Today turned out to be much better than I expected it to be! I had my monthly support group. Then, my long time counselor (who runs the group) squeezed me in for a last minute counseling session after the group. I went straight from counseling to lunch with a friend I haven't seen in awhile. We spent 3 hours together. It was a good day for the soul, and being out of the house for so many hours/around people did wonders for me since I spend so much time at home and alone over the summer.

Tomorrow, I am going to reach out to schedule an appointment with the new counselor I'm seeing in an every other week rotation with my long time counselor to try and see her later in the week. I tend to need more support as I get close to seeing my mom so better safe than sorry I suppose, especially since seeing her can be such a bipolar symptoms trigger.

I'm now at peace with the fact that, conversation with my pdoc pending, it looks like 2 mg of risperidone needs to be my new dose. It hit me that this is the longest run, by a long shot, of having the same antipsychotic and at the same dose so it kind of makes sense I would need an increase at this point. It just hit me that med changes are often connected to the rare times I see my mom so now it really makes sense that I need an increase. I still try to control my symptoms in a way that isn't actually possible sometimes.