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.
A Delicate Odyssey 