I am...

I am just going to use this thread as verbal diarrhea and probably blow it up for a few minutes. Sorry for the graphic imagery. I have so much to say and no one to say it to. At the same time, I have no idea what to say. How about those 49'ers or, how about ISIS? You tell me, light or heavy, and I'll go about it. On one hand, I'm generally not vocal about my beliefs (unless I am manic and then I preach the Gospel on the streets) of any kind because I find it separates people to discuss them in great detail. There are subjects and people that are exceptions to this. On the other hand, I have no beliefs. I am so ambiguous and indecisive in my every day life that the beliefs that I once so firmly held, that I once lived my life for are now entirely jaded. I don't resemble the person I was 3 years ago. Really, I don't. Can you tell I need to talk. WHEW!!! I need to talk. I need to f*****g scream! I can't stop crying. And will I sleep tonight? Well that is the gosh darn (gosh darn, snort) question. How are YOU doing tonight? Tell me about you for a while. How the hell was your day? What the hell do you do for a living? When the hell were you diagnosed bipolar? How the hell do you live, especially with any enjoyment? How the hell do you get by without ****ing complaining? This is all in vain.

Ah, the second suggestion! I will cut it up. Such a simple solution; why didn't I think of that? I am just going to do it now while I am emotional and a little indifferent about spending. Thank you!

I did it, already. Cake.

I'm sorry you are feeling so bad tonight. I'm feeling a lot more manic tonight and am wondering about sleep too. In my case it is because I had that tough visit with my therapist today. Oddly last night I managed to get some sleep but tonight I'm more wound up about it even though I think it went well.

You can talk as much as you want. Tell me about cutting up that card. How did that feel? (ugh, I sound like a therapist) .

I am not even close to who I was 3 years ago but the biggest different is from 4 years ago. I was working, working hard because I was my entire department as we were trying to hire an assistant for a year. I did home health in a rural area so I was driving everywhere. I loved that life. Every visit was different and I never knew what to expect. It was perfect for bipolar, as much as what I did can be perfect for bipolar. And then everything fell apart in Aug. 2011 and that was the end of the life I had worked for. Things are better now. I have 2 nieces I love dearly and who I see as much as possible. I am going to watch them Friday and I can't wait (although they have new chicks that have started turning into birds and I am afraid of birds.....ewww). So tell me about birds. If you can convince me they aren't creepy you'll have outdone my entire family. I already had to read fairy tales to the older girl; I was afraid of them as a kid and didn't know them at all. She's starting to realize I'm different and I need to have her mama start talking to her about this; I want it to be a matter of fact part of her life but not something she just announces at pre-school or something.

What else do you like to do besides shopping? (I wish I could have you shop for me soon.....I have gained weight since upping my Seroquel which is weird since I'm not very hungry but it is all in my boobs which is a bad place. I need a nice top to wear to a casual wedding and I dread shopping for it, especially since I'm going to have to give in and buy new bras and I have to buy new sneakers because the ones I've been wearing since I was allowed to wear sneakers 4 months after my ankle surgery have worn down so they promote rolling my ankle. Which is not good. And too bad b/c I love these sneakers and the new colors for the same pair are blagh.

There's my stream of consciousness. Can you pick something out that helps you focus a little for a minute? I know sometimes I desperately need to find that focal point for just a minute. In fact my therapist has made me do this with pictures, focus in and find tiny details that you have to work to notice. Another thing that helps me is to draw an infinity sign and trace it 10 times with your dominant hand and then 10 times with your non-dominant hand. It's calming, for me especially on a marker board. I also color lines on notebook paper, the first line in one color using my right hand, the next in another (randomly drawn so OCD doesn't kick in) with the left hand. '

I hope by now you are feeling a little better. I've been there with the desperation, just days ago and it just sucks. I'm now in the fragile place where sometimes I'm manic and sometimes I'm not very manic at least and could easily topple into depression. I'm very unstable but not as high as a week ago. But I know from long experience that this means nothing and tonight may be back to bigtime mania.

It would be nice to have some kind of monitorl, like an insulin monitor to judge this for us.

Congratulations! That's a big step. I've never had to do that with a credit card but have had to

All of those things to keep me safe from impulses were hard so I imagine cutting that card up had some emotions attached. They may come later. But I'm so proud of you and you should be proud of yourself. Even if you start to regret it later remember you did the right thing to keep yourself safe from dangerout impulses.

Well, my virus protection just notified me something turned it off so I'm off to fix that. I'm still so proud of you!

Congrats! That must have been a very, very difficult thing to do, and I'm very proud of you. Sorry if I was too blunt. It's just that I grew up with two women whose mother would spend hundreds of dollars on chocolates and random things when she was manic. While it didn't necessarily hurt the family -- they had enough money to get by -- it certainly didn't do anything to help them. Well, I suppose she had pounds and pounds of chocolate stored away for future depressive episodes...

How are you feeling about the credit card today? Are you doing ok?

Yeah, I'm doing ok. AND...my aunt is a jeweler who is going to ask my mom to buy an even nicer pearl ring (that costs less with her discount) for my birthday next month. Feeding an addiction? I don't know but, I haven't bought anything out of ordinary for the last 2 days and I don't feel too heartbroken about the card still. Thank you for checking on me!

Forget about eBay and all those online shopping places.., stash that card (those if more) in the freezer in a big ice cube container. Only melt the ice cube if you really really need something. Go watch a good movie, read a book, go to the gym...call you're pdoc revise meds if you take any. Good luck.

I'm really glad that you are doing ok and if you can get what you'd like as a gift I think that's harmless. (I looked at the ring and so it is following me as the ad on every webpage today. It's pretty but I bet there are prettier ones out there).

I don't know if this is true for you but sometimes I want to buy things just to show myself I'm not as poor as I am. I don't because I am terrified of debt and it seems like if for some reason there is one financial issue 3 more will pop up. I've gotten around this somewhat by doing swagbucks. It lets me earn giftcards and so I have something each month to throw around on things not in my budget. Not a lot but enough I can buy something on itunes or get the expensive hair care products that work best with my wildly curly hair (cheap stuff doesn't do much for that unfortunately) or buy a book or this last month essential oil diffuser and an oil. This month will be boring and will go to paying down shoes and a bra I had no choice but to buy but that's ok too; better than that just adding to the credit card debt I'm trying so hard to pay off.

I hope that you are able to find some peace with this issue. I used to want to be destructive when manic in any way I could come up with. To make it safe my therapist started me on shredding phone books. I'd do it until my hands were hurting but it did keep me from moving on to worse things. (When I owned my home I always wanted to take on ambitious home improvement projects when manic, usually late at night and usually using tools not ideal for someone as impulsive and out of control as I was. Not doing that was a big thing for me to learn because nothing good ever came of it.)

Abolutely brilliant advice!!!