Bipolar check-in #68

A beach town I've been going on vacation to every year since 2016. Minus 2020. I'm renting a house with my uncle and his wife, my aunt and her husband, my uncle and his girlfriend, then my mom and me.

Yeah, her last post was July 18th. I hope she's getting better.

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Originally Posted by Soupe du jour The "mention" feature always worked for me, until one time a few days ago. The culprit (after a bit of testing) seemed to be a font issue. I always use the default font (I guess Times New Roman) but that one day I copied and pasted a member's name for the mention because I forgot the hard to remember number that followed their name. That name was in a different font. Once I switched it back to Times New Roman it worked. I'm not sure if any other font would allow it to work. ....

Thank you! It's been so irritating.

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Originally Posted by MuddyBoots Yeah, her last post was July 18th. I hope she's getting better.

Yikes.

Not sure what my plan is yet. As of last night I’m completely off all of it. It will depend on how the next couple of weeks go. I have 3 10s and one 5 left. So if I spilt the 10s I have 7 days worth of emergency sleep. But I plan on staying off as much as possible. I did manage about 4 hours last night on nothing so that was good. I’d really rather have nothing if I can. But dreams last night left much to be desired. I was assaulted by Dr Oz’s friend and ended up taking Dr Oz down and telling him that’s what he gets for backing the trumpism team. So that wasn’t ideal.

That’s only two weeks so not so bad. I do hope she’s doing better though. They may have completely changed her meds around and that takes time to do it right. Sending purple sparkle healing vibes her way. 🪄 ✨

I’ve missed wfc as well and wondered how she is doing.

I enjoyed the pool this morning although all the rain we’ve had made it high and cold. I wish I’d stayed longer. I need to be more being versus doing.

Although I’ve been doing well, my anxiety is extra high today. I’ve taken some Klonopin. Hopefully it will ease.

I might have mentioned that I’m meeting M halfway this weekend to visit. Really looking forward to it.

I hope everyone has a peaceful day.

Went to Walmart earlier today, got 2 containers of cat litter, a case of cat food, a backpack, and a few other things I needed. So the two things of litter and case of cat food were sooooo heavy. I take the bus and had to carry all that back with me in my reusuable grocery bags, and I have practically zero upper body strenghth so it sucked. But at least I got it done, the cats are taken care of for awhilel and that's the most important thing. One of my bags fabric handles ripped off because it was too heavy, but I managed to get everything in my apartment. Thankfully the bus stop is literally right out front of my apartment building.

Ordered a fabric chair cover because my armchair is the cats favorite place to scratch even though they have scratching posts, so hopefully that protects it and prevents it a bit from further damage.

Doing some laundry now. Have a meeting with my case manager tomorrow to talk about my next goals and she's also going to call the place I want to volunteer with me, she works there at night s as a therapist so she said she can help get me a volunteer position there if I wanted. It's a place that does a bunch of stuff for the community, free clothing, serves free meals 3 times a day every day to anyone who wants or needs to eat in the community in the dining area. So hopefully we can figure out a schedule and hours that work for me . I'm nervous but hopefully it works out

Here's some pics of the girls

Talked to t and he helped me understand my ptsd better. I’m
Hyper vigilant often. He said to blame my abuser for my mental health struggles not myself bc it’s not my fault. He said I was terrorized as a child and it’s not my fault. I told him how i wish I told bc maybe my life would be better. He said it’s not my fault I didn’t tell-I was terrified. I’m cried a lot. I hate when I do that.

It’s hard not to blame myself. T says my stepmother (abuser) is a psychopath and belongs in prison.

Oooo that’s tough. I remember well the days of carting things by bus. I’d save up occasionally and spurge on a cab to drive right up to the apartment when it was litter buying time. Uff da. The girls sure do look good.

Hello everyone! I am so touched that you have all been thinking of me.

I did indeed go IP on the 18th. NOT by choice, I was committed. I was calling RS from the ER often, telling him I feel like they’ve trapped me (at the psych ER). I kept going between wanting the door shut to keep everyone out or having it open so they couldn’t lock me in.

When the came to transport me to an IP unit I accused them of tricking me. I had to weigh which would be worse, going quietly or being given a shot because I was going whether I wanted to or not. I chose option A, I knew where they were sending me and how to get there I so would know immediately if they were indeed tricking me.

Anyway I spent about a week terrified, completely convinced they were all talking about me and making a plan to attack me. I got a new roommate and got it in my head that I had to self harm to show them I’m not scared of pain so they can all back off. Well that is hard (but not impossible) to achieve in IP.

Anyway now I’m on a bunch of meds including haldol and cogentin. I am going to turn my attention to taking control of my anxiety as that is what led to a complete loss of reality. I’ve never really got into mindfulness but I think that’s the best to go with because all my anxiety is focused toward what COULD happen in the future so I want to learn how to practice staying in the present. I do know a lot of grounding skills.

Again that you all so much for thanking of me during this difficult episode.

@wildflowerchild25 I’m glad you’re better now. Welcome back

I haven't slept good for 3 nights now. I havent heard back on my sleep study yet. I called the hospital about a bill I got and apparently my current balance is over $7 thousand! Most of it is from my surgery last October. The guy on the phone said they have up to a year to keep billing you. My mom told me not to panic. Thats still not the final balance. Insurance is still working things out.

I got out again today to a couple stores. My agoraphobia is getting a lot better. I wanted to go out to eat but I was too tired. So we got pizza instead. I may try again tommorow. I feel fine mental health wise, I am just worn out physically from not sleeping well and then I just have the general day before my shot low energy.

Wildflower, that sounds awful. I am glad you are feeling better and that you are back. Are you going back into IOP? I've never done it because it is a minimum of an hour away but I know the ones my hospital runs do a lot of mindfulness training.

Welcome back, wfc!!!

I'm beyond pissed at my old NP, the pharmacy, my functional support specialist, and my new doc that I haven't even met yet. Today's been rough and I am in a boatload of pain.

Yes I’m going back to the one I came from. I’m afraid they’re gonna make me “start over” but I don’t think so. Maybe partial for the rest of the week. But I’m starting a new job in late august as a one last Hail Mary to see if I can work full time. If I can’t, we’ll, at least I’ll know.

wfc, I am so glad you're back and have checked in here. I was very concerned about you...even though I was pretty sure you were IP. You sound much more stable now.

Yes, mindfulness and grounding skills. Your grounding skills have helped me immensely, many a time.

Soupe, you've had the malaise for a couple of weeks, I think. I do wonder if it's a covid after-effect. So many people say they experience it after having had covid. Still, it seems to have come along when you did changes with your Seroquel. The med tweaks may be just the thing.

I'm delighted for you about everything with your new home. Sounds like all is going smoothly, hurray!

A bonfire sounds wonderful to me, lol. But on the beach, not in the heat .

Ugh, that darn "mention" thingy is a huge azz-pain.

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Originally Posted by Nammu ...But dreams last night left much to be desired. I was assaulted by Dr Oz’s friend and ended up taking Dr Oz down and telling him that’s what he gets for backing the trumpism team. So that wasn’t ideal.

Well, Dr. Oz deserves you to take him down!

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Originally Posted by Blue_Bird .....

The ladies look lovely. Miss M.'s mustache is *quite* the thing! Very fancy

The volunteer opportunity sounds absolutely wonderful. I hope it works out for you. I'd love to do something similar.

Ooh, it's so annoying when a bag breaks. Good you made it in without everything falling out of the bag.

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Originally Posted by MuddyBoots I'm beyond pissed at my old NP, the pharmacy, my functional support specialist, and my new doc that I haven't even met yet. Today's been rough and I am in a boatload of pain.

I'm so sorry, Boots. Been there, and the pain sure doesn't help things any.

Saw Mary, told her about the hellish end of week/week-end. Told her I'm really glad to be alive because things weren't looking good by Thursday night. Also told her that "my group" - you - got me through.

She said I definitely need to call medication clinic, and she gave me good words to tell them. So I came home, called that clinic, used the words, and sure enough - got an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. Without a doubt I'm doing better, but still somewhat on edge. Something with meds needs doing. I'm guessing med dude will want to prescribe either Depakote or lithium. Something has to be done about sleep. Now even 50mg of Seroquel isn't doing it. I'm at a loss.

I have so many dishes to wash. I swear i didn't have so many dishes when the kids were growing up. I'd rather do laundry than dishes any day. Well, here I go.

I have plantar fascitis in my foot. Unfortunately it's a fairly bad case of it. I'm doing PT rather than a steroid shot because steroids make my mood fluctuate. One podiatrist had a med compounded for me that included cortisone and just the little bit in that made me hypo. So no shots. If PT doesn't help I'm going to ask about serial casting. I had a tight achilles with a nodule on it before I had surgery on my other ankle. After surgery I had serial casting and then nodule disappeared and the achilles isn't as tight.


I actually did well at the fair footwise (the taping helped a lot) but it was way too hot for my meds and it wasn't much fun and we had to leave early. No more August activities outside for me.


A free fair! That's neat. I don't remember if our county charges admission or just parking. I'm going to have to drag my mom there. She wanted an apple dumpling and left before she got it because she was worried about me. So we need to go get one to make up for this. The county fair is in late September so I should be able to be outside by then.

We have a free fair here too, it’s next week. I’m only going if the weather co operates. It was a feel like temperature today of 102 with the humidity! I stayed home and mum went to her eye appointment with my sister who has a new car, so great AC. I only went out to water the flowers, fetch the mail in and put the recycling out. Oh, I did go get custard sundaes at Culver’s. Too hot to eat but custard is good 😊 the AC is cooling a bit better now that it’s cooling off out there. We had it on 74 to keep it from working too much. 74 is a bit to high for me though. This year at the fair I want a snow cone.