Bipolar Disorder

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.

Bipolar – Loosing Inspiration

/ Robin

Some days I don’t have a problem getting up… those days are rare. I’m so tired in the morning I feel like I’ve been woken up in the middle of the night and told I can’t go back to bed. I can’t sleep past 10 because my dog would explode. She likes to go out at 9. Sometimes I can’t even get her off the sofa to get her to go outside. I wonder if I affect her sometimes. She’s supposed to be my therapy dog. I’m not supposed to be her downer human.

I’ve done allot of things that have distracted me from my goals this last week or so (I’ve been watching a lot of TV). I feel like I need a nudge, a shot in the butt to get going. I wonder if my goals are really worth fighting for and if I can even reach them. I feel the hand of doubt around my heart.

It’s time to reset myself. I need to get my passion back.

What was it I was striving for? What was the mission of my life? What was the passion that urged me on every moment? I need to pause for a moment and consider things. Is my passion big enough to keep me in motion and motivated to work for it every day?

Today I’m working without enthusiasm. I’m going about my work with words supported by unshakable faith in their message, but without my heart slamming in my chest demanding that I drive forward with great energy.

I’m searching back in my mind. I’m realizing I should have made the Enthusiasm notebook I had thought about making. I think I’ll do that next time I’m really enthusiastic. I’ll make a notebook with my definite purpose (my passion and goal) and the things that really make me enthusiastic. That way the next time I’m feeling like this, I can reference it and not be stuck mired in the place I’m in today… in neutral with no forward inertia.

Remember.

Remember what I’ve been fighting for.

Having goals and ambitions and having an illness like Bipolar Disorder makes my days hard. The illness whispers to me to blink a few times and let my guard down, to let the illness have its way with me. But I don’t want to do that.

I won’t do that.

(Previously published in The Etiquette of Madness)

Bipolar – Does It Make Me Stupid?

/ Robin
Cleveland-Volcano-1from space

Stupid chicken

Am I stupid? Or am I just depressed?

Over the years I’ve said that I feel like I’m dumber than I was when I was younger. The older I was getting, the stupider I felt. I was honestly concerned that this was a part of the natural aging process and was happening to me early or a part of Bipolar Disorder. Maybe over time Bipolar Disorder destroyed the brain and I was naturally losing my ability to think because that was something that came with the illness.

Felt.

Years later I learned that the way I felt had nothing to do with my intelligence. I have a mood disorder, not an IQ killer.

I wasn’t becoming mentally challenged. It was all about moods. Not intelligence.

Intelligence.

Mood disorder.

Not the same.

The way I thought about it was with violence. I was so angry and frustrated that I couldn’t think things through. I made bad decision after bad decision. I “felt” stupider. That’s key with our Bipolar Disorder. We can feel stupid. (If you don’t ever feel dumber, you can skip this post.) If you have, keep reading because it is important that you understand what’s going on in your brain.

We have what is known as a mood disorder. That is, we have moods that are extreme and can fluctuate wildly compared to a regular person. Instead of being sad, we become extremely depressed. Instead of being angry, we become enraged. Instead of being excited, we become manic.

These mood fluctuations and extremes impact the way we think. They don’t make us stupid, but we can feel that way. The moods interfere with the way we think.

People tell us to think positively, things will be okay. Unfortunately, the weight of depression can prevent us from feeling like we can think at all, much less think positively.

When I first heard of Tony Robbins, success coach and public speaker, I tried out one of his 30-day programs designed to teach me to be successful. All I had to do was follow the directions spelled out on the card that went with each day and listen to the 30-minute tape that went with it.

The program challenged me to change my thinking. That was the basis of the program, change your thinking to be successful. I was depressed. I didn’t feel like I could do it. So, I quit. I felt like I was too stupid to understand the lessons. That had to be what was wrong. It never occurred to me that my illness could be impacting my ability to think clearly and keeping me from focusing on the lessons and understanding what Mr. Robbins was teaching. I’ve gone back to Mr. Robbins teachings recently and discovered that I understand him just fine. I wasn’t depressed this time. I was able to understand what he taught and use some of the principles he presented.

I’m not stupid.

I have a mood disorder.

If you have a mood disorder, please understand that it does not mean you are dumb.

I don’t know how intelligent you are or are not. I do know that Bipolar Disorder does not make you less intelligent.

Bipolar Disorder does not make you dumb.

It is a mood disorder, not a brain eater.

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.