Over the holidays plus a couple months, I’ve been eating whatever I want and skipping the gym.  I found four pounds, and I’m starting to feel like a lump.  Since I moved to the apartment with a gym over week ago, I’ve used it once.  I talked through many excuses today then finally lifted weights.  It felt great, reminding me that working out makes me happy and helps beat away depression.

I also found some great workout songs.  Bringing me again back to music as one of my most important treatments.   Here’s to building momentum in the quest to move more and eat less.

I’ve read that lithium affects weight, but since I’ve been on it since I was sixteen, I have little frame of reference for side effects.  I also know my weight has a lot more to do with loving food and body image issues planted long ago.  Eating mindfully and shaking my tail is the best way I know to feel better, so I’m getting back on track.

I want to get off.  I skipped blogging on Saturday, because we were unpacking after a very fast move.  Both my husband and I got sick.  At work, it has been confirmed that my job is going to change a lot next year.  On the positive side, I adore the new apartment, and I look forward to the next 15 months.  Tonight, we walked home and went to the gym in the building.  I forgot how much I love lifting weights.  It has been an on-and-off-again passion since high school.  I love the independence and the workout music.

I’ve been meditating again now that things are normalizing a bit.  I’m currently sitting by a salt lamp and listening to “La vie en Rose”.  Simmering down before bed.

This week, I’m turning 40.  Having bipolar disorder and making it to 40 feels like an accomplishment.  Tragically, we have a dismally high suicide rate.  I’m grateful for my loved ones, medication and occasional therapy.  I’m also grateful for my own strength and choices.

Sending peace and comfort into the world.

Good night.

I love the the lights, Christmas music, and joy in December.  It feels like mania lite.  When I was young, Christmas felt like the time of year when all of the dysfunction was shelved and magical things could happen.  My whole family seemed to get along, or at least fake it for the sake of the holiday.  A few years back, my mother was dying during Christmas season.  I remember hearing sooo much Christmas music and thinking it would be ruined forever for me.  Thankfully, it held its magical properties.  I even listen sometimes out of season when I’m feeling down.

Things are moving quickly this Christmas season.  I’m moving to a new apartment in less than a week, and my brother is here visiting in our current tiny apartment.  I’m also turning 40 this month.  Yikes, I don’t think I’ve typed that before.  I’m worried that I’m overreaching this month.  Good and bad stressors are swirling in my brain.  I don’t have much to write today about bipolar disorder right now, I’m too drawn to the annual viewing of “A Christmas Story”.

It was a stressful week professionally.  I used my new Iphone watch to remind myself to breathe every time I looked at it.  Surprisingly, that small thing helped quite a bit.  This weekend, I had some pajama time, downloaded LightRoom and started a class on it, and went for a much needed walk.    Starting tomorrow I have to complete a big project in three days.  I will probably leave the reminder to breathe and a few happy emoticons on my watch for next week, too.

I took my clonazepam for sleep each night, and on the most stressful night, I took two.  Self medication – I went out drinking Friday night with some friends.  It was fun, but recovery takes longer the older I get.

In a new show that I’m loving (Jessica Jones), her boyfriend says something stereotypical and negative about mentally ill people.  I don’t remember the exact quote, but it felt like a slap in the face.  I think it surprised me, because the writing is brilliant otherwise.

I read that last month, multiple celebrities came out of the mental health closet.  I hope that their messages are heard, and people know they aren’t alone.

I’m feeling a little disjointed and under the weather, so I’m calling it for tonight.

According to a NAMI, “2.6% of Americans live with bipolar disorder”*.

When I was first diagnosed, I felt so alone.  Being a sixteen-year-old girl coming out of a psychiatric hospital was terrifying.  I was already struggling to survive high school like everyone else was.  I had just started driving, had a new boyfriend, and my parents had recently divorced.  Now I was taking medication for the rest of my life to  stave off psychotic mania and possibly erase who I really was.  I told most people some vague story about  being sick, but I was fine now.

I don’t think I ever took the time to grieve the loss of normalcy.  I went to therapy, but  I didn’t attend any support groups, the internet had not caught on yet, and few celebrities had come out of the mental disorder closet.  As far as I knew, there was no one else like me outside of institutions and scary movies.

It wasn’t until I read Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison’s “An Unquiet Mind” (after I graduated high school), that I knew that you can have this disorder and be a doctor and writer.  She literally wrote the book on it (“Manic Depressive Illness”).  She gave me hope to succeed despite the disorder.  Even more wonderful, she tempted me with the thought I can succeed because of it (“Touched by Fire”).   Her books were life changing for me.

*https://www.nami.org/NAccoAMI/media/NAMI-Media/Infographics/GeneralMHFacts.pdf

Yesterday, I saw an older, disheveled man running through the streets in a cape.  He was skin and bones, and he looked like he’d been running for days.  He looked like mania feels.  I always heard growing up, “there but for the grace of God, go I.”  That just saddens me now.  Why would a god choose for some people to suffer and others to be able to afford medication and treatment?  There but for my family, friends, ability to go to school and get a job, and afford medications, go I.  I also don’t know that I won’t be that person some day; nothing is permanent, and the statistics are quite dreary.

I’ve been taking lithium since I was diagnosed at sixteen.  Sometimes, it seems crazy to take an element that scientists accidentally discovered could regulate moods.  Last time I researched it, they still didn’t even know how it works.  When I worked in mental health, my manager told me that anyone who prescribes lithium for a teenager is a monster.  (Now that is probably a blog post on its own; dealing with stigma while working in mental health.)  I’m grateful that there is a substance that can keep me on an even keel and live what I believe is a good life.

I used to think Lithium was all there was, and I would still have manic episodes every couple years and live in constant fear of being happy.  Until two episodes ago, a psychiatrist suggested clonazepam.  Now, when I’m overly stressed and feeling that terrifying electrified feeling in my body and brain, I take two clonazepam and give myself a time out.  I usually tell my husband that I’m starting to feel keyed up, and he supports my efforts to take it down a notch.    I also take it to sleep at night.  As I’ve mentioned, sleep is my number one defense against mania.  So, perhaps, I’m just addicted to more expensive drugs, but they give me the piece of mind to celebrate life’s joys with less fear.

This was sent to me by my brother, it reminded him of Wonderfalls. Still one of my favorite portrayals of psychosis in the media.

“Slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison.” – Jenny Holzer

This week has been hectic for me due to work stress.   Seeing this quote at an installation made me chuckle, slow down, and breathe.

Second to lack of sleep, stress is one of my biggest villains, even though we have a love/hate relationship.  I started this week feeling nervous and scared about work (there are big changes brewing and it is the busy season), so I threw myself even more into my job.  I stopped taking breaks, started eating less, and sharpening my focus.  Unfortunately, my boss is piling on extra stress this next month.  One of the negatives of keeping my psychological identity a secret is that I can’t say that I can’t do something, because it could make me sick.  I also work so hard to prove that I am “normal” and can handle anything thrown at me.  I’ve come out to bosses in the past, and they were shocked that I am so “normal” and they “had no idea.”  From that point on, it felt like they treated me with kid gloves.

I take deliberate steps (both healthy and unhealthy) to battle stress when it gets bad.  At least two of the days this week ended with a margarita or a glass (or two) of wine.  On the healthier side, I follow advice from an old therapist.  She told me that a person is like a bank, and life takes many withdrawals.  When you are too low on emotional funds, you need to make deposits.  It is times like this that I force myself to make some deposits.  Some examples of mine — going for a walk, taking a bath, taking photos, watching a sunset, going to a movie, sitting on my deck, going to a museum, meditating, and reading.

And blogging, writing in any form, is a great deposit.  In the past, I’ve had trouble keeping the momentum with journals (so many five page journals in my bookshelf).  I’ve set a reminder to check in weekly this time.

I just finished Thich Nhat Hanh’s “You are Here.”  He had a nice poem that I’ve been enjoying this week.

In; out. Deep; slow. Calm; ease. Smile; release.

Recently, I went to an escape the room adventure.   The entire room was covered with clues and random items to throw us off track.  We had to comb through each item and figure out its possible significance, solve the riddles, and try to escape.

This adventure reminded me of both delusions I’ve experienced in my most severe manic states (reference and grandeur*).  Every item in the room could have “special and personal meaning” and we were freaking spies – it doesn’t get more important than that.

When my thoughts are racing, it feels like all of my senses are heightened, and I can process many, many things at once.  As it intensifies, I start to look for clues to make sense of all of the overloading stimuli.  It is like taking the every day coincidences and turning the dial to 11.  Everyone and everything is put there to lead me to conclusions about life.  As everything starts to connect and I solve the riddles, I feel more and more important, like I am here for a greater purpose.  When I experience psychosis, it feels absolutely real.  It is like wearing beer goggles that make everything magical.  However, unlike drinking, I remember everything.  I remember each ridiculous thing that I thought and did in front of loved ones and strangers.  There is one place it took me months to go back to, and I still feel nervous there.  Reconciling these events with friends and family is harder and more painful, but that is probably a post in itself.

There are many TV shows and movies that represent bipolar disorder (e.g., that damn “Mr Jones” – I can’t even think about the ethical and practical problems in that movie right now).  However, I’m currently writing about psychosis, so here are a few that I can recommend if you are interested in peeking through the looking glass. “The Truman show” definitely reminds me of the lighter side of psychosis.   The darker side: “The Game” with Michael Douglas felt like a documentary when I first saw it.

Ok, now in the immortal words of Taylor Swift – “Shake it Off”.

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*Delusions of reference – A neutral event is believed to have a special and personal meaning.

Delusions of grandeur – Belief that one is a famous or important figure, such as Jesus Christ or Napolean.

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