Anxiety

Bipolar and Adaptation

/ Robin

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From today through about August 18th I need to be able to be my best self. That means I will have to be super vigilant and sensitive towards my Bipolar Disorder symptoms. Theoretically, that’s how I’m supposed to be all the time, but right now it’s really evident that I have to pay attention. The stress of looking for a house has rolled over to moving and that will roll over into flying out to Florida to meet my daughter and driving across the country with her two cats to bring her home.

I must prepare myself physically, mentally for what’s next. I tend to react to situations and my moods swing without my even being aware of what’s happening, that is, until I’m done reacting.

This is going to be a good experience for me to practice adapting myself quickly to changing situations and emergencies without losing my temper like I’ve done in the past. My usual reactions are an abrupt swinging of mood, or panic and then the mood swing.

This skill, the skill of flexibility and adaptability, is an important skill to have while coping with our mental illness. Each new skill I learn builds upon the base of my positive mental attitude, my chief definite aim, or my passion in life. (I tend to think of the three things as different ways of saying the same thing.)

Having a flexible disposition means I must be able to quickly adapt to my environment. When I say “environment” I mean not only the physical situation, but also dealing with the people involved in the situation. It means that I can harmonize with my environment in a flexible way.

I’m not suggesting that I ignore my principles or altering my goals. I’m simply suggesting that I recognize my mental attitude towards the situation and determine if the situation is a disaster or a windfall. If it is a disaster I have the opportunity to change things and make them better. Because I use positive mental attitude, I have an even better opportunity to change the disaster into a boon.

I think that part of being adaptable means that in every situation with every person I try to understand their needs and demands. An example would be my Mother calling me a couple times a day and telling me something else I need to do to prepare to move. Yesterday it was that I should go to the Loews and Home Depot on Meridian to purchase boxes, start packing, have the kids (my son, 21 and youngest daughter, 19) come over and help me go through things, and to get rid of the piano. Being sensitive to her and to protective of myself I suggested that she make a list. We’ll see if she can do it. I eventually did go to those stores and bought boxes, but not the ones on Meridian. I hate driving on that street. It’s too busy and too long and too slow.

My plan includes to getting up at the same time every day, feed the animals and take my meds, eat healthy foods, exercise (I walk down the highway with Bailey), give my brain a break by reading or watching TV or listening to an audio book while walking, planning and making lists, keeping appointments or doing errands, spending time learning about how to be successful, spend time doing reactional activities, and so on. I need to keep things fairly structured. When I just watch TV all day it usually takes me another day or more to get back on track.

I’m going choosing to daily be flexible, adaptable, and let me just add: I’m going to be kind to others. (Ellen DeGeneres)

Bipolar – Anticipating Stress

/ Robin

We finally found a house to buy! I’m so excited! Also, I’m filled with potential trepidation. I mean look, I’m an emotional swing set trying to balance way up at the top of the arch.

I’ve gotten comfortable living out here in rural Washington. No neighbors really bother me, there aren’t many of them anyway. The people down the road drive a bit too fast for Bailey and I while we’re out walking, but that’s about it.

I don’t watch scary movies or TV shows because I feel like they violate my delicate soul, my sometimes suffering soul. So recently I chose to shake myself up a bit and I’ve started watching Penny Dreadful on Showtime. If you’ve seen it, you know it has all the things I’ve tried to stay away from. Things that might leave fear in me that the night might feed upon.

I’m watching an episode from season three right now and they said something interesting that is germane to my whole life. It’s something I write about often and think about more often. One of the characters is in a straight-jacket and a man is feeding her.

Her: God has forgotten me. He can’t find me here

Him: That’s not true

Her: I’m not Vanessa Ives here, I’m no one. I have no name. No purpose.

Him: Do you want a purpose?

Her: Don’t you?

Him: I’m doing it.

She doesn’t know what to say to that. The idea that him caring for her and feeding her in this horrible place is his purpose completely baffled her.

I mentioned this because I was so surprised to hear anything about one’s purpose in Penny Dreadful.

I want a purpose. I have a purpose.

We can find purpose in the strangest places.

Do you have a purpose? What is your purpose?

What a strange place to be reminded of purpose.

In the next month, as I prepare to move, I’m going to make an effort to remember consistently that everyday my purpose is the same and I need to work towards it. I can’t abandon my passion just because I get really busy and have a lot on my mind. So, I’ve got things to do now towards that end. Time to stop obsessing about how to keep the kitty litter from ruining the hardwood floors. Time to keep working on making my dreams reality.

This isn’t going to be easy.

(Thank you Showtime for the brief dialogue quotation.)

Cross posted

Bipolar – Indecision and Moving Forward

/ Robin
house

My new home.

To be successful in dealing with Bipolar Disorder or acquiring wealth I have to be able to make decisions and then right away put them into action. Despite my lack of inspiration recently, my goals and dreams, my passions are still the same. Now that I’ve realized that I was sitting still and not moving towards or away from my goals I know that I have to decide to do something to move me towards my goals and then do it right away.

Oh look, my Mother and I just went out with our broker looking for my first house to buy.

This is one way I can help get my enthusiasm back. Action.

We found THE house!

Having my definite main purpose is the first step on my road to success. In the past success was a stranger to me. While my illness was running wild even if I could decide on my purpose I couldn’t take action on it. Or at least it felt that way and this disorder is all about feelings isn’t it.

My Mother decided to make an offer on it. She’s buying it for me because I have no credit because I am on disability and don’t work. I’ll be making the payments (essentially buying it from her).

Then life pops in and loudly declares that things are not cut and dried. Things are messy and take time and are full of surprises. Such as…

My Mother added a letter with the offer explaining that the house is for her adult daughter who is disabled and asked them to take that into consideration. There were higher offers, but we won the house!

My anxiety tinged mind is making popcorn now.

On Aug. 7th, just after I move, I’m flying to Tampa, FL to drive cross country to bring my daughter home from the Air Force. I’ll have just been in my new house a few days. My kids will take turns living in my new house for me with my dog and two cats. How ironic. I feel jealous. I’ll have to work fast to unpack everything. The house is so much bigger than anything else we looked at. It’s beautiful. I wanted a yellow house. It’s yellow. It’s on a quiet street and has a fenced in back yard to keep Bailey safe.

What was I going to decide? Right, I need to decide where to buy moving boxes from. I’ll do that Monday. There, I’ve made a decision.

No, that’s wrong, I was going to make a decision to move me towards my main life goals.

Well now my goals include moving and all that entails.

I’ve just taken half a chill pill. My right leg is bouncing like crazy. Bouncing/tapping legs is a symptom of my anxiety.

Focus. Okay, I’ve written this blog. Time to work on another project before things get moving too fast. I have a lot of work to do to meet the goal of my life’s passion. My newest goal is to keep working on my chief aim (main goal), my passion, even as I prepare to move. I start back to school in the fall and I won’t have as much time as I do now. I can’t waste time being paralyzed by excitement and fear of the unknown.

Control. I need to control myself. Yesterday I walked up and down the highway with my heeler Bailey for an hour. After I got the news we went for another walk. I had to put the energy someplace productive. Today my knee is stiff, which is funny because it’s my new knee. I’ve had it replaced twice.

I’m going to put the joy I feel now into my Enthusiasm book. I’m going to make it more an encouragement notebook. I’m using one of those school test books.

If I crash later today, I’m going to look in my book and remember how I feel now.

Oh lord, I’m going to have to deal with my Mother. She’s wonderful but she micro-manages everything. I mean everything, like she’ll call and ask me if I’ve been packing every day. Patience isn’t my strong suit. But, it’s one of the parts of having a pleasing personality, which I want to have, so I need to work on it. I don’t want to scare people away with my moodiness. But a pleasing personality, that’s a post for another day.

Find something wonderful to think about today even if it’s a frog hopping across the yard or your dog finally sitting down when you tell them to. Anything will work. But do try to find something positive to think about.

It’s the trying that counts.

Depression and Clear Thinking

/ Robin
Barney glasses and Tom_001

Sometimes I just gotta hang out.

Today depression is dancing around my peripheral vision trying to obscure my vision of my goals. It’s hard to keep going when I know the darkness is just behind one of the many doors in front of me. I know I have to choose which way to go, but I’m afraid I might send myself slipping down in the mud again. I’m feeling anxious.

I need to think clearly. Having my definite goal is helping… when I can remember that I have one. I live in the moment much of the time. That unfortunately means that planning goals out one year or five years can be pretty hard. I’m busy worrying about all the future things that can go wrong. There’s that. So I react in the moment while thinking about the now and the future. It’s too much.

I’m going to focus on myself and my day. I’ve written out my goals and I read them every morning I try to remember and to focus on them before I begin my day and every evening before bed, which is hard to do because I don’t remember to think about them by that time of the day.

I have ADHD, PTSD, and anxiety together with my big brain full of bipolar-ness. Somehow I’ve managed to set some goals like I’ve been talking about. I’m keeping my major life goal private but one of my shorter term goals is to blog consistently. If you’ve been reading me for very long you know I’m not good at being consistent. But there yah go.

Sometimes I feel like I need to wait till I have a disaster in order to have something to say but that’s so far from the truth. I have all my years of experience I can draw from to write about. If I want to write about a disaster all I have to do is pick one of my journals and pick a random page and read it. Ta da! Disaster.

That’s not who I want to be… someone who looks for her personal disasters to air to the world. There is so much else to talk about.

I’m having a hard day, as do we all. I’ve been thinking about thinking clearly a lot lately. I find anxiety and depression make it hard to think with any clarity. It’s like having clouds in my brain. I want to think about thinking clearly, I really do. Trying to pressure myself into doing something my brain doesn’t want to do this minute isn’t exactly productive. What it does is raise my anxiety level and I get more depressed. So what to do?

I’m going to reset my brain and try again later. I find that doing something totally different helps. I’d go for a walk with my dog Bailey, but it’s raining and I don’t feel like getting wet. I called my mother and told her that I was struggling. We chatted for a while. My dad passed away just over a year ago so she understands the unexplainable anxiety that can come out of nowhere and oppress me. I agreed to do something different for a while and I took a chill pill. That was hours ago. I’m feeling better now, but not great.

I talk about living with passion and searching for purpose in life to chase and dedicate one’s self to. I want you to know that I struggle just like you do. We all need to have purpose for our lives. It’s just that it’s hard to consider it when my thinking is so muddled.

Cranky Bipolar Pants

/ Robin

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Monday my mom and I went to look at a house that we might possibly buy. I made a promise to myself before I even met up with her that I wasn’t going to have my bitch face on. But, as has been happening a lot lately, I was a bitch anyway. I always seem to have to apologize after I spend time with her. She’s not a bad person and certainly not worthy of my cutting attitude. I told her about my struggle with it and it seems to be helping. I tell her I love her at least once a day, because I do and I want her to remember that and not my being disrespectful.

Tuesday I took one of my cats to the vet to learn how to give her steroid injections every other day. It helps keep the swelling down in her intestines which is enabling her to stop throwing up every day. The cat’s name is Siberia. I’m finding it difficult to handle knowing that all three of the kids are depending on me to keep their cat comfortable and alive as long as I can. It’s a lot of pressure. Stress impacts my bipolar to the nth degree.

Yesterday we found out we got a house we put an offer in on here in town. I’m excited but I’m stressing out too. I’ll go from 1800 sq. ft. down to 876. Stress.

I’m not comfortable with change. It takes me out of the safe place I’ve built for myself here. Now I’ll be moving and there are only unknowns. While it will be exciting to have my own place, moving brings stresses I’ve not had to deal with for many years. Accept for a few years I’ve never lived in a neighborhood and close to people. Stress.

So I’m doing the things I’ve learned to do to reduce my stress. Crying is okay. I’m trying to exercise instead of having pie or something. I’m dream shopping online and picking new things to populate my house with. I have a certain amount of money I’ve saved and I’m learning how far it will go by window shopping on line. It won’t go far, but I’ll make it go far enough.

In the meantime I’m going to eat and sleep and exercise and do the other things I’ve found that help my stress stay manageable and hopefully keep me from crashing into the wall that is bipolar. I admit that I’m scared. What if I have to give up things I’m really super attached to? My mind creates all kinds of possible problems. This is where I have to choose to employ having a positive attitude towards the experience. There are steps I can take to help me be positive and I’m going to keep (and start) doing them and learn and practice more.

Here’s to positive attitudes.