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.

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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.

4:30 am wake up call

I woke up at 4:30 this morning, I tossed and turned all night, even with my sleeping meds. I’ll admit, things haven’t been super easy lately, mostly because of money struggles. My boyfriend was wrongfully terminated from his job, soooo it’s been a little tough. The good thing though, he’s been happier than I’ve seen him in over a year, and I’d rather have that than money. I guess that’s what love is. Struggling together, wanting to see your partner happy, when their happiness is above all else to you. That’s how I feel. I’ve never been more in love with someone, I am extremely lucky, I know that, and that’s the bottom line.

Anyway, getting up at 4:30 am, can be a bad thing, especially when I don’t sleep well while I am asleep. Being bipolar, my sleep schedule is one of the most important things that I have, that helps keep me stable. So here’s how my bedtime routine goes: 9pm; turn on the star light projector, turn down the tv brightness and volume, and I go and do my skin care and such. Then I watch some videos on YouTube, nothing too heavy. 10pm; meds, the tv brightness goes all the way down and the volume goes off and my boyfriend puts on headphones. He usually stays with me until I fall asleep. Also at 10, I put on a podcast or music, then I go to sleep.

I know, it’s simple, but it truly does keep me on track. I stick to it almost every night. I plan my nights out around my sleep schedule, if I am out, I’m home by 9:30 at the latest. That’s part of being bipolar though, sleep is so important. So today, may or may not be a good day. Usually when I don’t sleep, things go south around noon or one. I’ll get cranky and start feeling bad and anxious, and nothing will help. Not even naps. So, yeah, basically I need sleep, and lots of it. I usually get between 8 and 10 hours, usually closer to 10. The thing is though, that if I sleep for longer than 10 hours, the day is usually a wash. We’ll see how today goes. I’m hoping not too badly, I have a lot of things to do. Mostly school work, which I’m behind on, as usual.

I’m behind on school work because I had a manic episode about two weeks back. Which, unfortunately, kept me from class for a whole week. I’m not super far behind, but let’s just say, if I had a test tomorrow, I’d be done for. Hopefully this hiccup in sleep doesn’t mess me up for days, like the manic episode did.

Basically, life isn’t always easy. As long as you do the best you can though, that’s what matters. You don’t have to do great everyday. I aim for neutral or baseline everyday, because I am very rarely symptom free for more than a few hours. I do the best I can though, I’m not perfect, my life isn’t perfect, being bipolar sure isn’t perfect. I just keep it going though, all day, everyday.

Me and my favorite vet.

It’s 3 PM Somewhere

Everyday, without fail, at 3 o’clock every afternoon, I hit a wall, no matter what. I get so anxious and panicky, I feel suffocated, my mood dips severely. I can be in the best mood all day, but once 3 hits, I’m done. The minutes start going slower and I feel like I’m not going to make it to the end of the day. Somehow though, I usually make it. Sometimes, it’s just so unbearable that I can’t stay at work.

I don’t know how I do it. I suppose it takes some sort of inner strength. Something bigger is driving me, whether it’s getting a better GPA, or in the case of summer, money. Also, I have an hour quota I have to meet for my internship, so once I meet that, I can stop working. So, as of right now, I have 104 hours left, so I’m hoping I’ll be done in  about three weeks. The thing is, that, that all looks good on paper, but my anxiety has a mind of it’s own. Because for me to be done in three weeks, I have to work my regular hours, so n leaving early, coming in late, or taking long lunches. All things I do. I need to push myself to actually stick to my work schedule, because all the things I do now, probably won’t fly in the real world.

I feel like right now, I’m in a little bubble. The bubble that is my home town. I live around the corner from where I work, my mom is my boss, my barista knows my coffee order, and my best friends aren’t very far away. Boy, am I going to have a shock when I move. Which I 100% plan on doing within the next few years. Before that, the thing that pops my bubble, is school. I have to drive all the way to the opposite end of the island for classes. They also give me that 3 PM feeling, even when it’s not 3 PM yet. I hit a lull hard when I’m on campus, and I can’t not be on campus. I’m left with all upper division classes, so I have to go to class. Which means leaving my comfort zone, at least a few days a week. You think it would be easier by now, that I wouldn’t get so uncomfortable going to school, but even after all these semesters, it hasn’t gotten easier.

Bipolar and anxiety often inhibit me, which I know isn’t good. It makes me want to stay in my bubble, but then sometimes, I get so anxious or have an episode while inside my little bubble, that I just want to leave. I want to get out of here sometimes, I want to escape the 3 PM feeling, because sometimes I have that feeling all the time. Just the suffocating, panicky feeling. I need to find a way to cope, especially at work. I’ll start with finding coping mechanisms for work, then I’ll find some for school. Because what’s important now, is getting my hours done.