4:30 am wake up call

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, I tossed and turned all night, even with my sleeping meds. I’ll admit, things haven’t been super easy lately, mostly because of money struggles. My boyfriend was wrongfully terminated from his job, soooo it’s been a little tough. The good thing though, he’s been happier than I’ve seen him in over a year, and I’d rather have that than money. I guess that’s what love is. Struggling together, wanting to see your partner happy, when their happiness is above all else to you. That’s how I feel. I’ve never been more in love with someone, I am extremely lucky, I know that, and that’s the bottom line.

Anyway, getting up at 4:30 am, can be a bad thing, especially when I don’t sleep well while I am asleep. Being bipolar, my sleep schedule is one of the most important things that I have, that helps keep me stable. So here’s how my bedtime routine goes: 9pm; turn on the star light projector, turn down the tv brightness and volume, and I go and do my skin care and such. Then I watch some videos on YouTube, nothing too heavy. 10pm; meds, the tv brightness goes all the way down and the volume goes off and my boyfriend puts on headphones. He usually stays with me until I fall asleep. Also at 10, I put on a podcast or music, then I go to sleep.

I know, it’s simple, but it truly does keep me on track. I stick to it almost every night. I plan my nights out around my sleep schedule, if I am out, I’m home by 9:30 at the latest. That’s part of being bipolar though, sleep is so important. So today, may or may not be a good day. Usually when I don’t sleep, things go south around noon or one. I’ll get cranky and start feeling bad and anxious, and nothing will help. Not even naps. So, yeah, basically I need sleep, and lots of it. I usually get between 8 and 10 hours, usually closer to 10. The thing is though, that if I sleep for longer than 10 hours, the day is usually a wash. We’ll see how today goes. I’m hoping not too badly, I have a lot of things to do. Mostly school work, which I’m behind on, as usual.

I’m behind on school work because I had a manic episode about two weeks back. Which, unfortunately, kept me from class for a whole week. I’m not super far behind, but let’s just say, if I had a test tomorrow, I’d be done for. Hopefully this hiccup in sleep doesn’t mess me up for days, like the manic episode did.

Basically, life isn’t always easy. As long as you do the best you can though, that’s what matters. You don’t have to do great everyday. I aim for neutral or baseline everyday, because I am very rarely symptom free for more than a few hours. I do the best I can though, I’m not perfect, my life isn’t perfect, being bipolar sure isn’t perfect. I just keep it going though, all day, everyday.

Me and my favorite vet.

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Just a little update

So Halloweek came and went and nothing exciting happened. Just another week. Same ups and downs, lots of, I don’t feel wells. Just trying to cope and get through, one day at a time. Daylight savings time was last night and I’m not sure how it’s going to effect me, it always messes with my sleep schedule, which I strictly adhere to. We’ll see how things go. 

I’ve decided to start a mini health journey. Mental and physical health. I hate exercising, because I always did it because I wanted to lose weight and I would get discouraged when I didn’t see results. Lately though, my mindset has been that, exercising is about overall health, it’s not about losing weight, it’s about being healthy. Once I started looking at it like that, I felt more empowered to go. The first week I started strong, but I haven’t been in two weeks. It’s not because I didn’t want to. One week I had a pretty bad manic episode and going to the gym was not an option. The other week, I don’t really have a reason, I just didn’t go. I actually missed not going. I need to stop eating junk food, that’s my next mission for the physical side. 

I got a DBT workbook at Barnes and noble today, so I’m hoping that will help on the mental side. I also want to start tracking my moods, I’m not sure how though. I’ve never tracked my mood before, I always thought that it was kind of gimmicky. At this point though, I’ve never had a day, a full day where I was symptom free. Also, my psychiatrist doesn’t want to add any more meds or increase any dosages, so it is up to me. I have to get it together, I can’t live my life having symptoms every single day. So, I’m really trying anything. 

That’s kind of where my life is right now. At this moment, I’m okay, but that could change any second. That’s just the nature of the beast I suppose. Being bipolar isn’t easy, but I don’t have to make it more difficult. If keeping up with my health in this way is what I have to do, then so be it. I’m still having intrusive thoughts. About death and dying, that’s the persistent symptom right now. The only thing I can do is recognize them as not being my thoughts and ignore them. But, intrusive thoughts are not easy to ignore, especially when they’re filled with such heavy content. It’s up to me to find a way to cope, to not let them get to me or ruin my mood. I’m just so tired of symptoms on symptoms, just a never ending string of things that pile on top of each other. And it’s up to me to sort through that pile and figure out how to deal with each individual thing. I find that if I try to handle too many things at once I just get overwhelmed. 

So, here it goes with my health journey.