Day to Day

My little heart hurts. I can’t seem to figure out a happy medium for how to achieve things during the day. I’ll wake up and it’s hit or miss. Most of the morning I’m usually okay. At some point though the sadness gets me. I’m not down or depressed, I’m just sad. I’m in mourning. The only things that can heal something like this is time. That’s not an easy thing to accept, because we are used to having instant answers, but the only answer to someone close to you passing, is time.

I feel like all my inspiration and will power has left me. I have ideas, but I can’t seem to act on those ideas. I can make a list, but what’s the point if I don’t have the will power to complete it? To even get one of the tasks done. Yet, like when dealing with most things, some days are better than others. For example, a few days ago I set 3 simple goals. I completed all 3 before noon. Today though, I can barely get off the couch. This is actually the third post I’ve started today because nothing seems right. I’m not able to elaborate on any of my ideas. So, I’m back to the old school writing about my feelings.

I’m roasting today, so the kitchen where I work is over 80 degrees, which I’m sure isn’t helping anything. I don’t feel like watching anything. I don’t want to engage in social media because I’m overwhelmed by the news. I can barely handle what’s happening in my personal life, let alone create my opinions on what’s happening in the world. Being a political science major, I feel like I should have thoughts, ideas, and answers. Be able to carry out a discussion. Right now though, I just can’t.

I’m very anxious, that’s how it’s been for a few days. Just consumed by anxiety. Which just makes me want to shut down and do nothing. Just curl up in a blanket in front of my fan in my 78 degree living room. So, that’s what I do. I feel like there’s only a short period of time where I can get things done during the day, I have to find that time and do all the things that I can. I had a few posts planned for this week, but those will probably be on hold until next week. I keep hoping that the next day will be better, but there’s no way to tell if it will be. I mean, if we knew how we would feel the next day, well I don’t know what would happen.

I think something I’m learning is that I’m still learning. No one expects me to know all the answers and knowing myself I know I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have to be perfect. I’m aloud to feel my feelings how ever I need to express them.

Advertisement

Sunday Rambles Pt 3

I’m going to try and keep this a bit more easy breezy, but I can’t make any promises. So, the first thing I woke up to was a half eaten, what I think was a bat, outside my bedroom door. We leave my cat outside in the living room and kitchen at night, sometimes he catches bats. All our windows are closed though, so i’m not entirely sure where he got the bat from, and that also begs the question, do cats eat bats? Anyway, we may have to get him his rabies shot, because I’m not sure if he has it or not. Hopefully he does, but I won’t know until my boyfriend wakes up.

I already drank my coffee and had a small snack, so today I’m not going to try and force myself to relax, but I still need time to process and grieve. I’m not sure how other people are feeling and no one is really asking me. I’m okay with that though. I don’t want people swarming me, the people that matter know how I’m feeling. Yesterday morning I was exhausted, mostly emotionally and mentally, but I felt it in my body too. I just wanted to sleep, which I did. I must have taken like 3 naps yesterday. I know I’ll be okay though.

There’s so may things I want to do, but I know the best thing for me to do is to rest. Sit with my feelings and let myself feel them, try and not distract myself too much. I haven’t been listening to any podcasts really, which makes me kind of sad. I love podcasts. I just feel like the TV is my comfort zone and like most people I don’t like to leave my comfort zone. Sometimes I feel like podcasts are out of my comfort zone, so I just don’t feel like podcasts are in that comfort zone. One of my posts this week is most likely going to be about circle of control and circle of concern. I’m not sure what day that’s going to go up, but I’m looking forward to that post. So look for that.

It’s starting to get really warm in New York, which means that the air conditioner in. I’m not crazy about that. When I was living in mt old room I wasn’t allowed to have one in my room, because it would have been on the same circuit as my parents and it would blow the fuse. So, I’m used to living in the heat, and I actually like it. Having all the windows open and having fans, it’s how I’m most comfortable in the summer. Now though, we have the animals and we need to have the air conditioner for them.

I’m anxious, but I think it’s because I’m hungry, so I should probably eat. We usually order breakfast, but I don’t know when he’ll be awake. He’s found a new hobby and he’s very excited and I’m excited for him. It makes me feel like I should find one, but then I realized, writing is my hobby. Right now this blog is my hobby. I don’t want to think of it as a hobby, but it’s not a job yet. I want it to be. Not like a full full time job, but just a full time job. Because I know that’s what I want to do, but I can’t put that time in right now. I own my own business, and that’s my true full time job. I wake up early to write these posts or I write them in bulk. There’s so many things I want to do with writing, but I can’t do that right this second. Maybe in a few weeks, but right now, writing is a hobby. I write all day. I have a jotterpad page open all day on here and I have so many journals filled with ideas. It’s just not the time, but I feel like at some point it will be. I’m pretty confident in that.

Since this is my Sunday Rambles post, I may just keep writing. I’ve decided that I’m going to start writing an intention for the week and making two goals for the week and choosing a word for the week and just keep that in mind. I’m not sure what this weeks word will be. I’m thinking maybe strength or rest or heal. My intention maybe something like, feel your feelings, sit with them and that it’s okay to be sad. I don’t really know. I’ll figure it out. I don’t usually do it until Sunday night.

My mom just made a smoothie and it was really good, so that might fill me up a little bit. I’m pretty awake now. For some reason coffee makes me more awake than any other type of energy drink. I actually feel pretty okay right now. I think I’ll go bask in it. Happy Sunday! I hope this wasn’t too much of a ramble fest.

Let Me Talk About My Feelings

I started this post last night when I was feeling pretty bad. I didn’t understand why I was feeling bad, but I was. I still don’t know what I feel right now. Yesterday was a weird day. If you saw my Routine Ruiner post, then you would know that I was having stomach pain, which caused me to wake up at 5 am, which unfortunately set the tone for my day. I just created a morning routine, and I was pretty keen on sticking to it. This was the first time I felt that bad and I didn’t know what to do. I don’t have the mindset yet to where I can say to myself, it’s okay that you are having pain, it’s temporary, you’ll get back on your routine tomorrow. Which to my own surprise I did. I slept a little bit later, but I still did it. Honestly, I’m very proud of myself.

I haven’t been feeling as down recently which is very good for me. Being Bipolar regulating my moods is a full time job. It goes like this, I feel bad, what do I have in my tool kit to try and make me feel less bad. When nothing in my tool kit works, I have to wing it, which usually leads to me giving in and laying on the couch and just falling deeper and deeper into that feeling. Then maybe a little while I may swing up, then I have to think to myself, okay, is this turning into mania? Then I have to put my tools in place that I use to prevent mania. I can become so focused on these things that I forget that I don’t have to hone in on these specific tools are not the only things that I can do. I do need to focus though on that one feeling, if I feel bad, focus on that, I need to not focus on whether or not I’m going to swing into mania. I need to tell myself, that this moon is temporary, which it is. Yet, when you’re stuck in it you feel like this is the worst and it’s never going to end.

Sometimes it’s kind of like, maybe it would be better if I didn’t feel anything. That’s not something you want though, trust me. I want for years not knowing what I felt, I couldn’t explain them, I couldn’t put them in boxes, as in someone would ask me what I felt, and all I could do was shrug my shoulders and cry or panic. I couldn’t decipher between mania and depression, which were essentially my only two mood states.

Now those days were extremely terrible. I don’t even know how I got through it. Anyway, flash forward to today, I feel too many feeling, I mean maybe it’s the normal amount of feelings for someone else. For me though, it’s a lot to figure out. For example, there are what I like to call, mini feelings. Those are the feelings that are not your basic, bad, sad, happy, the usual. I’m learning to navigate feelings like, melancholy. If you had told me that this was a feeling that existed a few years ago, I would have panicked. Now, it’s what I use a lot of the time to describe what I feel. So, that’s just a little bit about my feelings and how far I’ve come.

(written on 5/15/20)

I’m Just…

Tired, I’m just tired. Well more like exhausted, but not in an emotional way. Which is usually why I’m exhausted. I feel fine mentally, I mean I’m having a little bit of anxiety, but that’s nothing new. I think I’m so exhausted because I’m not as anxious. When I’m anxious my body just gets so tense and I just feel bad. Now that I’m less anxious, my body isn’t as tense, therefore my body is exhausted while my mind is not. My mind is telling me to do all these things, listen to podcasts, exercise, do all the work things. My body on the other hand is like, nope. It’s very irritating. Because my mind is clear and ready to go, but I just don’t want to. I have the ability to relax because my body isn’t tense, but because of my mind, I just can’t relax.

Maybe I need to start meditating. That’s the one thing everyone suggests that I don’t do, I just feel so awkward doing it. I’m not sure. I mean, I could try it in the morning while my coffee is brewing. Which takes about 4 minutes. So, maybe I could try 3 minutes, and just clear my mind and relax. I’m not very good at relaxing to begin with. I always feel like there’s something I should be doing.

Okay, it’s the next morning, and I am exhausted. I slept through the night just fine, but I woke up at 5:45 (which seems to be the new normal) did my morning routine. Watch some YouTube videos, eat a very small snack, then I did one of the circuits I created to exercise, made coffee, and now I’m listening to a podcast while trying to get some work done. I just want to curl up under the blankets and go back to sleep. The past week or so that I did this, I woke up and I was fine all day. Today that’s not the case. I’m just beyond exhausted. There’s tons to do today also, a full schedule of roasting, and working on the new blog that I’m creating for our business. I need to research some things, like what other companies in the same industry blog about, and other things along those lines.

I feel like if I keep going like this, I’m going to burn out. I feel though that because of my bipolar it’s one extreme or another. Like, its go, go, go, or nope, not happening. There is no in between. I know I need to work on that, because it really does bother me.

Lazy Daze, but Not

You know when you want to want to do things, but you really don’t want to? Yeah, that’s me. It’s like when I say “I feel bad, but I don’t..” my boyfriend calls it babe logic. It’s because I can’t explain what I’m feeling, because it’s one of those in between feelings, like melancholy. Because I’m not really sad. Anyway, today is a day where I feel relatively okay, I want to do things, but I’m not having any motivation or direction. I just kind of want to be, just sit and be melancholy. I know I should do something to try and remedy it, but I kind of don’t want to. I want to start actually feeling my feelings and not just medicalizing them as symptoms.

I feel very melancholy right now. I’ve been listening to podcasts all day and it was a nice change to having youtube videos constantly on in the background. I’ve been into more non-fiction topics lately. The podcasts are real people, talking about real topics, sharing their real stories. Some of the things they talk about are just digging deep. I’m not sure why I made the switch from fiction to non-fiction, but I’m glad I did. It makes me feel less alone, I’m also learning a ton, and they all make me think.

Anyway, it looks like I have a lazy day ahead of me. Not a lazy day as in, I accomplished so much yesterday that I need to take the day off. Even though I did do a fair amount yesterday, but I always feel like I should be doing something. Like I should when I have energy, I feel like I should make up for all times that I was too anxious or depressed or just down, to do. But those days that I was feeling that way, they’re gone, there may not even be a point in doing the things I was supposed to do, because it’s past a deadline or I didn’t follow up with someone that I should have. So, today really isn’t a lazy day, but it’s also not, not a lazy day. If that makes any sense at all.

I’ve made the decision to pre-write some posts, because it does make me feel kind of accomplished, and it gives me a creative outlet. So if the tenses or times are weird in later posts, that’s why. I really want to take a nap, but that’s not a good idea, because whenever I take a nap I always feel worse after. So, I’m doing what I can to keep myself awake. It’s not like I haven’t been sleeping well, I’ve been sleeping pretty well considering all the emotions I’ve been feeling. It’s like I’m mini-cycling. As in, I’m bipolar, and I’m cycling but at a very minimal level. Like, I can’t find a happy medium, there is no neutral, it’s good mood or meh mood. Maybe I’ll write a post about being “meh”…time will tell. Regardless, I don’t necessarily feel bad today, but I’m also not in a good mood. I’ve been up since 5:30 am, I would usually exercise a little bit, but not this morning because I was having stomach pain last night, and I didn’t want to push it. So, I stretched, made coffee, scrolled through socials, had a phone session with my doctor. I mean, when I look at it on paper, it seems like I got a lot done. Especially for someone coming out of a severe depression, but I feel like it’s not enough. Because after the phone session I really didn’t do anything.

So the question is: lazy daze? or nah?

It’s Been Awhile/Tough Love

Hiiiiii. I know, it’s been a minute I posted, but lots of things have happened. I don’t even know where to start. I’ll just start with the more recent events and as things come to me, I’ll write them down. So, until about two weeks ago I was severely depressed. The days were just running together. I was having dark thoughts, I wasn’t eating, I was weepy and apathetic. The usual. Also, I was isolating (as much as I could) in isolation. I would sit on the couch away from my boyfriend, and just stare at the TV, nothing made me happy. Then flashback to two weeks ago, my boyfriend brought me back to reality, he said what I needed to hear. They may not have been things I wanted to hear, and I cried, but it snapped me right out of the depression. He basically said that my perspective was too focused on myself, I know, I know, it sounds like it could be mean or unnecessary. He said it with love though, it was tough love for sure, but it was loving. I’m so lucky to have him, and that’s even an understatement.

I’ve lost count of the days we’ve been in isolation, they’re all running together. Like this morning, I was texting my best friend and I honestly thought today was Wednesday. When I was depressed, I lost all inspiration. I should have been posting on social media for the business, but I just couldn’t, I wasn’t able to choose what I wanted to post or how to word it, so I figured there was no point. Because of the virus things had slowed down for business. Which was irritating because we had just started to gain momentum, followers, people buying the coffee, events, but that all stopped. So, what are you supposed to do when that happens? We tried to do what we could to keep busy, but when there comes a point where you can’t create things to do anymore, there’s nothing you can really do. Positive thinking was not on my mind when quarantine started, I was scared of the uncertainty of the world around me. I spiraled.

The last two weeks have been much better, I changed my thinking. For example, when I say that I feel bad, I just think to myself that “you feel bad right now, and that’s okay because this won’t last forever.” So basically, if you get knocked down, or feel bad or anything negative, you can sit with that and feel that, but you can’t live there. I’m not trying to say, if you feel bad you can just pull yourself out of it. We’re all different, what mindset works for me, may not work for you. I may be able to say those things to myself and accept my feelings, but maybe you can’t. That’s okay, find something though, find something to believe in.

Speaking of things to believe in, I’ve been trying to become my spiritual, and find my path to something more concrete to believe in. I don’t mean concrete in the sense that I want a strict religion to follow, I just want some loose guidelines. The path I have chosen to explore is paganism and wicca. I’m still learning and reading, watching videos, and just finding out what they believe and how they embody their beliefs. I’ve found that you can practice in your own specific way, in private or openly, there is the Wiccan Rede, which is something that attracted me to it, it aligned with my beliefs. It’s like I was looking for something, and I believe I found it for a reason. I won’t go into it too much though. I’m still exploring.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading. I actually decided to read a book about the basics of physics, and I found it very interesting. I’m also in the middle of a book about the actual existence of Atlantis, which is something I’ve always wanted to read up on. Also, I’ve actually chosen to read a philosophy book. I took a lot of philosophy courses in the past semesters, and I was forced to read philosophy, but I’ve somehow found an interest in it, where I actually want to read it. It’s different when you have the ability to choose to read about a subject, then when you are given the material to read, when you’re told, you must read this to pass this class. I actually took the semester off to work on the business, and then COVID-19 hit. Which now that I’m writing, this time off has given me the opportunity to study and explore and just find passions.

Well, I think that’s it for now. If you read this whole rambling thing, I thank you. I promise I will try and write more. Let me leave you with this: Go out and explore everything. By go out, I mean read books or watch videos about things that you’re kind of interested in, you never know what type of passions you’ll find.

How are You Doing

It’s such a loaded question. It makes you think, how am I actually doing? Or, what are you going to tell this person? What you think they want to hear or maybe you can actually tell them how you actually are. It depends on the person, but it also depends on you.

For me, I always take the safe route and just say that “I’m fine”, or if it’s my dad, I just kind of make noises like “eh. meh.” and he understands. But, when is the right time to open up and say, “No, I’m not doing okay.”? I can’t answer that for anyone else, but I’ve learned to pick and choose who I say what to. I feel like there are some people who need to know, some people I actually want to know, then there’s people who don’t need to know or maybe even don’t deserve to know. It’s something that really needs to be contemplated though, I mean, that’s what I think anyway. Like, who in your life do you feel like you can turn to and tell them that you are not okay. Who do you reach out to? Who do you feel safe with?

Answering that question can leave you very exposed, because there are so many variables that go into the answer, but you have a split second to answer. So, what do you do? How do you answer? Are you really doing “fine”? You’ll know, but depending on what other people say, you decide on what you’re going to say. I feel like this issue runs through everyone’s head when the question is asked.

If you have mental illness, it make take a lot out of you to answer the question truthfully, you may be on autopilot and say a very basic, vague answer. Like I said, there are a lot of variables. Your comfort level with the person, the setting, the situation. It’s like you have to run through the five W’s (Who, What, When, Where, and Why) before you can answer the question.

I was thinking about this the other day, how I wish I wasn’t bipolar, how I wish I was “normal”, how I wish I didn’t have anxiety. Because I hate all those things, and they’re things I want to say when people ask how I’m doing, but I would never say those things. So, it’s something I have to deal with everyday of my life, I have to fight through and deal with it. Be stronger everyday. It’s not easy though. Some days when someone asks, you just want to beak down and cry and say that you are not okay. But, you’ll put on a brave face and a smile and say that everything is just peachy.

It’s not easy and it sure as hell isn’t fair, but it’s something that we always have to deal with, mental illness or not, people have bad days. Not everyone is hiding something, but some are. Life is just what it is. So next time someone asks how you’re doing, take an extra tenth of a second to think, reflect, how am I doing? Am I sugar coating it for this person? If I don’t, will they understand?

If you need validation for telling someone that you’re okay when you’re not, it’s here. I mean, find someone you trust and feel comfortable with and tell them, but you don’t have to tell someone in passing or someone you don’t see often how you’re actually doing.

Hey Little Fighter, Things will get Brighter

I’ve been doing a lot of research into mental illness recently. Bipolar disorder, PTSD, and anxiety mostly. I’m not sure why now and not before. I also constantly feel like uncontrollably sobbing most of the time. Let’s just say that I’m feeling a lot of emotions right now. I’ve been doing all this research and I’m not really sure what I’m looking for, as if I’m searching for answers that I know don’t exist. Because what I feel is so personal, and raw, like people can relate, but no one feels the exact same way as I do at any given time, and I can’t always explain what I feel. It’s all very frustrating.

I haven’t been able to blog because I’ve been searching for these answers that can only be found in the depths of my mind. I keep thinking and thinking, I can feel my soul be suffocated, but I can never reach the answers I’m looking for. Mostly because I can’t figure out what question I’m asking on any given day. I just know I’m tired, exhausted, of my mind being at war with itself. Going through these flashbacks, which have thankfully subsided, has put a toll on me, like, it’s hard to figure out reality and memories, what’s now and what is history. So, there was that, now I’m just lost. My brain can’t handle much these days. I haven’t been able to work a full day of work, I’ve been isolating and spending a lot of time curled up on our tiny couch in our tiny living room, where it’s cozy and safe. I constantly have to remind myself that I’m safe, and what happened wasn’t my fault.

I didn’t do anything wrong, so why am I suffering?

I just don’t understand. My soul and mind can’t take it. The only reoccurring thought I have is that, I don’t want to die. I’m feeling a lot of fear right now, and it’s smothering me. I’m scared mostly of becoming suicidal and having to go back to the hospital. I don’t know why I feel like that if all I keep saying is that I don’t want to die. Like, that’s the opposite of what I’m truly afraid of. So I don’t know why I’m so distressed. My therapist says I’m fearing fear itself right now, because I also keep thinking about death.

All I think of when I think of being afraid of fear itself, I think about Harry Potter, when Lupin tells Harry that he’s afraid of fear itself because he’s afraid of the dementors, which are the guards of the wizard prison azkaban, and they feed off happiness and suck out peoples souls. Lovely image, right? I suppose that’s the point. Anyway, that’s how I feel, like a dementor is here sucking the life out of me.

I just want to curl up in a ball and cry, like I said, just sob uncontrollably until there’s no more tears left. I feel like that’s not possible though. I feel like I don’t know what I feel. I feel like I don’t know anything. I’m searching for answers to nothing, answers to a question that my soul is asking that I can’t make out. I suppose if I want to know the question, I have to get down and dirty with my feelings. I have to take a deep dive, take a break, and nourish my soul. It needs to be cared for now more than ever.

Also, on a positive note, it’s my birth-month. I LOVE my birthday, like I really love it. As soon as August hits I start my count down. Now it’s the 7th and I could care less about turning 25, a few weeks ago I was so exited and planning my trip to Salem, MA (where my boyfriend and I will be spending most of my birth-week). Now, I just feel like I’m struggling to get through the day. I’m just tired and over these emotions and I just want to give up. I won’t though. I’m in this for the long haul and I will walk through the fire, or I will rise from it, like a phoenix.

 

The Only Way Out Is Through

That’s what I keep telling myself anyway. It’s become my new mantra. I haven’t posted in a few days because I’m dealing with some PTSD related things. It’s been rough, I had a breakdown at work yesterday and had to come home.

So, at this point the only thing to do is deal with my issues head on, and work through them, because there’s no way around them. If I deal with them now, it’ll be easier in the future. If I choose to avoid them now, they’ll come back to haunt me again and again. It’s now or in another 3 years when the trauma resurfaces. Last time I dealt with this, I got extremely depressed, shut down, and ended up in the hospital because I didn’t want to live anymore. So, dealing with this isn’t something that’s easy. I’m in a much better headspace and environment now than I was then. Hopefully I can get through this a little easier than last time.

It’s like reopening a wound, making the skin raw again, and letting it heal. Like the Papa Roach song, “I tear my heart open to sew myself shut”. That’s essentially what I’m doing. I don’t have to necessarily relive the trauma, but I have to rehash some of it, bring it to the surface, and deal with it. I suppressed it, twice. Last time I dealt with it I just told people what happened, I never actually talked about it, I just thought that it would go away, and for a little while it did. Something triggered me though, and now I have to deal with it for real. According to my therapist I just have to keep myself distracted for the time being, which is easier said than done. It’s like when you least want to be distracted the more you are, and when you want to be preoccupied or distracted, you can only focus on the thing you don’t want to.

That’s where I’m at right about now. Just trying to get through the jungle of emotions, the mess of issues, and just overall trying to get better. I feel like this is kind of a setback in my process of trying to stay stable. So, I just have to keep going.

The only way out, is through.

Quit Saying You’re Sorry (for everything)

I didn’t do anything wrong. So, why am I apologizing? I find myself asking this question a lot. Most of the time I think it’s to avoid an adverse reaction to whatever it is that I had done. I find myself apologizing for the most random things, like taking too long to bag my stuff at 7-11 when I bring my own bag. I wouldn’t call myself a passive person, but with the amount of times I say I’m sorry, you would think that I am.

I’ve been struggling the past few days, due to things out of my control, but the thing is, that my reaction makes the things worse. Most of the time I honestly don’t think I did anything wrong. I just don’t want to make waves, I don’t want to make things worse for a certain situation, so I say that I’m sorry when I shouldn’t. I think it’s because I want to save myself the trouble of cleaning up the mess of what ensues if I don’t apologize, or out of fear for what will happen if I don’t say it.

I have to learn that I can’t control what other people do or how they feel or how they react to something. I’m guilty of saying things without thinking, sometimes it warrants an apology, other times it really doesn’t, but I say it anyway. It’s something I have to work on, because instead of fully dealing with the situation, I stop it in its tracks and it just comes up again. I can save myself some trouble by letting the situation play out a little bit further, I suppose. I really just don’t know. The main thing is, like I just wrote, I cannot, under any circumstances control how another person reacts to something. Because everyone will react to something differently. I try to not let it get to me, but I can’t help it, I tend to take a lot of things personally, to not really have a thick skin.

I’m 24 I still have things to learn and things to figure out, it doesn’t help that I have Bipolar and anxiety. I feel like it just adds an extra layer to things, like I have to get past the layer of myself that deals with things on a bipolar level, then I have to deal with them on a level past that. It takes me longer to process things and I tend to feel things so deeply, I struggle with that a lot. Taking things to heart when I shouldn’t, even when people say what’s happening with them has nothing to do with me, I feel like it does. I don’t mean that in a self-centered type of way, more like, I did something wrong, it has to be why they’re feeling this way or that way.

Another feeling I feel very deeply, is guilt, I feel guilty about everything. Almost every word I say I feel guilty about, I’m always second guessing myself and I never actually get out what I want to say. So, I feel guilty about the wrong things. It really is just a mess that I’m in right now. I feel like I’m walking on egg shells, for no real reason in particular.