Meditative Morning

I woke up this morning in a surprisingly relaxed mood. Just very chill. It was odd, but I woke up before sunrise, which I rarely ever do. Especially since I’ve been done with school. I mean, I’ve only been done with school for about two weeks or so. However, this is the first morning I’ve felt like this. I’m going back to my old morning routine I think. Which was coffee, podcasts, maybe a workout, and writing or reading. I’ve actually added crocheting to that, but I need to add some quiet time into my mornings. For the past year I’ve just woken up and put on YouTube and just be done with it. I need to be more mindful and meditative though. When I get anxious I have started being mindful of my breath and just turning everything off. No distractions, just me and my breath. It’s amazing what a few deep breaths can do.

It helps when I put my headphones in too. I think I’ll add a simple book into my morning routine, nothing too heavy. I think I’ll add Percy Jackson. I’ve read it before, but I think I want to do a reread. I think it will help me ease into my day without getting excited and just shoving me into a my day. I also need to add eating a normal breakfast into my morning. I just want to have a relaxing morning from now on.

I also want to start doing more blog posts about actual things not just posts about my mornings. I focus a lot on myself. Like an unhealthy amount. I think that’s why I get so anxious all the time, I’m just in my own head all the time, thinking about myself and what I’m doing wrong and just me me me. And here I am, just writing about myself. This is my blog though. So, it’s a fine line.

I’m going on vacation in a month in a half and I’m very excited. We’re going upstate and it will be very nice to get away.

It’s a little later in the day now, and my meditative morning has faded away. Now it’s filled with boredom and anxiety, fidgeting and lack of focus. I hate when this happens, I’ll have an okay morning, but then I realize how much of the day I have left and I start to panic. Like, what am I supposed to do all day? I mean, I have options, but when I sit down to do any of them I just get a wave of anxiety. Which then makes me not want to do anything. So, I’ll just sit and get stuck in my own head. I can’t stay like that though, if I start living in these feelings I’ll just spiral.

I think I have to work on chucks of my day. Like I’ll work on making my mornings smooth, then I’ll work on being less anxious and panicky in the afternoon, and so on. I just don’t know what to do any more. My boyfriend says it could be an identity crisis because I’m technically graduated. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t like it.

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Morning Anxiety, Still?

I woke up with so much anxiety this morning. I have been most mornings actually. I’m not sure why, but having anxiety as soon as I wake up is probably one of my least favorite things. Because I just want to enjoy my morning. Drink my coffee, watch some YouTube, crochet a little bit, maybe read. I feel like I can;t get any of those things done though because I’m consumed by anxiety. It’s not stress, because I’m done with school, which is usually the root of all my stress. It’s straight up anxiety. I have a scale 1-10, if my anxiety is at an 8, I take a xanax. If it’s below that, I try to use the tools in my tool box to try and bring down the anxiety.

I don’t have a lot of tools in my “tool box”, as you think I might seeing as I’ve been dealing with my mental heath pretty much my entire life. I just don’t know what you would consider a tool. I just try to practice mindfulness, which I’m not very good at. I try distraction, which usually is the winner, but it has to be the right distraction. Makeup videos? Nope, they usually just make it worse. I usually just end up scrolling through social media looking for funny videos. I might put on some video game channels (yes, I watch people play video games to calm down) or my favorite distraction is watching channels about books. Reading does help, but when I’m anxious anything that gets my blood pumping just fuels my anxiety. So, I have to read a compelling, but not super action packed books. Same thing goes for TV shows or movies.

I don’t wake up exhausted or anything, I just wake up with my mind racing and panic in my chest. It takes a few minutes to sink in, but after I’ve wiped the sleep from my eyes it truly sets in. It’s very annoying. It’s just persistent anxiety. Writing does help though. Sometimes I’ll pick up my cat or force my dog to come sit with me while she’s still half asleep. I’m just so on edge for no reason. I keep hearing things as assigning problematic things to them. The garbage men coming to pick up the garage are actually trying to break into my house. I mean, I suppose that’s anxiety sprinkled with paranoia. The worst though is that we have some gnats in my apartment and I constantly feel like they’re crawling on me. That is just very uncomfortable. It usually just ends up being a stray hair. Because I have so much of it I’m constantly shedding.

I suppose I could turn my anxiety into something productive, but that’s a slippery slope because it’s possible that it will trigger mania. I’ve also been having trouble eating, like I want to eat, but I’m not really hungry. I saw a dietitian and she has me on a diet, it’s not a strict diet, but I’m having trouble reaching my calorie count every day. Because I need high calorie, but low carb, and I’m just not getting the hang of it. It’s very frustrating. So, I suppose I’m anxious about reaching my calorie count being in the correct range.

So, bottom line, morning anxiety is annoying and disruptive.

Panic, mania, anxiety, Oh My!

If any phrase could sum up my day it would be this. I spent the day battling anxiety, followed by mania, and finally a sense of panic. Followed by more anxiety. Also, stress on stress on stress. Most of the things I’m stressed about I have no control over, so it’s hard to deal with. Like fighting something that isn’t there. Eventually you have to give in and try and figure out why you’re fighting so hard. Usually because the answer is something you don’t want to hear. For me, it’s being told that all the things I’m stressing about, are out of my control. There is not one thing I can do except wait on other people and in one case trust my doctors and my body.

The mania was not fun, my mind started racing and I couldn’t stop the intrusive thought cycle. I was restless, you know the usual. Finally I’m feeling a bit better. I had some herbal tea, put on a podcast and of course xanax. Part of my issue is that I feel this constant need to do something. Like, I have so many books to read and shows I want to watch, that I don’t even know where to start. So, I panic about that. Literally the thing that matters the least. I get anxious about things that most people find relaxing. Probably because I’m horrible and even avoid making choices. As if I can make a wrong choice starting a book or a show and deciding that I don’t like it. If I don’t like it, then I have permission to stop. It’s as if I need to give myself permission to do things that other people just do, without thinking. I need to basically make a pro and con list about everything, then I like throw that pro and con list in the fire and watch makeup videos on YouTube. How is that a healthy cycle?

It’s not. A lot of the things I do are not healthy, as in mentally healthy. Also, I miss gluten. That has nothing to do with any of this, but watching people eat things my body rejects makes me feel pretty bad. My anxiety is back to being overwhelming. You know what I’m going to do? Probably Youtube, because I’m not very good at changing my habits or even truly recognizing that they’ve gotten to an unhealthy point. Which I feel like my YT watching has gotten to. I have a podcast on now, because that’s part of the things I want to do more of this year. I just need to be able to identify the unhealthy habit, figure out how to change it, then slowly implement those changes. I need to push past the anxiety in these situations, because the anxiety is uncomfortable, but keeping up with the habit will just make it worse. It doesn’t help how bored I am. I also can’t focus and a whole bunch of things just weigh me down.

The anxiety is so bad. I’m at a loss for words to explain why it’s so intense. I feel like crying, my chest is tight, every movement feels like I’m moving a mountain. I’m at a loss for what to do, I can’t focus. I try counting my breaths and doing breathing exercises, but nothing is making it better. My bf asks me what’s wrong and I can’t tell him because I don’t know. My mind is a jumbled mess. I just want to rock back and forth or bounce my leg. I’ve been trying to keep that under control. I know the possible solution to all of this could be mindfulness, but it’s not easy. I have all the help I need at my finger tips, I just don’t know how to use it.

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.

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.

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.

Trying is Enough

I’m sorry about the unexpected hiatus. I’ve been mourning pretty hard the past week or so. I’m writing this at 6:20 in the morning. For some reason i felt like writing so I wanted to take advantage of it.

What’s been happening is that I’ve been consumed with anxiety. Like when I wake up, on a scale of 1-10, my anxiety is usually about a 7. It doesn’t really let up during the day either. So, basically to combat the anxiety I have to try and revamp my morning routine. Which I don’t want to do, but I need to. My mental health is the most important thing. If that means I need to change a few things then by all means I will. I’m cutting back from working out 6 days to 4 or 5. I’m just kind of changing random things to see if it’ll make things better. I’m not really sure what else to do. Today, i decided to have a snack when I woke up, with my water. We’ll see.

Another thing I’m doing is trying to change my mindset. I try to think, okay I feel bad, what do I need to do feel better? It’s more of an active way of approaching my anxiety rather than passive. Right now the answer is usually anti-anxiety medication and time. I’m so consumed with sadness that my body doesn’t know what to do and my anxiety kicks in. The only thing that heals a loss though is time. So, I try and find a distraction and relax.

Another way I’m trying to do is complain less. I’m constantly complaining about how bad I feel, like every hour. How is that being productive? If I just lay around and just keep thinking that I don’t feel well, I’ll get lost in my own head. That is not helpful at all and it’s very annoying. I’m not very good a looking at the big picture when I don’t feel well. Which is also not helpful. Since I’ve been trying to change my mindset things are kind of getting better. I feel better this morning so far, I mean, I’ve only been awake for 38 minutes, but usually by this point my anxiety would be a 7 and I’d be curled up on the couch under a blanket trying to control my breathing.

I’m going to make a to-do list today with like two things. I don’t want to overwhelm myself because that will trigger my anxiety. Let’s be real though, almost anything can trigger my anxiety. It’s more about how I handle it now. It’s about how much effort I put in even though I don’t feel well. It’s about trying and that has to be enough.