Bipolar – Preparing to Behave

/ Robin
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My Mother on Mother’s Day years ago.


“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.”  Theodore Roosevelt

Today we’re celebrating Mother’s Day. I’m not sure why we’re doing it today instead of tomorrow. My mom and brother try to plan to do things on the day the most people can come. Both my kids that live here work on weekends so one of them would probably miss it no matter which day we do it. My daughter (who is my youngest of 3 ages 24, 21, 18) will only be able to be there for an hour or so before she has to go to work.

Family gatherings is one place that I tend to react out of old bipolar made habits. I mean when I was out of control I developed habits that were only good to destroy family relationships. I would automatically and without thinking react and snap at people all the time. I used to avoid my dad, but he’s gone now. He passed away last year. Now I don’t have the chance to get to know him.

All of my life, as far back as I can remember, I’ve suffered with Bipolar Disorder. I think he was an undiagnosed bipolar. He and I clashed almost every time we talked. It was really hard on my mom. I don’t think I’ll ever understand just how hard on her it was. But now I’m striving to heal my relationship with her, to think before I react. To embrace positive feelings and reject negative ones.

Now that I’m on medications that allow me to control what I say and do I’m able to relearn how to communicate with my family. I’m not having that knee jerk response and can think before I speak. I’m learning to have good manners in a way.

Bipolar Struggling

/ Robin

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I’m struggling. I want to be successful, but I have this illness that makes it harder to succeed for me to do so than if I didn’t have it. I just get going, and then I get depressed and circle downwards further away from my goals. I feel sad and unfulfilled. Tired. And then I blame my lack of success on the fact that I have Bipolar Disorder. The blame game. But there is truth to it.

I know intellectually what I need to do to be successful, but I feel like haven’t the strength right now.

Have you ever felt like this? Sounds like a broken record to me I’ve said it so many times. I know the feelings so well it’s like embracing a lover comfortable, warm, and familiar.

I tried to walk Bailey (the dog) around 5 this evening. My right knee felt like a vice grip was clamped on to it so I did one lap up and down the road and had to stop. I’ve had this knee replaced twice. (I had it done at a much younger age than most. Thought I’d do it a second time just to see if we could get my foot to point the right direction.)

It is 9:41 p.m. and I just realized why I feel like I should have gone to bed an hour ago. I forgot my afternoon meds. My son was over mowing my lawn around lunch time and I guess I got off schedule.

You know what? I have goals that I’m passionate about and I want to succeed in achieving them. However, I’m somewhat depressed right now and I’m not believing in myself the way I need to if I’m going to be successful. And I’m being scattered. Forgot the Ritalin. I’m blaming the illness. Now that I’ve figured out why I got more depressed today I can fix it tomorrow by taking all my meds.

It would have helped if I’d taken my meds. I’ve taken my p.m. meds already. I talk about how important it is to take your meds. This is why. My just missing one afternoon’s meds cost me my afternoon and evening and I feel more depressed.

Tomorrow is a new day. I’ll stick to my morning routine. I’ve got a morning routine. If I deviate from my routine, the rituals, I usually forget something. The rituals make me feel comfortable and steady.

I forgot to feed the cats this morning so Maks, the younger of the two, went into the kitchen and opened the cabinet doors and let them slam shut. I’m sure he knows I hate it when he does that. My dog Bailey chased him downstairs. That’s what happens when you have a cattle dog without cattle. She reverts to herding the cats.

I’ll take all my meds tomorrow. I’ll have to take my afternoon ones just before I leave to go to our family BBQ for Mother’s Day at my brother’s mid-century (I watch HGTV) home overlooking Puget Sound. It has a beautiful view. We’ll eat and play cards. I’m sick of playing cards but at least we have something to do. It can be fun. Depends on my attitude.

Time to take Bailey out. Then I think I’m going to journal for a little while.

My youngest daughter got hired Thursday to work at a car wash that her brother works at ($15 an hour plus tips!) and she worked today. That was fast. I’m so proud of her. I’m so proud of all my kids.

Yep, time to put this to bed.

Making Good Moods

/ Robin / 2 Comments

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I know that Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder. I understand that. In my experience, my interpretation of it is that our moods swing from one extreme to the other and are super intense. They mess with our thinking and we make can bad choices. According to the National Institute of Mental Health “Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness, is a brain disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.” Sounds pretty negative over all. It doesn’t have to stay that way.

I’ve talked about triggers in previous posts and how you should avoid triggers that cause you to have bipolar episodes and go into a tailspin. I have found that as we finally found the right medications and the right dosages of those medications coupled with counseling and learning about myself and my illness on my own, that I can actually experience moods that aren’t scary. I can be happy and know that it doesn’t have to mean I’m manic. I can make good memories from doing things that put me in good moods that I’m finally able to experience. (If you’re not where I am, don’t give up. Never stop fighting to be better.)

The more in control of my illness I am, the more I am free to feel healthy emotions without fear of losing control. It’s important to realize that being well doesn’t mean not having emotions at all. Getting rid of all manic type feelings would leave me unhappy and unfulfilled. I want to experience the highs I get when I’m doing something I love. Those are good, healthy moods.

When I am not being a slave to my emotions when they are out of control I can make choices that impact how I feel. That’s exciting to me. I can make my own choices and control my responses. (If you’re depressed, and I know some of you are, hang in there. You can feel better. Never give up fighting to be happy. You have the ability to learn and grow and follow your treatment plan and reach stability too.)

I admit that I am a little depressed right now. I’ve got too many major stressors happening in my life and they are having an impact on me. (My father passed just a year ago, my daughter moved out 11 months ago and my son 2-3 weeks ago, I’m taking the quarter off school, and I’m looking for a house to move into in town.) So far I’ve been able to keep from spinning out of control. I’m staying on my meds and meeting with my counselor. I’m trying to have healthy habits at home including playing with and training my dog and walking with her and eating better. I’m trying to sleep less. Getting up has always been a struggle but when I’m depressed it is so much worse.  I’ve resorted to having people I know who get up before me call me and get me up for a few days to help break the cycle of over sleeping. 10 hours a night is just too much.

My point of all this is that it is possible to get to a point where we can feel healthy emotions, emotions that are good for us. I journal and I make sure to write about the good times… as well as the difficult ones so I can go back and prove to myself that it isn’t all horrible.

If I keep working hard to stay stable I can keep experiencing health/good emotions, and so can you.

“I had many battles to win over myself-and that was work too….” WC Stone, success and motivational teacher

New Counselor – Full Disclosure

/ Robin

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This picture is of Barney, one of my companions growing up. He is clearly focused on what he’s doing.

I met my new counselor today. She seems nice. I said “full disclosure” in the title of this post. By this I mean that she will be reading my posts so she’ll know what’s going on with me. I will have to choose to be confident and not self-edit. I don’t want to only say things that I think will make her think I’m doing well or minimize problems I might have. I offered to my last counselor the chance to read my blog but she didn’t do it. Now that I have someone I’m pretty sure will read it I find myself thinking, “Huh…”

I guess this is like beginning a new chapter in my growth. I hope so. I choose to make it so. She’s going to be giving me homework that I think she’s going to expect me to complete. I’m never good at doing that. I have great grades at school but for work from my counselors never seems to happen. I don’t know why.

My first impression is that she’s smart and seems to listen well and is observant. I think she expects me to respond to our work together with growth and that seems reasonable and desirable to me. I want to grow.

I want to join ancestry.com. I want to have my genes tested and see where my people come from. When I ask my mother and her eldest sister they always say, “Canada.” I’m like but where before that? People came to Canada from someplace else. Oh well. Maybe later.

I’m feeling scattered. I can’t seem to focus my thoughts on what I want to say. I want to work on my book but I as I say, I can’t seem to focus. Oh, I just took my second Ritalin of the day. I should give myself a few minutes don’t you agree? It really makes a difference but it isn’t magic. I like the idea of it magically tightening my mental labor into a focused thingie. But nah, the kind of focus I want is only achieved through effort, determination, and through concentration. I could add a few more words but you get the idea.

Sigh.

I think Barney had the right idea. Time to chill and let my brain reset. Maybe I should work on being mindful again. I’ve done it some in the past and it helped. I don’t know why I stop doing things that are beneficial, but I do.

Focus Robin.

Thanks and Being Graciousness

/ Robin / 2 Comments

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Did you know that if you are in a vehicle during a tornado you should leave the vehicle running so that if you’re hit, the airbags will deploy and give you a better chance to survive. True story. Thank you Weather Channel.

That has not a thing to do with anything, but I thought it was interesting

My son moved out a few weeks ago you may know, leaving me home childless after raising three kids on my own. Suddenly I have no one to take care of or to take care of me. It is at times unnerving. There are some things around the house that I can’t do. Kyle has to come home and do some things for me like mowing my lawn. I am physically unable to do it. I’m thankful that he’s still willing to do that for me. I have arthritis and chronic pain and am unable to do a lot of things. One of the funniest is opening a bottle of water. I have to use one of those bottle opener handle things.

After arguing with my mother yesterday, and talking to Kyle this morning, I realized something I had not been doing and should be doing. I realized it because Kyle isn’t doing it and he should be doing it. It’s being graceful. Gracefulness is what I should be exhibiting after my mother does something for me that is surprising and completely unnecessary. If I don’t practice gracefulness, I can hurt her feelings and she may not be so nice next time.

Gracefulness, according to Dictionary.com means:

  1. pleasantly kind, benevolent, and courteous.
  2. characterized by good taste, comfort, ease, or luxury: gracious suburban living; a gracious home.
  3. indulgent or beneficent in a pleasantly condescending way, especiallyto inferiors.
  4. merciful or compassionate: our gracious king.
  5. Obsolete. fortunate or happy.

The idea is that when Kyle does a dump run for me (takes all the stuff to the dump in my brother’s van that I’ve gathered together to toss before I move) I should thank him, which I always do, and he should in turn be gracious and be kind (say you’re welcome). If he’s not, I’ll probably have my feelings hurt, because, you know, I’m sensitive like that.

It’s one thing to be bipolar bitchy, it’s another to ignore situations where you can control your emotions and your mouth and say something that is helpful and kind. This is where habits come in. But that’s for another day.

I want and need people to help me. I don’t want to piss them off so that they won’t help me anymore or only do so with a really bitchy attitude. When I’m able to choose to behave in a gracious way, I need to make the choice to do so when I can. Today, I can.