Follow-up

Yesterday, there was hope.
Today....

Paranoia is already setting in.  As well as my feeling like I need to defend my intense need for freedom.

You know what else is "in-tense"? Boy Scouts.

Man, that joke works better when you just say it aloud.

Apparently nervous tension is also showing its face.  What fun for me!!

Tempted to try taking another anxiety pill, but really it won't do much - besides....is it such a bad thing to have nervous jitters when talking about potentially liking someone?

Oh right. Yes - in fact, it kind of sucks.

In the meantime, getting excited for a holiday weekend! I hope everyone has something to be thankful for.  If you are in the unhappy position of not feeling like you do, please believe me when I say that will eventually change.  There will be a time, probably sooner than you believe, where there will be something worth saying thank you for.

I promise.

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.

So. ANGRY.

I was so so so angry all day today.  I didn't even realize it until all of a sudden at the end of the day when I thought about how physically and emotionally tired I felt.

UGH. Normally I shake things off pretty quickly but I was just so mired in my annoyance and hostility that I couldn't even pull myself out of it enough to realize I was feeling like that.

Note: Listening to Eminem does not help in these situations.

Because of unrealized crankiness, I almost cut out something that could become a good part of my life just because I was feeling the angry exhaustion without knowing there was a cause.  Even if that cause is relatively unjusftified and needless anger - at least it's a cause. I've got to start paying better attention to the signals my insides send myself.

Up/Down

I had a bit of cycling today.  I woke up feeling pretty miserable - exhausted, cranky, sad.  By about 10:00am, I was chipper and giggling, didn't feel the need to eat, kind of reckless - not exactly great at work.  Cut to 2:30pm, back to miserable.  Headache, frustrated, bored, sad.

I made myself listen to happy music on the way home and take a lot of deep breaths and it helped.  I think this is just symptoms of the illness being brought on by shifts in my eating/sleeping (DEFINITELY SLEEPING) schedule this week because of time constraints, it getting dark earlier and knowing winter is coming, and also feeling a bit overloaded and powerless in terms of the whole job thing.

My moods haven't been drastic, nor terribly worrisome, but it does get exhausting switching back and forth which really just exaggerates the problems.  I wouldn't mind being in one mental place, more or less, for a few days.  C'est La Vie.

First Step

Well....I'm very tired today.  Feel like I haven't slept right in weeks.

Sleeping on schedule, in general, but especially when struggling with mental illness, is very important.  It helps keep stress and tension down, promotes a more balanced and schedule lifestle, and promotes overall well-being.

Ok, that's your PSA of the day.  Sorry folks...bit too exhausted to really go on anymore.

Apologies

My apologies for the inconsistency of posting.  Between preparing for the trip, recovering from the trip, getting back into the swing of things at work while trying to look for other work, and having out of state relatives and friends visiting, things have been a bit hectic.

Part of that has also been my reconsidering this blog - not doing it, but what tone I'm trying to take.  Being bipolar isn't a joke, but it can be funny.  It can be absurd and overwhelming and ridiculous and horribly hard, but it's so important to have a sense of humor to ride all of those feelings out.  I feel like this blog has been a little too much of plain dumping ground, and while I want that honesty, I also need to bring a little more perspective in.  I think it's a learning process. We'll see what happens.

In the meantime.....I still have a lot of apples.

Some Important Messages

I'm sure most people are aware now of the "It Gets Better" PSA's that are going on, but here is one of my favorites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GGAgtq_rQc

I think sharing a personal story is one of the most effective ways to reach out to people, especially kids.  Yes, there's still always going to be an element of "But you don't know how bad it is for me"and that's true.  No one can know but you -but once you start sharing and talking....it gets easier.  It's no longer so lonely.  Talking and sharing my struggles is one of my weakest points, I'll admit it, but it is so, so important.  For you and for the people in your life.

Second message:
http://www.signsofsuicide.org/
Please keep in mind, there is a very clear and pretty extreme bias here

I don't agree with everything in that message, but it brings up an important point - while I do depend on medication, I am not in agreement with the overprescription that abounds in the US and while these drugs are here to help, you've always got to keep in mind that they are not the only option and they are being delivered by companies who are out to make money.

Basically, the central message of the day:
It's really really important to think hard about all the choices you make for your life.

Have a great day.

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.

The Blood Test Chronicles

As part of the whole bipolar/being medicated thing, I get to be a pincushion  and have blood tests every 3 months or so to make sure my medication is at theraputic levels and to make sure it's not affecting my body and whatnot too much. It's another superfun aspect of the disorder.

Anyway, since I started my role as pincushion about 3 years ago, I've had an absurd amount of ridiculous stories come out of it.  Almost every single blood test has been it's own crazy adventure and I'd like to share those with all of you.

Here's story 1:

I had recently moved to the area I live in now, recently started with my doctor, and was going for my first blood test in this neighborhood.  I hadn't started working yet so I decided to go during the day to avoid crowds since this lab didn't accept appointments.  Now, as a little background, I have relatively low blood pressure and it's not really the best idea for me to give up a lot of blood.  You know, if I can avoid it.  I meant to go during the morning, but I was being a lazy ass and didn't get going until around 1:00 or so.  I also didn't know if I was supposed to be fasting or not, so I decided to err on the side of caution and hadn't eaten.  Generally, just to get med levels tested it's not necessary, but for a full blood panel, that's standard procedure.  I've been burned before by that rule.

So I make my way to the lab, where despite my careful planning about time, I find the space jam packed full of people and I'm told I can't do anything but sit and wait.  After an hour of this, while my stomach grumbles away, I'm finally called in and hold out my arm to start the draining. For reasons still unbeknownst to me, they ended up taking 6 vials worth of blood, which is a lot comparitively, and it left me feeling not so fresh.  The nurse told me I was looking a little pale and asked if I wanted to stay there for a couple minutes, but at this point I was tired, hungry, and just ready to leave so I said I was fine and walked out. As I was walking to my subway station I started feeling even more tired and woozy and started to get a little nervous about it. I got to the escalator and held on to the side as I headed downstairs and.....
Next thing I know, I'm on the ground with a homeless guy and a cop looking at me from above.  The second I saw that, I wished I would black out again.  The homeless guy looked at me astonished and said, "I saw you fall!  All of a sudden you just keeled over and fell down the last few steps of the escalator." Meanwhile, the cop was giving me a couple of suspicious glances and said, with a meaningful glance at my arm where a very small bruise and needle mark were apparent, "Is everything ok? Is there a problem here?"

I struggled to my feet, bright red and wishing I could sink through the ground, and managed to assure both the cop and the homeless guy I was fine and explained I had just had a blood test on an empty stomach.  Then after getting some water and diet coke from the drugstore, I took my ridiculous self home.

The End....for now.

The Enemy

For me, for my emotional stability, the enemy is boredom.  I cannot be bored because that's when my mind starts working overtime and goes crazy.

I'm not talking boredom like "oh, there's not much going on at work" or "Sunday afternoon and I'm just sitting around".  While I can be bored during those times as well, that's a temporary boredom and quite frankly, isn't a major problem for me.  I've always been pretty good at entertaining myself and am quite content to just sit by myself - during periods of mental stability, anyway.

When I say I can't be bored, I mean that I must always have something going on - a project, an idea, something to occupy my time and my mind all the time.  Something I can always have in the back of my head to work on and think about, even while I'm doing other things.  It fills the empty spaces.  Usually, it's something personal, something I'm interested in and have a desire to do or learn about.  It lets me have something to look forward to, to dream about and think about.  It gives me hope. Even if I'm having an off day or if I'm floating too far off in a world of my own, it's a concrete thing that will anchor me, even if it's only in my head.

Boredom makes me my own enemy.