Sunday Rambles Pt. 5

It’s early, like 5:20 am early. I got up to go to the bathroom and couldn’t fall back asleep, so right now it’s just me and Bruce. Also, when I woke up I saw that our motion sensor back porch light was on, which is very weird. It doesn’t usually get triggered by animals and I am not going to go investigate. Unless I get too hungry and have to go make waffles downstairs. I’m not there yet, but I’m sure it’ll happen. Actually, it’s fathers day, so I may hold out until my mom makes breakfast. We’ll see how much will-power I have.

Sometimes when I wake up early and decide today is going to be a “maybe” day, I feel a bit more relaxed than usual. Probably because I know I won’t be pushing myself to do thing after thing after thing. Also my dad just wants to do nothing for Father’s Day today. I kinda want to work out, but I also kind of don’t. On another note I just dropped my laptop. I’m not sure if I’ve ever written this, but according to my boyfriend, I am where electronics go to die. I don’t buy new or expensive electronics because they always break on me. I just made my first expensive headphones, I paid a whopping $77. I’m very frugal, so I really had to be pushed to order them, but I finally did, and I’m very excited.

I’m not really tired right now and I need to stay awake. I’ve fallen back into the pattern of falling back asleep on the couch after I wake up and come out the the living room. Well it’s a little while later and I worked out and fell asleep on the couch. I guess that could be considered balance.

It’s very warm in my apartment right now. The only air conditioner is in the bedroom and my boyfriend is sleeping so the door is currently closed. I’m in the living room with two fans trying to keep cool. I’m not very good in the heat because I get really bad migraines if i’m not careful, which I’m usually not. So the name of the game for the rest of the summer is to stay as cool as possible.

As usual I’m the first one up. I don’t even know when anyone else will be awake. I was thinking about going to sit outside and take in the fresh air. I did not do that though. I’m glad I didn’t because it is blazing out there. I mean, I’m not really much cooler where I am now, but still.

It’s that time of the week where I start adding random things to my birthday list. I love makeup, but that’s not all that I want, I can’t think of other things I want though. I want to get things that will better me and help me become better.

On a total other rant, I hate shopping for clothes online. For one reason being plus size it’s hard to find somewhere that sells clothes in my size in general. I can only order off torrid because that’s the only place where I’ve tried clothes on in person before. I don’t have the money for that. All I want is a pair of plain jean shorts that don’t cost an arm and a leg. I can’t order anything off amazon because I don’t know how it’ll fit and if it doesn’t not only will I feel bad about myself, but I’ll have to return them, which I’m not very good at.

Okay, it’s now Monday afternoon and I’m feeling slightly okay. I don’t really have a lot to say today so I figured I would just tack some Monday rambles on the tail end of my Sunday rambles post. It was 81 degrees in my living room this morning and all I had was a fan. I even worked out. It was way too hot to make regular coffee, so we ordered Panera and I got my cold brew, thankfully. I’m now feeling like more of a human, Anyway, I think I’ll do an actual post for today.

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Plan your escape

It’s a slow day at work today. I’m by myself, doing nothing, so I figured I’d write a post. It’s been awhile. Basically, I’ve been feeling good. Well more like neural, no waiting for the other shoe to drop kind of good, but just chilling good. It’s amazing. I haven’t felt like this in forever.

Anyway, I switched from adderall to vyvanse, so far so good. By that I mean I just switched yesterday morning and nothing bad has happened yet. Sooo yeah, I’m pretty happy about it.

I’m working today, I’m very proud of myself, I’ve only taken one day off in the last four weeks and I didn’t leave early any days. Like, who am I? The queen of “not feeling well” to the point where I would keep myself from doing things, even working. I’m in a much better head space from a year ago. Why, I don’t know. I keep writing in my journal, that something isn’t clicking, but that’s the thing, I think things are clicking. Finally. So no symptoms are the best symptoms, right?

I guess to answer my own question, it’s a thin line. Sometimes you’ll get too comfortable with no symptoms and neglect yourself, sometimes you’ll focus on it too much and you won’t let yourself feel, what I would call, neutral. So I guess I’ve found the balance. I’m taking care of myself, the best I can, but, also doing the best I can, I’m aware. Aware of triggers, situations, my own anxiety. Mostly triggers. I’m thinking about it now. Like, if this situation is going to make me anxious, than I’ll handle it this way. Instead of blindly going in and hoping it’ll work out, that’s not how my brain works. I need to be prepared, always have an escape plan. Even if it’s just me telling someone that I “don’t feel well”, that’s my default. No matter what I do or where I go, I think I’ll always be the queen of “I don’t feel well”. It’s my roots. I used to have trouble describing what I felt, so I would just say that I didn’t feel well, because that’s all I knew. I knew I didn’t feel well, I couldn’t explain why or anything past that, that was my baseline. For a long time. How and why that changed was a force of nature and it just so happened that, that force was me. I thought it was meds or biology, but it was me.

I am the force of nature behind this change.

I’ve been thinking

A lot the past few days.

About how, I want to do something important, something that matters, something that will influence other people. I watch a lot of beauty videos on YouTube, and it hit me, that they have such a huge platform, they have the ability to do something. They choose to do the things they do and for that I’m thankful. Because I watch them a lot and by a lot I mean a lot. Watching YouTube is my escape and I’m constantly looking for an escape from my bipolar. Being bipolar, I have different struggles from other people, certain things are more difficult for me, but everyone has their own struggle and issues, I don’t want to take away from that.

This escape, is turning into sort of an inspiration, not that I’m going to stop everything I’m doing and become start doing YouTube full time. I mean, I want to find my own little space where I can have an impact on people. I know I can do that by telling my story or maybe whatever I do can become an escape for someone else, like YouTube is for me. I want to be a safe space, I want people to be able to come to me as they are and leave a little bit more…something. I don’t know, inspired, heard, maybe they found something that relates to them. I want to help people and I want to do it sooner rather thank later, I want to start now. The thing is though, I have to learn to be patient, creating a platform, it takes time, it takes grit. I have grit and I have time, I don’t have patience. That’s a big flaw that I have. I have to learn to move past it though. Because a platform isn’t just going to appear out of thin air, I have to create it. I have to clear out my own little space in the world. It’s a journey it’s not magic.

I’ve been extremely blessed my whole life. I don’t want to waste that, I have had experiences and opportunities that other people don’t get. Yes, I have bipolar. What I do with that, is what matters. Do I give up and give into the disorder? Do I take it as just another obstacle and use it to grow? I guess it depends on the day. Some days I want to give in, hide and do nothing, other days, I want to be productive and just do everything. I suppose that’s the nature of the disorder. The point, is to find a happy medium. I need to find that. I want to find that. I want to find that space and just live there. Find it and so everything I can to stay there. Then from there, keep rising. Grow and learn and create. That’s where the platform will come from and that is where I will find my niche. That’s where I will live.

If you’re looking for me

You can find me on my private Twitter @russoamy3

Any road will take you there

I’ve had a song lyric by my favorite band (Dawes) stuck in my head the past few days. “If you don’t know where you are going, then any road will take you there.”

It’s crazy how much this rings true in my life right now. Between being in a depressive episode, trying to fight my way through school, and now my new fashion journey. I have stable things in my life of course, my boyfriend, my parents, friends, doctors. Yet, I’m still on my own journey. I’ve realized recently, that I haven’t found a point in life, I don’t mean in the depressive way, as in, life is pointless, but more in a philosophical way. I’m not going to get into that here though.

What made me think about this is a run in I had we my neighbor the other day, he has a daughter my age and we were close friends growing up. And he assumed I was working, that I had finished my BA, and that I was in graduate school. The thing is, none of those things are true. And as I told him, he had this look, as if, my journey didn’t fit into his idea of how things should be, how his daughters journey was. And that’s not fair. It made me feel like lesser of a person.

Recently I’ve been trying to retrain my thoughts, so I had to sit with that experience for a little while and think. I had to remind myself that my journey is my own. I am not the same as other people. And most importantly, that that’s okay. I have to learn to be at peace with the things in my life, with my personal journey.

I’ve come to learn that it’s not my journey verses someone else’s journey or your journey verses anyone else’s journey. It’s a hard thing to come to terms with, especially if you’re on social media all the time. It’s hard not to compare yourself to other people and how far they have come in the same amount of time. It’s not fair to you or your mental state. And I know for me, my mental state is of the highest priority. Even though I still compare myself to others, it’s only natural, I’ve come to learn to respect my journey. And that I’ll find a road to take me where I’m meant to be.

A Princess on Psych Meds

I am on seven different medications, the highest dose of all most of them, and I still struggle, everyday. Lately I’ve been in  a state of panic, caring more about myself than other people, crying, being afraid to leave the house and on and on. This is worse than most of the time, usually I know how to keep symptoms in check, but right now, it’s like there’s no stopping them. I’m at a loss. I mean, I still know how lucky I am. I have a supportive and loving boyfriend and family, I have the resources I need at my disposal, the mental health professionals that I can contact any time of day. I’ve been blessed and at times like these I feel like I’m taking all of this for granted. I don’t know how to stop the panic, I don’t know how to stop the symptoms from raging. I’ve been here before, I know where this road goes, I know this spiral cannot continue and I need to put a stop to it, but I feel helpless. Like a damsel in distress, but the only one who can help is me.

I’m exhausted today. I have a headache and I want to sleep. I don’t know where to start on this self care journey.  I’m lost and confused. Help, anyone?

The Other Day

I saw this:

And this really got to me. I’m not close with the person who posted this nor do I know their history of mental illness. I still saw it though, luckily it didn’t trigger me. 18 months ago, it would have. I’ve been hospitalized twice, once because I went off my meds and was deemed a danger to other people, the other I was so depressed I was a danger to myself. Both times it was done by one of my doctors. I’m so grateful and lucky to have the doctors I have, not only do they work with me, but they work together as well.

Anyway, seeing this made me think that you don’t really know anything about anyone on social media. I didn’t know this person had mental illness and this person didn’t know I had a history. I don’t want to say that it was inconsiderate, but I do feel like it was in bad taste. That’s just me though. Hospitals are supposed to be a place where you feel safe, you go because you need to. I don’t want people to feel like they shouldn’t have to talk about something because they’re afraid of the hospital. That’s how people feel though, I think. I have an emergency plan, I was by myself last week and I felt a manic episode and in my head I thought, if this gets out of hand, I have to know it’s okay to go to the hospital. I need to be safe. Thankfully it didn’t come to that, but it is part of my emergency plan. I’ve been triggered by things I’ve seen on social media before, so I was afraid that it would happen after I saw this, I got upset, it texted my best friend, and I dealt with it. No triggers.

Sorry for this rant.

-A

The Anxiety is Mounting

I started school last week and I have been getting anxious ever since. Being bipolar I’m in constant fear of episodes, because when I have an episode it usually gets pretty bad. The lows are very low and the highs..well they’re amazing for a little while. I have an episode every semester. Last fall was mania, this past spring was depression, and I was coming down from a manic episode when the semester started. So of course I’m worried about being triggered. Right now though, my anxiety is getting worse, I’ve taken my anxiety meds, I’ve been taking deep breaths, and I put on one of my favorite podcasts to take my mind off of it, that usually does the trick. This time though, I’m stressed about school and how I have to catch up on the news for one of my classes. All the reading that has to be done, the papers that will be due, just everything, it’s weighing on my mind. I see my therapist tomorrow, which is good. I’m going to stick to my routine and hope things get better from here. Maybe I’ll take a break from the news for a little while.

The Beginning.

Preface: I started this blog when I was a naive 19 year old. I thought I knew everything back then, I’ve lived, what feels like a lifetime, since then. So I’m going to leave all my previous posts up here. Don’t let my 19 year old self blind you from what I post from now on. They’re part of my past, I’ll get to the history of some of them eventually.

The (New) Beginning:

As I stated above I started this blog when I was 19, back then I didn’t know what to use it for, I think I just liked the idea. I’m 23 now and it feels like I’ve changed so much from the days when I was writing those posts. I wanted to tell my story, but back then I didn’t have much of a story. I thought I did, but I was a bit overzealous back then. Now I’m really going to get into my story.

If you know me, you know I’m a pretty private person. What you think you know about me may not be accurate. If you don’t know me, I am a private person, I don’t advertise my personal life. I always felt like my life was between myself and those who I chose to share it with. If you met me between the ages of 18 and 21, that’s not who I am anymore. The details I offered back then were trivial, it may not have seemed that way, but it’s true. I hope I can shed some light on what was happening behind closed doors from when I was 18 up until now.

When I was 18 I was carefree. I don’t know if I would say I was wild, but definately carefree. I did whatever I wanted when ever I wanted. I was playing division III college field hockey at Manhattanville college. I was partying on the weekends and smoking weed whenever I could. Yes, it was fun, but I’m not going to lie, I didn’t feel like I truly fit in. After that school year ended it was 2013, I got a job at a local coffee shop and I started to feel like I fit in somewhere for once, I was there from May until August, when I went back up to school for preseason. A few days in I started having chest pain, I tried allergy medication, but that wasn’t helpful, I was having trouble breathing. So I thought it might be asthma, so I went into the walk in clinic, and had a panic attack on the spot. They ran test after test and none of them showed anything. Eventually they perscriped me ativan for the anxiety. A few days later I was home to see my family doctor, she gave me a muscle relaxant, which did nothing, except ruin my 19th birthday. At the end of all this between my parents, my doctors, and myself, we decided it would be best for me to stay home, for what was supposed to be a semester, but turned into me never going back. That’s when the real fun started.

My 19th year, that was an eye opening year. I had signed up for classes at the community college near me, but I wouldn’t get out if bed to go to them. I didn’t think much of it, but in October I was diagnosed with depression. Something that I never thought would happen to me, I was shocked, but things got better with medication, I was actually going to class and getting good grades. Then things got worse. I started seeing a new psychiatrist. He had come highly recommended. In April of my 19th year I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 Disorder. That’s where my story begins.

 

Some sort of love

I now know what its like to love someone in secret. To love them in such a way where its obvious and it’s not, to have the type of relationship thats on the brink, the slippery slope of staying the way you are to each other or trying to be something more. It’s the type of thing where you act, but don’t say, you act a certain way and do certain things but refuse to acknowledge it with words as to not make it into something real.
I now know what it is to realize what could be divine intervention, but after the fact. Something happens and it seems like nothing out of the ordinary until something extraordinary comes out of it. Then know that maybe it was supposed to be that way. Then you miss you chance, you fall in love and you know they feel it to, it’s unacknowledged love. Then the next thing you know it’s all being ripped out from under you in a matter of minutes.
Everything changes it a few seconds with just a few words.
You finally know what it feels like to have your heart ripped out of your chest unintentionally. Your love is lost forever, sent out into the unknown never to return, sent away with one single sentence, because everything, from that moment on is different. But the next thing you know, your picking your heart up off the ground and putting it back in your chest, because somehow you find a sliver of hope. well, maybe not hope, but something along the lines of no harm no foul. He never said he felt anyway about you and you never said it either. You’re not really okay, but you’re not hurting either. It’s an odd feeling, but you like it, because you don’t lose each other, theres just a newly found line that you you dare not cross. So you dance on it, near it, and around it, but you’re careful never to cross it. This isn’t one of those things where people say “go ahead cross the line, be bold, daring, and wild” but you know this is not the time or place for that. Both of you know that.
So you just live in the moments, because it’s the type of thing that has built up tension and caring and this sort of bond that can not be defined or explained. So you just let it be, let it play it’s course for the short time you are together. And then you let him go. Because you always keep at the back of your mind that no matter what happens here he’s going back to someone else, sleeping in another persons bed, and as much as you don’t like it, at the same time you’re more than okay with it.
Because to me, that’s a part of love, sacrificing your wants for their needs.
And at the end of the day, he may be what you want, but you’re the farthest thing from what he needs.