Update

It’s been quite a while since I’ve been here. I’m not sure why. I mean, I go through phases like everyone else. But it’s been almost six months. I’ve taken breaks before, but not like this. It was as if all the creativity and drive had left me. It hurt me to not write, but at the same time I had nothing to say. There was a lot happening in my private life. Here I am though. I made it through and I’m back.

I honestly don’t know where I left off on my journey through life on this blog. I can tell you that my symptoms have barely improved. I’m having a little bit of depression now actually. I’m going to be graduating in August and I’m just not excited. Like right now, i don’t even care. Which makes me feel bad. I’ve been trying meditation, but I keep getting stuck in the same loop. Negative thoughts, followed by more negative thoughts, followed by tactile hallucinations. Which are new. Yay for Bipolar…

I’m not really sure what I’m trying to say here, but I just wanted to get something down. I need to work on my pessimism. How many times have I said that? Too many. To the point where it just means nothing.

Oh! Well there is one update. Essentially my business failed. So, that really put a damper on our quarantine, which was already pretty bad. So, I’ll probably be making another post about that, but it was rough to accept it. I was in denial for a little while, but now I just have one more thing under my belt. I just put so much energy into it and basically it was for nothing. So, that sucked. A lot of things sucked. Things a kind of looking up, but at this moment out apartment is a mess. I can’t even get to my desk. I’m also taking summer classes so that’s something to look forward to. 3 and a half hour classes twice a week…yayyyyy…

I’m hoping I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things with this. We’ll see!

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Take Two

It’s the morning of January 2nd. I’m sitting on my uncomfortable couch with a giant mug of tea. Typing this to see if I can calm my anxiety a little bit. Yes, I’ve only been up for 45 minutes and my anxiety had already started. Don’t you hate that? There’s no sense of panic or dread, just little pangs of anxiety. I don’t want today to turn out like yesterday. Feeling horrible all day, being in a mood. Only worrying about myself and my feelings. It was not a good day.

I’m trying to find the little moments in life that make it better. One of them is not taking it for granted when your hot drink is at the perfect temperature. Which my tea is at right now. It’s hard to do though, because I’m always focusing on my symptoms and my internal feelings and monologue. Forgetting that there’s life outside of my mind. I can’t just sleep all day or lay in my bed all day, because that’s just giving me time to ruminate on my emotions. Well, the bad ones anyway.

Sometimes the anxiety is all consuming. Omg, I’m doing it in this post. I started being all like I want today to be better, but I’m starting to just fall into the anxiety hole. I do in fact want to be better all year, but I think I should just focus on being better today. I need to just deal with the emotions for what they are. I need to look into radical acceptance. I need to look into a lot of things. I want to learn more this year. So, I’m very excited for the semester to start, but it’s starting later than usual which is annoying. All my classes are online so I really need to hold myself accountable. Literally all I have to do is walk the 6 feel from my bed to my desk, heck I can even do it in my bed if I need to. So, I really have no excuses. I can even do it on my very uncomfortable couch. Which I’m hoping to get rid of at some point this year. I had my tea, but I’m still very tired and anxious, because tea is my morning anxiety band-aid.

I was never really a tea drinker, until I got my kettle for Christmas. I also, feel a migraine coming on, which is so much fun. I just want to crawl back in bed and go back to sleep, but that would be counter productive. So, I just turned the lights off, my computer brightness down and I just have to wait for my boyfriend to get up so I can find the migraine medication. Also, my cat is eating very loudly. I need to nip this migraine in the butt before it gets too bad. So, I’ll leave you here. If today is your take two of new years day, I wish you the best of luck.

New Year, New Me?

Nah. I’m not about that. I’m not even that into new years resolutions. So, here I am on January 1st, 2021. It sounds crazy to say. Some how I made it through 2020. And all I can ask myself is, How? Like, gurl, how the hell did you do that? I should be proud of myself. It’s hard to appreciate how far I had to come to make it through 2020, when all I can think about are the mood swings that were and those that are to come. Right this second, I’m in an irritable, angry mood. For no other reason other than, I just am. It’s hard to accept that fact, that a lot of times, I just am feeling a a feeling and I need to let it be what it is. Not look too closely at it. If it’s an intrusive thought, accept it and put it on the shelf.

So, are there things I want to accomplish in 2021? Of course. I made a list of more things I want to do, and less things I want to do. Some of them are basic, like don’t eat gluten. Other ones are a lot harder, like don’t stream too much, don’t intake as much social media. I want to read more, but right now it seems that I don’t have the focus for one book. Earlier in 2020 I attempted to put a “one book” rule in place. In which I could only read one book at a time. Then once I finished that book, I could move onto the next. The thing is, my bipolar brain doesn’t work like that.

My bipolar brain needs just the right amount of stimulation. Too much, I get over whelmed and anxious. When there’s a lack of stimulation, like there has been this year, I get manic. I can never seem to find that balance though. Which, means I’m almost always symptomatic. So, i would like to control that in 2021. I know that’s kind of a doozy of a goal, because it’s impossible to control something you don’t fully understand.

I’ve been anxious all day, it’s like a new year hasn’t even started. I’ve been rocking more, I’ve been cocooning in blankets more. It’s a bit reminiscent of my hiding in the closet days. I would curl up and sleep on the floor of my mini walk in closet. So, I’m not sure if it’s the best thing to do. I don’t know. I need something, but I’m not sure what it is exactly. I just know “New Year, New Me” will not solve any of my problems. I’m just so tired all the time and my doctor thinks it’s because of all the meds I’m on. A lot of them have side effects of lethargy. I just don’t want to feel so lost this year. I want to find a way to be more grounded. So, cheers to the new year, may yours be filled with health and happiness, and here’s to hopefully more blog posts coming from me.

Drafts

in case anyone was wondering I have 42 blog post drafts saved. That’s right forty-two. If that doesn’t help describe me I’m not sure whay does. I’m scatterbrained, I can’t make decisions, I’m self conscious, I’m a lot of things. Part of it is my bipolar and part of it is the effect the disorder has had on me. I get stressed easily and lately it’s been worse then it has been. I have a very big decision to make soon and I honestly have no idea what I’m going to do when the time comes. For the situation I’m in, there really is a wrong decision, it’s just that one may be better than another, but it’s not wrong. Things haven’t been easy and I feel like everything is amplified. I’ve pretty much been on an emotional rollercoaster these past few months and it is exhausting. 

Being emotionally exhausted is one of the worst things in my opinion. I dont want to move. I don’t want to get out of bed. It’s like all the joy has been robbed from me. It’s not enough to be classified as depression, but it’s still horrible. This decision that is looming over my head is killing me. It’s a waiting game right now and it’s the worst. It’s like I’ve been stuck in a waiting game since the pandemic started. I’ve just been so anxious. It’s like I habe 42 drafts in my mind and none of them are finished and none of them seem good enough to post. 

I’ve been on a constant hunt for comfort. Like yes, I have my people, but I can’t be with them or talk to them every waking hour. I need to find comfort in something. I started reading Harry Potter, but I need to save those books for something else that’s upcoming. So I started The Hobbit again. So I’ll see how that goes. I have Percy Jackson on deck in case I find that it doesn’t help. I’m also costantly looking at lists to find ideas for how to handle the anxiety. Because it’s just generalized anxiety, because I can’t pin point one exact thing that is making me anxious. There’s so much going on. There’s so much stress, everyone keeps telling me it’s justified and tells me that it’ll work out. It doesn’t feel like it though. It feels like it’s just impending doom. I mean,after my decision is made in about 6 to 8 weeks, things will likely lighten up. I’ve been trying to look forward to the holidays, but they’re happening after all if this. I just know they’re not going to be the same. I already made the decision that I won’t be spending Thanksgiving with my whole family which makes me sad, but it’s what will make me feel most comfortable. So there’s that. Its like the virus has crushed dreams that I haven’t even had yet. When the world is in the state that it’s in, it’s hard to latch onto a dream. It’s not easy to live in the climate we’re in now. Including the political climate, which I will not get into here. The world is a mess though. It’s like everyone has 42 drafts and they’re trying to figure out what to do with them. 

I know there’s hope in the world and that eventually things will get better and we’ll come out on the other side of this stronger and better people. It really doesn’t seem like it. And I sure as hell don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel yet, but it’ll be there eventually. 

Long time no type

So, it’s been quite awhile and some things have happened. Hopefully I can remember it all, because things happen and I want to blog about them, but when I sit down to write I forget all the things I want to write.

Let’s see, where to begin. Maybe I’ll work backwards from now until Taylor Swifts latest album release. I’ve been going through all the emotions. Mostly anxiety, constant, persistent, sometimes crippling, anxiety. I kind of feel like my new medication has sucked some of my creativity out of me. I don’t have any inspiration. Any time I think about writing I just find it uninteresting. I love writing. So, I guess I have to decide if that’s a trade off I’m willing to work with. I feel pretty good on it, but things just don’t feel interesting. Nothing sounds, good or fun. It’s just kind of meh. I’m not sure if there’s a solution to that. I mean, there probably is, I just haven’t found it yet. I’ve only been on the medication for about a month, but it was supposed to start working right away. If there’s a task I actually need to do or want to do, I can do it without an issue, but for now I have to deal with the lack of inspiration and need to be creative. Which is very frustrating. I figure writing a blog post would be the easiest to write because I can take a topic and write about it. When I write fiction the ideas have to flow from inside of me. And that just isn’t happening. I’m going to start trying to write more.

My school situation is weird for me this semester. I’m taking two zero credit classes, so I don’t actually have any work to do. I was actually looking forward to school because I wanted some sort of structure, but that went out the window. I’m not good at sticking to routines. I don’t like that, that’s how I am, but I’m not good a sticking with things in general. Working out, writing, reading, any type of craft project. I know that’s a habit I can change, but I don’t know how. Especially because my moods are so erratic. I’ll wake up one morning and be fine, but my mood will decline. I get burnt out pretty easily and discouraged. I was hoping that this medication would help, but so far it hasn’t.

The thing is that, life can be unpredictable. Like, my birthday was about two weeks ago and that didn’t go as planned. I got a belly button infection. I choked on a bagel and my boyfriend had to give me the Heimlich, which caused me that have rib and back pain. So, there really isn’t much I can do. Also, my dog had to have surgery yesterday which was nerve wracking (She is home now, everything went amazing and she’s resting comfortably). All in all I’m just in physical discomfort and that usually has an effect on my mood. I’m only comfortable if I sit in certain positions because of my ribs.

I know I should try and think positively, but at this point I’ve accepted that I’m mostly a pessimist. I worry and panic easily, I always think about the worst thing that could happen first, and I’m usually the first to jump to conclusions. I haven’t really been enjoying any shows or books or anything really so I don’t have any thing to recommend. Also, the business is being slow because of the pandemic. So, if someone were to ask me how I was handling the pandemic, I would answer, not well. I’m doing the best I can, well I think so anyway. I feel like I can be productive today, but we’ll see. Fingers crossed that I’ll have enough energy or general will power to update tomorrow.

Catching Up

I feel like it’s been quite sometime since I posted here. Well, I suppose it really has been. I needed a bit of a break after the death of my grandmother. I’m back now, well I’m going to try and be.

Honestly, nothing much has happened in the past month or so. I’ve been stuck in the house. I just wanted to write a little bit about how COVID has affected my mental health. I am easily triggered, and will quickly have a mood swing after the initial trigger. So, being stuck in the apartment you would think that I would be able to avoid triggers, that is not the case though. I am easily triggered by videos and sometimes pictures. Also, by the emotions of the people around me. Since my boyfriend and I are spending every single second of every single day together, it’s almost impossible to not feed off of each others emotions. So, I’ll get triggered by something, then he’ll feel my stress and it’ll possibly trigger him. It’s a very delicate system.

Also, the business has not been doing the best. Due to COVID, people just aren’t buying our products. We try so hard. The lack of orders and work to do leaves me very anxious and bored and then I panic because I feel like I should be doing work, when there’s no work to be done. It’s all very frustrating. I have a very strong work ethic so when I don’t have something to focus my energy on, I get severe, debilitating anxiety. I tell my doctors and they try to help me and give me advice, but the bottom line is that we can’t adjust my meds. So, it’s basically me against myself. In my head. All day everyday. I’ve been manic a few times, down, but not truly depressed, but mostly the anxiety. Except yesterday I felt extremely unstable. I don’t know what happened, but something tipped the scales. I feel like I need to channel my energy. I’ve been writing a lot of fiction, but I’ve kind of run out of inspiration.

I know they say that you have to write even when you don’t feel like it or if you don’t feel inspired. I just can’t seem to push myself though. Everything just feels off. Probably because no matter what I do or how hard I try, I’ve found that; no matter how much you try, it’s almost impossible to move forward when the world is standing still. Because we are still in the middle of a pandemic and things don’t seem to be getting better. I feel like there is no hope. Like I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even as I write this I feel a sense of panic. Everything is a struggle. It also doesn’t help that it’s like a sauna in my apartment.

I honestly am doing the best that I can. I just keep forgetting to remind myself of that. Sometimes, doing the best that you can is enough. Even if all that you do is get out of bed. I had a pretty strict morning routine, but somewhere along the way it fell to the wayside. I wish that hadn’t happened, but it did. I know not to beat myself up about it, but it’s difficult.

So, COVID has not given me any more drive, it hasn’t really done anything productive for me. I’m hoping I can start feeling better today and get back into blogging. I’ve really missed this.

Full Capacity

I’m having one of those days where I feel like i’m not operating at full human capacity. I feel all fuzzy and I’m not with it at all. I’m also very off balance. I’ve tried all the things I do for when I don’t feel like I’m operating at full capacity. Coffee, meds, shower, the usual. None of it helped. I feel like I’m at half capacity right now. The thing is though, do I even know what it’s like to operate at full capacity? What does my full capacity even look like? These are the hard hitting questions I’m asking myself so far today.

I mean I guess for me operating at full capacity is not feeling too, too anxious. Feeling like I’m productive and that I have energy for the day ahead. My morning routine actually happens, I’m not lazy. The thing is though, some days that’s not what my full capacity looks like. I would love if I could do and feel like that everyday. That’s my fantasy self. So, if that’s my fantasy full capacity, what is my actual full capacity? I suppose full capacity depends on the day, it could be any day where I feel like I have my life together after just 1 cup of coffee. It could be a day where all I do is get out of bed and shower. That could be considered full capacity for that day, because mentally and physically that’s all I could do.

The thing is though, that everyday I strive for the fantasy full capacity, but the more I strive for it and don’t get it done, I automatically feel like my full capacity will not be reached that day. I can’t strive for the impossible, I can’t constantly aim to be and act like my fantasy self. Because running at full capacity, means so many different things. The thing is though, if I keep trying to reach this version of myself that I’ve put up on a pedestal, and there’s no way for me to reach that self. Because she’s just things that I’ll never be able to be. She doesn’t deal with the constant mood swings that are my everyday life. She runs at full capacity everyday, she gets everything done without struggles and nothing seems too far out of reach. That is not an achievable goal, I don’t know how to reach that part of myself that I’ve put so high up.

Anyway, that was a tangent. Today I am not at full capacity and I’m not sure what to do. Like I said, I’ve done most of the things, but I didn’t exercise. Because as soon as my body feels that it’s not a full capacity day, it automatically messes up my balance and equilibrium. So all of me just feels off. I have to find a way to push through, because one of my two pairs of shorts is dirty, which means it’s a laundry day. If I can get the energy to get up and do it. i may just end up sitting on that couch all day, because that may be the full capacity for today.

I’m not sure what the rest of today holds and I may do a weekly wrap-up for later today, but I can’t make any promises.

Self Control And Anxiety

I have a feeling that we all have issues with self-control, I know I do. It causes a lot of issues for me. I find it very difficult to have self-control when my anxiety is at a 7. I’ll do anything to feel better to get the anxiety to stop, so self-control really goes out the window. I’ll eat or I’ll cry or I’ll binge watch youtube. There are things that I need to be doing for self care that involve self-control. Also, my routine. We all know the push and pull I have with my routine. One day I’ll have it down and I’ll feel good for a little while. Another day I’ll just throw caution to the window and just not do any part of a routine. It fully is a struggle. So, my anxiety and my self-control go hand in hand.

I’m not sure if anyone else feels this way. When I’m less anxious my self-control is pretty solid. I don’t overeat because I don’t eat much to begin with, but I still eat more than usual. I have digestive issues so eating more than what the doctor said is not good. I know my self-control has gone out the window when I stop listening to my doctors. When I let go of my coping skills or just ignore them and not use them. I can’t let my anxiety control me though. I can’t let my self-control go out the window just because I’m anxious. I’m more anxious these days. I’m not sure if I wrote this but my psychiatrist told me that since most of my anxiety is caused by grief the most I can do is use my coping skills, take anti-anxiety meds if I need them and give myself time. To me, taking time gets boring after awhile, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still need it. So, giving myself time is part of self-control, I need to control myself that I’m not doing too much because I’m bored, because time is not something you can control. I don’t know how much time I’m going to need, but I’m going to need self-control to keep myself in check.

I also need to stop binge watching YouTube because it doesn’t help anything. I need to stop sometimes and listen to a podcast or something. My boyfriend is also here to keep my in check, but he shouldn’t have to do that. I should be able to do that. Those times he has to keep me in check and bring me back to reality have become lessened over the past month or so. To me that seems like progress. That I have enough self-control to take into account what he says and take it into account and put it into effect.

Self-control comes in many forms. It could be me having the self-control to let my anxiety be and relax even though I’m bored. It could be trying to keep on my routine. It’s really in everything I do.

Sunday Rambles Pt 4

It’s 7:42 in the morning and I’ve already worked out. Now I’m trying to decide if I want coffee or not. I mean of course I want coffee, but the question is, do I feel like making it myself? I need to go to CVS in a little while to get cat food and I could get coffee there. I don’t know. I’ll probably make it myself. I’m kind of sleepy I’m trying to stay awake though, which means i should probably make coffee. I’m just lazy. I’m also hungry, but I don’t feel like going downstairs to make what I want. I just realized that I can’t go to CVS until my boyfriend wakes up in case he needs anything. He is not a morning person, especially if he’s woken up and doesn’t wake up naturally. So, I guess I’m making myself coffee.

I feel like I’m exhausted, i’m not really sure why. I’ve been sleeping fine and waking up pretty consistently, maybe my body and mind are just tired and I have to accept that. I was so bored last night. Nothing was interesting, nothing was sparking anything inside of me. I hate being bored, but I’m also pretty lazy. I’ve been cleaning more though which helps make me feel better because the apartment isn’t a mess and stressing me out. Except my desk is a hot spot for junk. It’s got piles of books and journals and tons of pens. It’s like every time I clean it the next day it’s a mess because I’ll go looking for a book or I’ll actually be doing work and everything that I’m using will spread outwards. Then I’ll forget to put things back where they go. I have a post on how I attempt to keep things organized going up eventually.

Last Sunday I went to some protests with my mom, this week I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe I’ll see what she’s doing, maybe I’ll just do some random things. Who knows. It’s 8:09 in the morning, no one is awake, I have no business attempting to plan my day right now. Also, I shouldn’t be doing that because I don’t know how anxious I’ll get through out the day. I don’t know what I’ll mentally be able to handle today. I don’t want to go out even though the state is basically open, because the virus isn’t gone. People stopped getting tested. In the states that have been opened the COVID cases have increased. Just because we’ve met the quota to get to phase 2, I have a feeling this isn’t over. I think a lot of people know this isn’t over. It’ll be what it’ll be though.

Now for something a little bit more trivial. Something that makes me feel better, for some reason, is to go on Sephora or Ulta and just scroll through the makeup. I’ll probably never buy most of it, but somehow it calms me down. I don’t always look for something in particular, but it helps. I love makeup. I haven’t been wearing it because of quarantine, and it makes me sad. I know I could just do it for the fun of it, which I should actually do. It’s something to do when I’m bored. Just put on a full face for no reason, sounds good to me. Anyway, since I’ve been working on my birthday list I’ve been going on each site almost everyday looking for things I may want. There are things I still really want to add to my collection, but I don’t really have an abundance of money. I’d rather save and splurge. Like save so much where I don’t mind buying enough things to reach free shipping and not freak out about it. I’m on my way there, but I’m not there yet. Hopefully soon though, but maybe not. We’ll see.

Anyway, hopefully you have a great Sunday filled with rest and productivity.

Brain Dump

I know I’ve been inconsistent and I’m not going to lie and say that I will start being consistent soon, because I really don’t know. I’m still grieving and some days are better than others. I’m really trying to change my mindset in a lot of facets of my life. i know today is supposed to be a weekly wrap-up. Honestly though, I didn’t even realize today was Saturday. My anxiety is at about a 6 right now, but I’m trying very hard to not let it get to me, the anxiety I mean. I know it’s not easy to control anxiety, it usually works better to just let it consume me and just live with the anxiety. I’m trying to not be like that anymore. I’m trying everything I can think of to counteract the anxiety that’s trying to consume me. Nothing on tv is interesting me though. So I went with my good old podcasts. I have the feeling that I want to cry, but that really won’t help the situation.

I’m very bored, there’s a million things I could be doing, but I just don’t want to. I have this feeling that I have to be proactive and constantly be doing things. I’m not sure why I am that way. I really just want to be able to let the things that I can’t control go, and just focus on what I need during that time I use to heal. I just feel so lost. Nothing feels right, right now. My boyfriend has a new project he’s working on and I have nothing. I want to be able to throw part of myself into this blog, but I just feel like I don’t have it in me fully. I really want to though. So, if you have any tips about how to do that, please share. Because I have an abundance of time, I’m healing though. I can’t use that as an excuse or a crutch for everything though. Like I used my bipolar for a very long time. I didn’t accept it and take control, so I just used it as an excuse. I did that for way too long, because I started seeing myself as just being bipolar and that it defined me, but that’s not true. Bipolar is part of me, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let it define me.

I need to relight the fire I had inside myself. It’s dimmed to an ember, but it’s still burning, I just need to add fuel. I’m not really sure how to do that, but I’ll do it. Someway, somehow. I need to get my creative juices flowing. I feel like something will click and I’ll slowly start to feel inspired and better. Between bouts of extreme anxiety, hopefully I’ll feel like creating something, and the bouts of anxiety will become less extreme and things will slowly get back to an equilibrium.