Letting Yourself Not Be Okay, But Don't Beat Yourself Up About It

I had a "moment" today.

I hadn't had my Lithium in 3 days because my pharmacy wasn't able to refill my prescription until four days later. I should have transferred my prescription to another pharmacy sooner, but I thought I'd be okay to wait. By Day 2 without Lithium I was having severe headaches. By Day 3, I was crying for no reason. At least it felt like no reason. It could be I was feeling really stupid and beating myself up about not getting my medication sooner.

I was able to get my medicine today (Day 3), and I've taken it. So I should start feeling better.

Emotions are tricky. Usually what happens with me is I'll start crying and then get angry at myself for crying for no reason. I talked to my boyfriend about how I was feeling and he suggested I should call my therapist or my doctor tomorrow. My sister called before she came home and was sweet enough to bring me a Passion Tea Lemonade from Starbucks. This seemed to help me calm down and it also helped to talk to her, and she distracted me by showing me some clothes she'd bought.

I'm glad I have people around me who I can count on to be there for me when I start feeling a little off. I also know better then to go without taking Lithium for so long. I should start feeling better in a couple of days I hope.

So today I'm simply trying to not beat myself up about what happened this weekend.

How do you cope when things don't go the way you had hoped they would?

Cruising the Caribbean: One of the Best Vacations

Hi everyone!

I just got back Saturday from a cruise with my boyfriend. It was amazing!

I was worried I might find it stressful, because sometimes travelling for me turns out to be a mess, especially when it involves a long amount of time away from home. That can mess up my routine, and in turn affect my mental health.

This vacation was definitely different from other vacations. It helped that the ship becomes your temporary "home." So I was able to go back to the room at anytime if I needed a break. Sleeping in the same bed for a week helped me be able to get good sleep the whole week, so my sleep schedule wasn't affected too much unless I decided to stay up later than I usually did. But then I was always able to go back to the room whenever I needed to to get a nap!

The food was good for the most part, and the service was excellent.

We were on Royal Caribbean, and they have freestyle machines, so we bought the drink package which included water bottles, so I didn't have to worry about not being able to stay hydrated.

I would say cruising was one the easiest and most relaxing vacations I ever been on. I took Bonine the first day for sea sickness, and whenever I felt like I needed it if the ship was extra rocky. I've tried Dramamine but I've found that makes me more sleepy, but Bonine didn't make me feel very drowsy at all.

It was very nice to see Haiti, Jamaica, and Cozumel, Mexico, without the trouble of long flights, and changing hotel rooms. Being able to be on a ship for the week with the same room and familiar places was much more relaxing for me.

What are some vacations that you would recommend for someone with Bipolar?

Bipolar and Me: Triggers, Rules, and Trusting Yourself

Loneliness seems to trigger it. Or maybe it’s silence.

I tend to have something on in the background. Music, the TV. While I don’t consider myself an extremely social person (I have maybe a total of 4 close friends), I do like to be around people. Especially when my mind starts trying to turn on me and become something it’s not. When the thoughts start racing in, or when the thoughts disappear completely.

Maybe I’m afraid of myself, or at least a part of myself. The part that I’ve lived with all my life and that I’ll always have to keep me company.

The medicines keep it quiet for the most part. But certain things, certain places, certain foods will make it louder.

You see there are rules you start living by when you have bipolar disorder.

You don’t drink caffeine, you don’t eat too much sugar, you don’t stay up too late, and you never stay up all night to name a few.

Bipolar takes away that ability called trusting your gut, your instinct, yourself. You second guess almost every thought, afraid that’s the mania or depression talking. You go out grocery shopping and realize you are buying things you don’t need, racking up a higher bill than usual, and you begin to wonder: Is the mania creeping back in? Am I losing my rational sense again? Am I about to start losing it? And in the panic will creep, while meanwhile there are 3 people in line behind you waiting, as you almost freeze at the cash register.

That’s the thing that it’s taken years for me to get back. The ability to trust myself, my decisions. To be able to tell myself that not everything I think or do is influenced by the fact that I’m living with bipolar disorder.

Writing About My Worries

I've just finished writing two pages worth of worries.

Usually I'll journal, or write emails to my therapist about what has been going on during the week. This time I felt like I needed to open a blank document and just write. So I did. I just let all my anxious thoughts about the past, present, and future come on to the page.

I feel so much better now.

I had trouble getting to work again this week, so I've been a little disappointed in myself, especially since I'd been doing pretty well. I'm trying not to focus too much on it, and focus on all of the things that have gone right this week instead. Still, it's hard to not beat myself about missing work.

I've been good about letting myself still enjoy the fun things I'd originally planned for this week by not telling myself "I don't deserve to have fun" and that sort of thing. Stupid negative thoughts.

You're your own worst critic as my mom is always telling me.

What are some ways you keep yourself from getting down and keeping the negative thoughts at bay?

Via lightwords

World Bipolar Day

I've just read a brilliant blog post by one of my favorite bloggers Nicole Lyons. You can read the post here on her site The Lithium Chronicles.

It's inspired me to write a post of my own.

Today's World Bipolar Day and there's a lot of #WorldBipolarDay hashtags all over twitter.

For me, it's great. When I was first diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, I remember feeling scared, freaked out, and most importantly alone. None of my family members knew what it felt like when my head just wouldn't stop racing when I was manic or the dark hole of depression. They tried, but for the most part I felt that it was better to keep how I was feeling to myself. I wanted to be less of a "burden" and besides, having a mental illness just wasn't something you talked about all the time.

It hasn't been until lately, the past year or so, that I've begun to say: "To hell with everybody, I'm going to talk about my illness." All of sudden I realized just how many other people out there are living with bipolar just like me. It made me feel less abnormal and like I had a group I belonged to. Other people who "get it." A lot of the people I follow on twitter are people living with mental illness. The support I get just from reading other people's posts and personal blogs about their daily lives is so helpful and inspirational. Especially websites like The Mighty and Stigma Fighters. I've felt less alone, and I've realized I'm now proud of living with bipolar disorder. Because you know what? I'm LIVING, despite the fact that I have a mental illness that I have to deal with every single day.

So yeah, I'm pretty proud and I'm going to keep talking about it.

Happy #WorldBipolarDay!

Five Fun Facts About Me (Including Gifs!)

Thought I'd do something different and fun on my blog today.

I'm sure you all are just dying to know a few things about me. Here goes:

Fun fact #1: I believe that having bipolar and anxiety has helped shape who I am today. I'm a kinder and more considerate person because of all of the different experiences and emotions I've had.

Fun fact #2: I'm obsessed with chocolate, especially dark chocolate. Dove or Lindt.

Fun fact #3: I figure skated for 8 years and about 5 of those years I skated competitively.

I never looked like this :D

Fun fact #4: I love musicals. I've seen Cats on Broadway. I've seen Phantom of the Opera twice, once on Broadway, once at the Detroit Opera House. I've seen West Side Story at the Detroit Opera House. Also I saw Pippin on Broadway as well. I've also seen a ton of plays and musicals at the Dearborn Player's Guild.

Fun fact #5: I prefer tea over coffee.

And I think I've finally learned how to put gifs on my blog! Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

My Sixteenth Summer: The Year I was Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder

I've never really written about how I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. So I thought I'd share my story from the beginning:

My Sixteenth Summer: The Year I was Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder

The thoughts had been torturing me for days now, spinning around in my head over and over again. Most of them didn’t make sense, at least, not to anyone else. I knew what they meant and I knew what I had to do. I had to write them down, because they were important. So very--wait what was I thinking about again? Oh well, it doesn’t matter, nothing really matters actually. I don’t really care what people think anymore which is a relief.

My best friend is looking at me like she’s afraid of something, of me. I don’t know why. I’m just trying to tell her something. She says I’m acting differently. It’s hard to concentrate on what she’s saying. My mind is starting to zone out again as the thought start circling back. I try harder to concentrate, and suddenly I’m angry, very angry. I hear myself telling her if she doesn’t want to be friends anymore that’s fine, just fine. My voice is shrill in a pitch I’ve never heard before. It doesn’t even sound like me. I see her eyes go wide as she gets up to leave.

I’m left alone in the hallway. It was the last day of school. The last day of tenth grade. A horrible year. There had been weeks when I would feel as though I needed to leap out of my own skin. An itch I couldn’t get rid of. A hunger that was never satisfied. I became obsessed with certain things. Honey buns, a food I never even liked, suddenly I couldn’t get enough of them. I gained weight, and I gained it quickly. Luckily I was quite thin, so the weight gain didn’t cause too much alarm. But I was hungry, so hungry. I’d wake up at two in the morning starving as though I hadn’t eaten all day. Something was wrong, but no one  wanted to say what it was quite yet.

At thirteen I was diagnosed with anxiety and later depression. I had been having panic attacks every month for a week when I was twelve. This lasted for a year, until I was finally put on an anti anxiety medication. Things were good for a little while, although I had bouts of depression as well.

It wasn’t until I was sixteen that things began to go a little haywire.

Then, that summer, during a particularly bad period of depression, I cut myself. I remember going into the bathroom and getting out a razor, thinking if I could just feel something, anything, maybe it would “release the pain” I was feeling inside. I was numb and been for at least a week. I cut across my right wrist, twice, and then the crook of my elbow, twice. I remember being angry when the cuts barely bled.

I hadn’t wanted to kill myself, but I did want to feel something, even if that feeling was pain.

My mother noticed later that evening and I made up the excuse that the cat had scratched me. Later they took me to my therapist and then my psychiatrist, who after hearing about my erratic behavior finally diagnosed me with bipolar disorder type 2. He put me on a mood stabilizer and continued my anti anxiety medicine.

Eight years later, and several severe manic episodes later, I switched doctors because I was no longer stable. My first visit with my current psychiatrist was when I was in a manic and almost psychotic state of mind. She immediately recognized that I had not been properly diagnosed and re-diagnosed me with bipolar type I. She slowly weaned me off of my anti anxiety medicine which was doing more harm than good, and added another mood stabilizer as well as raising the dose of my current mood stabilizer. Later I was also given a very low dose of an antidepressant when my depression was still not lifting.

I have been doing very well over the past two years. I’m happily taking care of myself and doing what it takes to remain stable. Writing about my illness has been something that I find to be very helpful in more ways than one. I hope that sharing my story will help not only people living with bipolar, like me, but also help people understand what it’s like. I hope to show that people with bipolar disorder are just everyday people trying to live their lives. Living with bipolar disorder is hard sometimes, but really it is about taking care of yourself, and everyone should be taking care of themselves whether they are living with an illness or leading a healthy life. We all have our struggles in life, and this is just one of mine.

Thanks for reading!