Pets

Frankenstein – Bipolar & ADHD

/ Robin / Leave a comment

Frankenstein-tumblr_ovgh5egVdd1wzx3t8o1_1280 I’m aware, that when given the chance, I will, without question, talk until the air has been sucked out of the general area and everyone has passed out. So normal.

Anxiety – After I graduated, and a few weeks had passed I could tell I was under stress from that. My anxiety has gone down. It did get better, for a while. I got to the point where I didn’t quite feel like my brain has been stuffed full of raging bees. Awesome!

ADHD – I was under the assumption that I was taking Ritalin to help me focus my attention so I could do well in my classes. I was always confused when my med provider asked me if I felt the Ritalin she was prescribing was helping me to focus better. I always said, and continue to say, “Um… I guess so.” I’m manic! What does she want me to say? I work very hard when I meet with her to sit, shut up, and answer her questions honestly. She terrifies me. What if I answer wrong and she changes my meds again? I’ll say something than think, “Crap! Why did I say that?” I always say that I guess it was working well. I suppose. Now I think that I was wrong.

More ADHD – I accepted the diagnosis of having ADHD because it was about not being able to focus on one thing at a time and I knew I couldn’t do that. But, being Bipolar was always the main objective of both my counseling sessions and appointment with the med woman.

Bipolar 1 – I assumed that my Bipolar was worse (or more dangerous to me) than ADHD could be. Wasn’t it?

You know how a doctor will sometimes leave a small tube that goes through an incision so that the area can drain and heal properly?

Yeah, I don’t know where I was going with that—

Switch – I have some ideas that I think are pretty good. I’ve done one or two or three big projects that have come out great. The other 45 ideas that are going around in my mind appeared to be stuck in orbit. I remember the video I watched on YouTube yesterday about ADHD and I was shocked. Frankenstein!

FRANKENSTEIN – I’ve come to think of Bipolar/ADHD as a Frankenstein type of symbiotic relationship. I can’t imagine why my diagnoses has always focused upon Bipolar Disorder. In counseling I talk faster and faster and cover an impressive variety of topics.

Pressured Speech (Bipolar) – Thought very little about ADHD or how to deal successfully with it. I’ve been taking medication for it for three years. In that time no one has talked to me taught me to handle it. Why not?

FRANKENSTEIN – Why hasn’t anyone explained how the two disorders interact, and how the medications for each may also affect each other. (“Do you think that the Ritalin is making your mania worse?”)

I have been primarily a mixed state, high functioning, Bipolar type 1 for years now. I always thought that my constant mental zooming about was just my amazingly stunning mania. (While I mostly talk about my being manic lately, let me just say that depression has played a big part in my mental health too.)

My daughter went with me to my last counseling appointment. We talked about my inability to stick with one thing and see it through to completion and how it was impacting her. Basically, I’m driving her bonkers. These are some of the things that I do: TALK CONSTANTLY NO MATTER WHAT WE ARE DOING, change topics as fast as I talk, pick up a pile of laundry in the living room to put it away, stopping to talk to our beta fish (Victor and Batman) and feed them a few dried wormy things and set down the laundry, forget that I had a mission with the laundry, see that the dog/cats water bowls are empty and fill them, read 1.75 pages in a book. What was I doing? Let the dog out to do her business. Hours later I discover the laundry next to the fish… you get the idea.

My new counselor, my daughter and I decided that I need to focus on being able to focus. Yes, my Bipolar mania hops it up like jet fuel in a race car, but with knowledge and tools to help me with my ADHD and settle on one thing, even for an hour, I might just begin to get a handle on my anxiety/stress and even mania.

Maybe. This is stressing me out. Bothering my daughter this bad is building an anxiety that is part of everyday life. Sigh…

Who knew that pressured speech and mania aren’t the same thing as ADHD? I really don’t understand what the hell is going on. I feel like my brain has been sewn together with blue and green colored twine and slip knots.

One final thing: It has taken me three days and four hours to type this. Just kidding. Two days. Honestly, I have no idea. I need a time-out.

Bipolar – Little Bit Nuts

/ Robin / Leave a comment

Last night, all I can remember is being super tired and watching a video on my iPad holding it above my face while in bed. Ok, weird. This I know. Here’s the really weird part. I got up at about 5:45 and texted Jessica wanting to know why she was late coming to pick up her uniform. She saw the text and ignored it as she should have done. I’m the one who, only hours before, had reminded her she had today off. OMG

Losing my mind.

Watch this video and check out the pics. Bailey is looking for the cat laser that no one is using. She does it all the time. Poor kid. Well, look who she lives with. Hehehe

Oh, stink. I’ll have to upload this from my iPad then add the images. Np sorry, the video is so huge. Bailey is actually looking for a laser.

 

Bipolar – Invisible Lasers and Behavior

/ Robin / Leave a comment

neuroplasticityJessica moves her hand and Bailey looks for a laser on the floor like a missile on a target, like when an officer arrives and she snaps to attention… she’s completely conditioned like Pavlov’s dog. Bailey follows her around the house waiting for her to use the laser. Jessica hasn’t used the laser on her for so long that she doesn’t even remember doing it. AND IT’S A CAT TOY!! The cat doesn’t chase it, the dog does.

See, here’s the thing, I want to apply it to Bipolar Disorder and maybe other illnesses, but I just can’t think of a similar situation. I mean, I want to say something like, “I can retrain my brain and rid myself of my illness by using Neuroplasticity and remapping my neuro pathways… change me on a physical level… BE CURED OF THIS CRAP!

All I can think of is can I train myself to react in better ways than I do. Can I be trained to respond to situations, to people, to everything and improve my thinking and my behavior so I seem like I’m getting better? Like I’m cured?

I know as well as anyone else who has Bipolar does, that this thing cannot be cured. It can be masked. It can have help in controlling it’s symptoms. But it won’t go away.

It would be so incredibly awesome if my brain could be remapped, conditioned like Bailey’s is.

Bailey is so amazing. She remembers tricks I taught her years ago. She just prefers not to do them for me. She’ll do them for my kids, not for me. Little shit. Well, that’s how it goes.

Maybe my brain has learned some tricks and it will only perform for other people. I wonder. Wait! I wonder who it could be trained for. Nah, I’m not going there.

I understand that my brain really can be changed using neuroplasticity. I’ve done studied it off and on over the years and I honestly believe it can change my brain. Can it cure me of the monster that runs my brain? I don’t think so. I guess it could. Maybe. But I don’t think so. (This is a great topic for a different post!)

Bailey is terribly funny when she tries to chase lasers that aren’t there. Jessica is a turd for teasing her. (I’m going to try to get a video of it so you can see just how strange it is.)Maybe, part of the difficulties that are a part of Bipolar, namely my behavior, can be modified in the same way that I’d like to retrain Bailey to stop looking for lasers. Isn’t that why I see counselors year after endless year? To retrain my behavior? The counselor can’t cure me. That’s not why I see them. I see them so I can be told how to stop acting like I have Bipolar. Um, okay, I’d better stop there.

“Point” is… dog looking for invisible laser… way funny.

Bipolar – Hiding in the Mattress

/ Robin / Leave a comment

(Murdoch is the yellow one and Thea is the one cuddling his tummy.)

My daughter and I (she’s 24 and recently separated from the military) just finished driving from Tampa, FL to Seattle, WA. It was a very long drive. Just to test our resilience, we brought her two companions who happen to be cats. He is Murdoch and she is Thea. Along the eleven-day journey we stayed all our nights in Best Western hotels so Jessica could get points and a gift card (cash) for staying with them.

The first night things went well. The cats had behaved in their kennel (both in the same one) the whole drive which we kept short the first day to test how they would behave in the car. Thea used to get sick just going to the vets so we had some concerns.

The second night and all nights after that first drama-less night Murdoch freaked out every time we let him out of the kennel. He would immediately head for the nearest bed and dive behind it and up in it. This wasn’t a problem the first night because he couldn’t get into the box spring. After that first night the story was different.

Did you know some Best Westerns don’t even put a mesh on the bottom of their box spring mattresses? I know that won’t matter to the vast majority of people, but when traveling with frightened cats it matters a great deal. Murdoch would find the nearest box spring and climb right up inside.

Boom! Cat stuck inside the bed. At one hotel we had to get duct tape to patch all the holes that were in the mesh. Just about the whole thing had to be taped to keep him out.

Why was Murdoch behaving in such a strange way? He was scared out of his wits. We had to keep him on a leash on his harness to keep him around and get him to eat and drink. Needless to say he lost weight by the end of the trip. I think it’s safe to say that if cats can be depressed Murdoch was very depressed. He hid in the safest place he could find, inside the box spring. Twice we had to have hotel maintenance lift the mattresses for us so we could fish him out.

What does this have to do with Bipolar? It’s simple really, sometimes I feel just like he did and I try to find a place to hide in the way back corner where I can be lost in the dark and be safe and alone. Ever feel that way?

Like Murdoch, I have people in my life who will find me and pull me out of my dark, “safe”, corner. I’m learning that facing my fears is less costly to me emotionally and mentally than if I ran and hid in the mattress from them.

Murdoch never got over his fears and hid on the whole trip. Now that he’s here in his new home he’s still a fraidy-cat. We thought both cats had gotten out of the apartment, but it turned out they were hiding on the top of the kitchen cabinets. Talk about scaring us!

I’m making it a goal as I approach another quarter at university and settling into my new home in town to try to stay out of the dark places where I can hide.

To be healthy and move forward I need to be able to face daily challenges and disruptions regardless of the size they may be. One way I can face them, is to resist retreating to my hidey-hole which is something I find challenging and sometimes seems impossible.

Today I choose to stay in the light and not run. My daughter’s things arrive tomorrow and she’ll be moving out (she’s been staying with me while waiting for her things to be shipped cross country). I’ll be alone again. I’m trying to get used to being alone after living with others since 1989. I want to hide in the mattress, but I’m going to try really hard not to.

Do you ever feel that way?