Bipolar Disorder

A Bipolar Colonoscopy

/ Robin

This eyeball is the way the Katy Perry concert last Saturday began.

I apologize in advance for this post. It’s long. It’s not written well. You might have trouble following it… but I hope you’ll think it’s funny. My life has always been strange. This is a snapshot of some of my odd life. Feel free to ask questions. It confuses me too. But, I think it’s kind of funny. Please enjoy. 

My life has been anything but normal. Seriously. My own mother has told me for over thirty years that I should write some of this weird stuff down because no one would ever believe it. Let me give you an example from right now. Yes, this is happening right now.

Okay, I have Bipolar Disorder. Yes, I do. I’m all broken up. I don’t just mean mentally, I mean all the heck over my whole body. Top to toes. The whole thing.

Let’s look at this current adventure – I’ve had the poops since Christmas Day. You heard me. I’m not going to say it again. Do you know how hard it is to get a doctor to see you over the holidays if you’re not dying? You say, “Look, I’m going in my pants! You have to HELP ME!” But no. So you call the after-hours nurse line. Take Kaopectate. I have. Take an extra dose right away. I’m on my second bottle in four hours. Oh. You should see your doctor. Bloody hell. I can’t deal with this stress. I have anxiety problems you know. I’m sorry. You could go to the Urgent Clinic. Excuse me. I can’t stop going. I can’t possibly ride in a car. Oh. I’m sorry. Shit…

Fast forward to the first week of January. Well, I can give you these pills. Later… they’re not working. Can I take more? No, they’ll bind you up. Yes, that’s good. That’s what I want. No, see the specialist. I went to the specialist. She was wonderful. On my way there, my daughter left her car keys in my house and we got locked out. No problem. I have a hidden key. Bloody key doesn’t work. She was with me when we tested it. It worked! It doesn’t work now. My mom drives 30 minutes to let us in my house. It is freezing. We miss the appointment. Shit.

I start calling the doctor. The appointment center is very sorry. I’m like, you don’t understand. I have to be seen. Thank the stars… they had an opening with a female doctor at three in the afternoon, and do you mind, it is in your city. Do you mind driving just 15 minutes? Um, no. Not at all. I love you.

Hi doctor, please help me. I’ve been… I explain the problem. Take these pills. They’re the same ones my primary doctor told me to only take one twice a day. (I looked them up online. I’ve been taking two twice a day for a week and a bottle of Kaopectate a day.) Oh, well you should have been taking two-twice a day. Gee, thanks. I love you. Well, we need to do labs. Fine. I love collecting my own brown stuff. (I puked last time.) Gave them blood. Take more, please, do more tests. Anything. Labs are NORMAL. Shit.

I had a VERY bad experience four years ago having a crappy colonoscopy. I refused to have another one just two months ago. New doctor, who I love. You have to have one. Oh, and you know how you’ve been having trouble swallowing your Bipolar and handful of other pills? Yeah. We’re gonna look down your throat and do an esophagus and see what’s up. Yep, I’m the person you see for both problems. Great. They’re going to spin me around halfway through and do it all at once. Oh hell!

Today, prep day. I’m miserable. I was up all night last night having a panic attack. This is all so good for my stress. My counselor is worried. I called the doctor doing the procedures. I asked his office people, Can I PLEASE take my Chill pill before the procedure? Oh sure. We have people take them all the time. Apparently, everyone freaks out about it. Can you imagine that?

Tomorrow morning I start the last part of the prep for the procedures. I’m not happy.

My birthday was Saturday. I’m 55 now. I qualify for the iHop 55 and older menu. You get fewer pancakes… but it comes out to the same cost per pancake as the normal menu. I was all excited for nothing. Later, Jessica, my eldest and I went to the Katy Perry concert here in Tacoma. It was a great time! We had a blast!

Jessica’s birthday was yesterday. She spent it buying the supplies… for her mother to prepare for the procedures. Yeah…

We spent most of the day together today. It felt great to be with her. She helped me stay calm. I had to take a chill pill before the concert and again yesterday. But today, with my kid here, I didn’t need one. She’s amazing.

So tomorrow is the day. 1:15 p.m. That’s when we get this thing done. Now, I’ve finally been taking enough pills and fiber to stop having to run to the bathroom all the time. Um, that’s exactly what I need to do now. Please, let me go so this thing can go right the first time. I’ve had to take time off of school for this. It’s mid-terms! Imagine explaining to my professors what’s up. OMG

That brings us to right now. I’m having anxiety. I thought maybe talking to you might help.

This is one of the really strange things going on in my life.

Oh, and what if they don’t find anything? Then what? Is my pooping my brains out all in my head?! Don’t go there girl. Focus. But what if they do find something? My dad just died of cancer three years ago. Okay brain, stop it! Time for distraction. TV. I think I’ll watch TV. Why don’t I go to bed? What if I need to, you know, while I’m in bed? What if I can’t move fast enough? OMG!

Well, this has to be resolved one way or the other. I can’t keep being afraid of leaving my house. I can’t keep this up any longer. I have to know what’s wrong.

I have Bipolar Disorder. I have massive anxiety. I have PTSD. I have FM and chronic pain. I take opioids to control the pain. Wait, isn’t that supposed to clog the pipes up? Well it isn’t working.

I would like to get in shape. I would like to sleep tonight. Forget about getting in shape. Time to focus.

I think I’ll start my “going to bed” routine. It takes me about an hour. Just before I lay down I get YouTube up on my phone and start playing a 10 hour relaxing track playing water sounds and some relaxing music. Then I lay down and watch something on Curiosity Stream. That takes 30 to 60 minutes. Or, maybe I’ll read. I’ll decide when I lay down. I pet my doggie and tell her good night. Then I wrap my Captain America blanket around my shoulders and snuggle in for the night. Shortly Maks, my loving cat, will come in and smash his big wet nose into my bare arm. Sometimes he misses and hits my face. He will then purr loudly for a long time. He lets me lay my heavy arm across his body when he finally settles in.

At 8 a.m. my alarm will go off and I’ll get up and do the last part of the prep. Yeah…. Sigh.

This is so damn weird.

You know, I’ve started talking out loud and moving my arms like I’m talking and emphasizing what I’m saying by waving them around… just as I’m falling asleep. You gotta know I wake back up again. Stress? What do you think?

I’ve had enough of this. I thought all the brain problems were a handful. This is ridiculous.

Well, good night. Wish me luck. I’m kind of feeling sad. I travel with a load of mixed state Type 1 BP. I guess I might sleep. Last night I was full of anxiety and mania. I wrote one of my mid-term papers and mapped out a presentation for another class. I worked on my novel the rest of the night. I think I’d like to feel blue for sure tonight. I can only hope it will help me snooze… till 8.

Goodnight.

Bipolar – Setting Goals – Part A

/ Robin

 

rocket-launch-67649_640

Reach higher!

I have been thinking about how to share what I’ve learned about setting goals so that you can set those goals, and actually meet them. There’s a huge problem with that. I could never get to the point where I felt I’d learned enough to share with you how to do that. I finally realized… that was silly.

 

I was up all night at the end of January, and I was thinking about setting goals. Honestly, I was that worried about telling you the wrong thing. I have Bipolar Disorder. Setting goals, for me, is usually a disaster. Who, I asked myself over and over, was I to tell you how to set and achieve goals?

Let me take you back to January, and to what I wrote in the middle of that night when what I felt just had to communicate to you something important to you. I didn’t think anything about how much I knew about it. I just knew I struggled with it, and I knew you probably did too.

It is now the last day, of the first month of 2018. I have set no goals. I’ve written about goal-setting and Bipolar Disorder… and there it sits. Ouch. Goals + mental illness. Messy. At least so far. Bear with me, please. Achieving goals, like us, is a complicated business.

I finally and fully realize that goal setting is mind-boggling from the first moment I start thinking about it.

In addition to having a mental illness, I have this “magical thing” about me (mania) that routinely lifts me to enormous heights from which I can sometimes achieve astounding things. Unfortunately, these are the same heights from which I also sometimes fall.

The honest truth is that I might just be as amazing as I think I am when I’m manic, but because the label on my forehead says, “when manic, this person will have delusions of grandeur and is not to be trusted. It is an illusion. She is to be tolerated and endured. She’s broken.” – That’s what I usually believe.

It’s time to stop believing that. It’s time to be UNSTOPPABLE.

You see, the message that my brain needs to tell me is that I must allow myself to dream lofty dreams. Accomplishing my goals is ok. It’s okay, to be UNSTOPPABLE.

When Sickness Meets Bipolar

/ Robin

Well, Barf Me Down!! Ho, Ho, Ho… omg…

barfingemojiI have embraced the not making any goals policy so far this year. However, I’m seriously considering thinking about thinking about it. Should I. Or shouldn’t I?

Right now, I’m focusing on the moment. I’ve been very, very sick since Christmas Day. I mean like they wanted me to go the ER if I didn’t pee within 2-3 hours of speaking with the nurse-on-call. Fortunately, I did and I’m SO GLAD that I did.

I then puked all the Gatorade (64 oz. over 8 hours) and a few Graham Crackers I’d had. Let me tell you, do not, do not! Puke Graham Crackers. It is very nasty.

I’ve had a few hours in a few days that I’ve felt well enough to get out and do stuff like go to the Pediatrist, classes and a movie or two. Other than that I’ve been completely housebound.

As I said, I did get out to see the Pediatrist. I have officially torn my fascia on my right foot. I use that foot to drive. So, I drive to class in my slipper, then put on my boot, then bobble across campus to my first class. Then I hobble back up campus to hang out during my lunch. Then I hobble up to the top of campus to my last class. Friday, it was a nightmare. I couldn’t in any way go to class. Nope. My body wasn’t having any of it.

I was beyond feeling desperate and it just kept going on and on.

For a few days… I was so frustrated and tired and sore that I forgot that I had this thing that mickey’s with my brain. You know what I mean. I have Bipolar Disorder of the highest order. Oh… I might sing- nope. It has passed.

I’m struggling to find something good that came of having been (still am) sick for so long and not doing any of the things I wanted to do over Winter Break. I didn’t want much. I just wanted to do some writing and get ahead on some assignments for school mostly. I don’t usually handle the stress well. Okay honestly, I never handle stress well. Anxiety spoons my  Bipolar. Makes me sick.

Anyway. I was thinking about when I had my first baby, back in 1992. She’s beautiful, and she’s alive, and she’s my best buddy, and she lives really close. Yes, there is a “butt” coming. When she was born she tore me from stem to stern. My friends wouldn’t let me tell other women about Jessica’s birth. It has traumatized every woman I have ever told the tale to. Why mention that now? Well, although the pain hasn’t been as bad, it has been sick along those lines. It has been horrible. It has been embarrassing. But, it’s a part of life. We all bear our personal burdens, you know what I mean? Sometimes they feel unrighteous or ill-mannered. Sometimes they feel like the world has a personal vendetta against me. Sometimes I just feel the need to scream and cry and do the stereotypical shaking-of-the-fist-at-the-air and shouting, “It isn’t fair, damn you!”

And then I snap back to reality, having just puked into the Kool-Aid container. Again. Shit. Again.

So here’s the thing. I’ve finally settled on a company name to cluster all my endeavors under in one happy little shinning thingie. I’m planning (Sounds like I’ve set a goal. Don’t get your hopes up just yet.) on building my projects around it, under it, over it, and so on.

Right now, I’m taking the Bailey out to do her bedtime stuff outside. A doggie has to do what a doggie has to do. She’s been so loyal and loving (but not too loving) and staying with me even when I holler. I’ve had to apologize over the last weeks though. She’s not partial to the raising of voices.

I’ve noticed I don’t have my email address anyplace on the blog. I want to invite you to leave comments in the “Comments” spot. Or, if you’d rather, you can email me directly. Send me a note at theBoss.bpdcomm@gmail.com. Like that name? “theBoss.” I’ve got to get some ego boosting someplace when I’m locked inside. I might as well manufacture my own. Gives me a giggle. ;0)

Be well my friends,

Robin

New Year’s Eve, Goals?

/ Robin

Part 2 – Deep into the night

Reset, No, not yet….

It isn’t quite midnight here, not just yet. Almost.

That’s what this last year, 2017 has been a lot of for me, a lot of almost… but not yet. I say this will all honesty and not even a little bit of melodrama – I’ve done a ton of doing “almost” all year long and tonight is more of the same. I’m so consistent.

I’m not posting what I intended on posting tonight but I still have something to say, I always have something to say. But is it worth reading? For much of 2017 I have worked so hard to get ready for life after graduation in June. I have all kinds of anxiety, information, plans, excuses, blah, blah, blah, ad nauseam… ad infinitum*.

I’ve been super sick today. I’ve been sick since Christmas day, but today has turned into one of the worst days. I even called the after-hours clinic. No help there. I’ve found that being sick for almost all of my Christmas break is giving me the opportunity to be grouchy. Like the Cookie Monster, only more so. Way more so. I had plans. I had a goal of what I wanted to write in this post. Goals. Yes, the New Year and setting goals! Yes!

No. Reset. Some days I have to accept and then adjust to the fact that things happen the way they happen.

My body pretty drastically made sure that I wouldn’t have the time or energy to write about what I really wanted to write about. Or did I? Think Robin, think.

It is almost midnight here at my home, December 31, 2017, what do I wish to say to you, now that I have no time left this year to say it?

2017 was better than I am remembering it right now, at this point in the day my judgment is exhausted. I can remember years where I was so sick I that took almost no part in the lives of my kids. I remember points in many years where all is horrible. They say I should focus on the positive things. I have usually said that this is something that is harder to do than most people would imagine.

Look, my cousin and his family were in a horrific car accident this morning. They were all injured badly. The five of them were spread to two hospitals. Pam’s condition is grave (my cousin’s wife). If you combine that with how sick I am you’d think I’d be all ready to pontificate forever on setting goals that are positive and motivated and … and… No.

All I want to tell you is that I’m not going to throw down any goals or resolutions that are emotionally charged and not based upon how well I know myself and what I want my future to look like. I’m out of time for that. Also, it has never worked for me. No.

Instead, tonight I am resolved (and resigned) to wave goodbye at 2017, then turn around and wave hello to 2018. That’s it.

No resolutions. No goals.

Tonight I am willing to acknowledge that there are things that I have learned from my past, and there are things that I would like to do/be/learn in the future. I’m going to commit, yes commit, to thinking about them both and do it with an open mind. And then, I will think of what to do next. I’ve always meant to think before I act. This seems like as a good time to start as any.

What do you think? Sound like a plan you could get behind?

I hope you’ll come back again soon. I’m interested in finding out where this goes next. I have an inkling of a plan. But then, yes, I had a plan for today and that didn’t work out so well. Tomorrow? I’m “planning” on thinking about what I should do before I start setting goals or making resolutions. Let’s just leave it at that and see which way the wind blows. Bonus: the longer I think about it, the better it should come out, right? ;0)

Be safe everyone.

(*Ad nauseam is a Latin term for argument or other discussion that has continued – to the point of nausea…. ad infinitum – to infinity.)

Winding Things Up

/ Robin

How to set and actually reach
your goals… for once.

Part 1

sunrise 463785425“Strength and growth come only through
continuous effort and struggle.”
Napoleon Hill

Congratulations, You’re sitting here right now and maybe you’re considering the new year and are thinking of setting some goals… maybe. Or, maybe you’ve got some stuff you’d like to accomplish and think if you would just set some goals to achieve that somehow the magic New Year fairies would make them happen. Maybe.

Or, maybe you wish achieving your goals was as simple as setting them, so, every year you set them, hope they’ll magically come true, then promptly forget about them. Well, accept for all those times that you remember them and then remember how far you are from achieving them. You’ve been thinking about one or two things you’d like to accomplish this new year and you’d really like it if they came true for once. Now what? Failure? Again?

Maybe…

Part 2 will be here shortly. Please come back and learn about setting goals and seeing them come true as an honest to goodness bipolar person… Or for any person with a mental struggle (ah, mental illness) actually… Or for any person at all interested in reaching goals.