESS, Stress, stress

Stress is another enemy of mine, although I believe this one to be much more universal.  Stress can have a major effect on mood and on physical health without people even really realizing.  And if you're bipolar, stress is one of the major triggers for an episode.

I'm generally a pretty laid-back person and there isn't a lot that phases me.  I tend to have pretty high anxiety levels but that has more to do with I'm a worrier more than I actually get stressed out.  However, because of this, I usually don't realize when stress is building and I have a tendency to ignore it until...well, until I simply can't anymore and either feel it physically or just shut down. I basically have to be forced to recognize it.

Well, today...today, I had a moment of realization that I getting close to a breaking point.  I'm heading to Europe for a trip in a couple of weeks with 5 friends, and while I'm extremely excited, it's been close to a year of planning and I'm just at this point of having to think of all the tiny details and figuring out what I need to bring and figuring out currency and making sure I have enough money....and well, the list goes on and on.  Added to that, a variety of things at work, and naturally, it's at this point in time that basically all the electronic equipment in my life has decided to up and quit on me.  My laptop was an issue that took me over a month to get resolved and while it is now, that was a huge interruption in my life.  Then a couple weeks after that, my very much beloved Nikon D70 started flashing error messages at me.  Because I was so wrapped up in my computer drama, I didn't address it nearly as soon as I should have, although in all honesty, it would only have given me an edge of about 3 days.

I sent it to Nikon for servicing because when I called in the issue, the rep. told me it sounded like a known problem and they had a service advisory, meaning I wouldn't have to pay for repairs.  However, today I received an email detailing the issues and asking me to authorize the repairs....for 300 dollars. I kind of lost it.  I love my camera and I need my camera...but 300 dollars? I could essentially buy another camera body for that money...which is also money I'm really not looking to spend right now seeing as I'm going to Europe.  I couldn't breathe and I immediately started to feel my whole body tense up and my mind begin to race.  I felt a huge surge of rage at the circumstances and also body-trembling panic at the thought that I might not have a camera for my trip. It just all felt like way too much and I couldn't even gather my senses enough to deal with anything.

So that lasted for a ridiculous and annoying 10 minutes or so until I finally calmed down, started breathing normally again, and just decided to deal with it and move on.  I can only do what I can.  So I called Nikon, asked them to check again to make sure my issue wasn't the same as the one that the service advisory warned about.  In the meantime, since there's no way they'll get it back to me before I leave, I started looking into used camera bodies and have realized I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and pay for it - that's what credit cards and hoping for a raise is for.
Life is short and money is just money.....or so I keep telling myself anyway...

I calmed down and I feel relatively under control...but I'm annoyed that kind of stress got the better of me. Ef that.

Roses are red, violets are blue... F*** you, whore

Every time I've flipped through all the cable channels lately, I've run across (500) Days of Summer - which is where the above line came from.  I saw it when it was out in theatres, saw it again since then when a friend rented it, and now I catch bits and pieces of it whenever it's been on lately.  I really like it - but at the same time, each time I watch it, I wonder if I can sit through certain parts of it again. Basically, any of the parts that so excellently capture the unhappiness and uncertainty that relationships and life can have. I just feel so much empathy for the characters that it can be hard to watch, even though it's so worth it.

Tonight, because I basically didn't have anything else to do and because my netflix instant play was on the fritz and I didn't know how to fix it, when I was going through the channels and saw that it was coming on in a few minuts, I decided to stay on the channel and watch the whole thing through.  (p.s. if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm one of those people who can watch/listen to things over and over and over again). When I was watching it, it struck me how often the more negative emotional scenes were the funniest scenes in the film.  Again, see title above.  Now, I realize part of this is to keep the film from being overly maudlin and to keep good pacing, and also just because the writers were clearly clever, but I think it can also be true in real life.

Our more negative emotions, especially when we indulge them, can frequently lead to the ridiculous and also to a lot of honesty, shadowed by emotion though it may be.  At least mine do.  It's not a bad thing, it's just when I'm feeling certain ways, I tend to be a lot more blindly honest and because it's so real, it can be a lot funnier.  Barriers are gone and so is the expected.

It's a good movie is basically what I'm saying.

The Formal Introduction

Greetings, All!

So, after a little bit of an accidental mini-break, I am back on my meds and RIP-RARIN' TO GO!
Well, sort of.  Close enough anyway.

Let's start this journey!

This is the first day of my blog, and I must admit, I am pretty excited about it.  I figured with the restarting of all my meds and whatnot, as well as generally trying to bring a little more structure into my life, this could be a really good thing for me and hopefully, not just for me.  There's a lot that can be read about Bipolar Disorder(s) and information on meds, therapies, etc., but it's a little harder to get the personal perspective and to me, that feeling of connection, of recognition of someone else's words has always been beyond reassuring.  They've been straws to grasp at.

Melodrama aside and speaking of medication, here's the nitty-gritty:
I'm diagnosed as Bipolar II - meaning instead of full-blown mania, I tend to cycle into hypomania which is similar, but generally less intense and usually doesn't tip over into full delusion - more along the lines of lots of energy and desire for chaos.  I'm sure this will get discussed more in-depth as I go along.

I'm also considered to be rapid-cycling. Basically, I go back and forth from hypomania and depression very quickly - sometimes in a matter of days, even hours.  For those who are unfamiliar, that doesn't mean that I'm bouncing back and forth all the time, 365 days a year.  I have periods of non-extremes as well.  Those just aren't as worth talking about :)

The medications I'm currently on are Lithium, Lamictal, Wellbutrin, Klonopin and Restoril.  For me, the Klonopin and Restoril, while generally taken every day, don't need to be and are kind of on an as-needed basis to deal with anxiety and insomnia, respectively.  The rest are  musts every day.  This is just my personal medicinal schedule and what has been prescribed to me.  Please don't assume this will also work for you.  Also, please don't come find me and rob me for my pills.  I need them.

So anyway, those are the basics of my disorder. Good to know, but really just the background to what this is about - the day to day life of a Bipolar. It's pretty crazy.