Weekly Wrap-Up

I’m starting this Friday afternoon, I want to have something down for tomorrow. I don’t know I’ll feel in the morning, so I’ll start now. It’s 4:40 pm, I don’t think much will happen between now and tomorrow morning when I usually write these posts. I mean, as this week has taught me, a lot can happen in a short amount of time. We lost my grandmother on early Wednesday morning. It’s really tearing me up right now. I didn’t get to say a proper goodbye, and that’s what hurts the most.

Okay, it’s early Saturday morning. I’m trying to get back into a routine a little bit. So I woke up around 5, then I worked out, and then I went to 7-11 for caffeine and some other drinks and cat food. I’m not sure what the format of this post is going to be, because I was distracted for most of the week. There’s a lot to catch up on.

I didn’t post on Monday because I had a manic episode on Sunday afternoon, then I didn’t sleep at all Sunday night. The thing is though that I’m very sensitive to stimuli the day after a manic episode. I decided Monday was going to be a rest day, but I had a lot of roasting to do. The other thing is that I don’t know how to relax, especially when I try to force it. The reason I had a manic episode was because I pushed myself past my limits. I started working on the computer early in the morning, then by the end of the day I was trying the plan my entire life. If you haven’t been here before, I don’t do well with full on structure for my routines and my days. I need more of a loose structure. If I plan my entire day, I end up overwhelming myself and beating myself up if I don’t do everything I had planned on doing. So, when I attempt to plan my whole life, things usually go terribly wrong. Anyway, I was trying to do a million things at once on Sunday and it triggered a manic episode. I attempted to control it, but I ended up being hypomanic on Monday morning. I was reading a book and it was so good, I had to stop because it was stimulating me and getting my blood pumping. All day Monday I tried to force myself to relax, which didn’t work out very well.

I haven’t been sleeping very well this week. Right now I feel like I’m exhausted, mostly because I was in emotional stress all week. Before my grandma passed and after. I woke up and in my head I told myself that I was going to get back into my routine today, partly at least. I need to try and get things done early because I know by about noon I’ll be pretty sad and I won’t want to do anything. I’m forcing myself to stay awake right now, at least until my boyfriend wakes up. I roasted all day and he roasted all night. On Thursday no matter what I did I could not get comfortable at all and ended up in bed all day. Which is very unusual for me. Today I may also spend in bed, depending on how tired I feel and how just sad I am. I’m going to do a quick list of things that have been keeping me distracted the past few days:

• Parks and Rec- This is honestly one of my favorite shows. Not everyone likes it, but I watch it whenever I’m down and I don’t know what else to do. I started from the beginning at 3:30 am on Wednesday. It helps a lot, I find a lot of comfort in it.
• I’m still vibing with Penny Dreadful, I hadn’t watched it in a few days, but I went back to it yesterday and I was like why did I stop watching this? It truly is a good distraction because it’s a very involved show and I have to pay attention.
• The Queen of the Damned By Anne Rice- I started reading this book at the beginning of the spring, I put it down for a little while because I was on a non-fiction kick, but I went back to it and like I am with Penny Dreadful, I wondered why I stopped reading it.
• Music- I’m just going to list a few artists: Dawes, John Mayer, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Sia.

Also it’s hard to write this post without commenting on George Floyd. All I’m going to say is that what happened never should have happened. I will never have to live in fear like that. How is that fair? How is that equality? It’s not. That’s all I’m going to say.

It’s been a rough week. Not just for me, but for the entire US. I hope things can get better, but I feel like that’s a long way off.

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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.

 

Tuesday Malaise Musings

I had a whole different post planned for today. I had a nugget of inspiration while I was at work earlier, but by time I got home, it was gone. At this point, my mind and body are both exhausted. I’m not down, but I’m also not at baseline or neutral. I talked to my therapist about it today, he called it malaise. Basically, just an ill feeling. That’s how I feel. I’m just in a state of sadness. Work seems to be dragging, I always hit a point around 3p, where I just hit a wall, nothing seems to make time pass faster, I’m just watching the clock.

This weekend was rough, I was recovering from heat exhaustion, so I spent the whole weekend inside, drinking lots of fluids, and just basically not moving. I know that had some impact on my mental state. I also just felt, bad. I have no inspiration right now I just want to sleep, I’m so anxious, showering and laundry are not an option. It’s like depression, but it’s not a magnitude to which I would consider myself depressed. I used to call this feeling, meh, like I didn’t have a name for it. It just kind of was.

The thing is, my heart has been hurting a lot lately. According to many people, I’m an empath. My empathy has no bounds. When something happens that I have no control over or watching things that shouldn’t be happening, I don’t like to say it makes me sad. Sadness, to me, is a feeling that I associate with bipolar, as an emotion on my spectrum. So when I’m feeling empathy for certain situations, or people, really anything that I don’t have any direct relation to, I say my heart hurts. I don’t really know how to explain it better than this. Just know, that my heart has been hurting a lot lately. I think it’s finally taking a toll on me. My heart isn’t broken, it just hurts. With everything that’s going on in the world around me, it’s hard not to sense what other people are feeling.

So, pretty much, I’m exhausted, my heart hurts, I’m sad..all adding up to malaise. I don’t have a true grasp on what it is, but I just know that it doesn’t feel good. I’m going to just take the night to relax and try and recharge. Probably eat some ice cream, of course. Maybe one day I’ll write my philosophy of ice cream.