Bipolar check-in #68

My mom had Reynaud's and my son has it @bizi. I know it's very uncomfortable. I'm sorry you have it.

I rarely get flare ups now, I know it starts with my 3rd finger so I don't hold an ice cold drink with my third finger Or the cold steering wheel.
Some get a very serious case of it. mine is light.
mom, aunts, sister. first I have heard of a man having it I only know women who have it.
Thanks for the hug and support beth!

@Jennifer 1967...I hope you feel better soon. Even when things go poorly for you, you seem to keep your chin up somehow & be so supportive of others. I've always admired that about you. You seem too be having difficulty taking care of your needs these days. I'm so sorry. I hope things turn around for you soon.

@Nammu...(In a hypnotist's voice) "Look deep into my eyes...you are getting sleepy...so very sleepy!" If only it was that easy, huh? I hope you get a few more halfway decent nights of sleep soon.

My depression has lessened a bit, but things are going to get stressful Monday. My girlfriend is having full knee replacement surgery Monday morning, & she'll have trouble getting around for at least a month. I'll be responsible for taking care of her & everything around the house. At the forefront of my mind, however, is her health & safety. I hope surgery goes well...On top of that, our kitchen remodel won't be done soon. The counters won't be in until mid-September, & I can't cook for shite to begin with. My girlfriend generally does the cooking around these parts.

So, I ate a small bit of humble pie regarding my rival rep. I was a bit more "out there" sales wise, so he couldn't find a way to sneak in and do any poaching. What happened next felt like a blatant hostile takeover. I needed his help to get a phone out of a case and ready to sell. He did that and immediately took my customer and phone to his workstation and started typing info in. Wouldn't answer me while "making the sale." I surreptitiously called my boss, who clarified that what was happening was mutually beneficial. Basically, allowing him to process phones through his workstation doesn't affect my commission and let's him net a bit for himself. Fair play, but why didn't ANYONE take the time to explain before I got really annoyed and almost angry?!?! Mysteries of the universe. I gave credit where credit was due and made an apology and a peace offering. He seemed good after out heart to heart.

On a positive note, I'm fairly certain I was first place in sales for the day before I left! I have feelers out with the Walmart managers about doing extra things in their stores (tables, intercom announcements, social media). I just wish they would staff people. I'm having to do crowd control to get people to the Walmart associates quicker so they can take care of them faster and eventually get to my customers and get products for them. I had to do something similar when I was a Walmart associate. It stressed me out then and it still stresses me out now, even with my Abilify before my shift.

So, good sales, but no communication. At all.

Had a bit of a de-stress after work and saw "Bullet Train." It was exactly what I needed. A fun, witty, little over the top action flick to sit back, turn your brain off and enjoy!

My mom is coming to town tomorrow, so I will be attending Sunday services. Number one, to visit with her and number two, to set a time to sit and visit with the pastor there. Even with our religious disagreements, he still has a "citizen of the world" mentality that I respect. If he going to another country to evangelize, he's there as a guest of the local preachers. If he's doing missions, he's got skilled workers who can offer tangible assistance. Again, religious differences aside, I can appreciate that mentality when it comes to being out there in the world.

An OK day today, with two days off coming up! I'll take that!

Regarding that part of things my grocery store has ready to eat foods that only requires preheating the oven and maybe a side of frozen veggies that you can nuke. Some of there ready to eat meals are nuked, so even easier! Of course there’s always take out too.

@Stressreleaser, welcome to the forum!

@~Christina, I'm happy to read that your eye is recovering well.

@Aurelius710, @MuddyBoots, and anyone I have missed, I'm sending hugs and positive wishes your way.

Hi @Nammu. No, I've never been to Houska castle and confess this is the first I',ve heard of it. I'll ask Hubby if he knows of it. He's still sleeping as it's 7:45 am and he sleeps in as he's a night owl. Czech Republic has about 2,000 castles total, all in different conditions. The most famous is obviously in Prague itself, simply called the "Prague Castle". Other famous ones nearby there that I've visited include Vyšehrad and Karlšteyn. In Brno, there is Špilberk castle. As said, there are so many that it is impossible to visit all.

@*Beth*, thanks for asking about me. I'm intensely overwhelmed trying to stay strong, because there's no room for anything else right now. What Hubby and I have ahead of us is rather scary, to be honest. Sorry to read about your bank information theft. Hubby and I have had credit card use by thieves several times. It's so sad how many criminal minds there are out there! At least there are protections. Hope you have a lovely visit with your son!

Hi Jennifer, take the rest you need! It is not strange that you get such a hard form of depression right now. You have used years to take care of both your mother and your brother and then your brother died. Still you worked hard to make things go around, the funeral and things that came afterward. You have used energy on making the life of your mother as well as possible after the funeral. You are a really good person who thinks a lot on what benefit others!

Now you need to take your depression seriously and take the rest you need. If it lasts for many weeks perhaps it is best to contact your GP or therapist for possible new or more medication. Please don't experiment with the medication yourself.

Am thinking on you!

Hope you wiil have a good time with your son and Kim!

Hi,

I am just in to say hello! I am not so much better, but am doing the most important "things" at home and try to eat healthy and do my physical exercises. I feel very tired, but suggest that my depression is at a mild level now. I use all the tools I have and hope to get "things in order" before my SAD starts in about 1 1/2 to a couple of months from now. That is my highest priority for the moment, to try to have the tools ready for the "SAD season", so it doesn't become too deep.

Send good wishes and hugs to all!

Are you still in summer? We are just about at the end of winter (spring starts 1st September ) and we reached 57 Fahrenheit today (we measure in Celsius but just saying it in Fahrenheit to compare to you guys) so your lows are starting to cool down a bit… still a bit hot though!

beths is still in the middle of heat waves in the 100's.
yikes don't know how to survive if we had that.
Hope your spring is spectacular!
bizi

Really enjoying the forum. It's heartwarming to see members supporting each other. I am thrilled to say that i did chores this morning! I am done my whole backlog of laundry! I am just overjoyed! I suspected it was a problem of an imbalance of chores and fun and i was right. Aces!

@GoGo2:

Seems we may have a similar pattern. My mood is also low in the late Fall and Winter, when the days get so short. I've begun telling people that i have Seasonal Affective Disorder and that is pretty close to the truth. I am not yet comfortable with admitting to bipolar, so saying i have SAD is a good compromise. It gets the point across and is relatively descriptive. I'm also dreading the depression and am also trying to prepare for it. I will try and attempt a SAD lamp this Winter, tho i have yet to buy it and i should get on top of that before my mood deteriorates and i don't have the hope required to buy it. I have some vitamin D left over from last Winter which i tried with good results but it gave me insomnia and i stopped it as i like to sleep thru my depressions. I wasn't functioning well enough to reason that i should just adjust the dose and experiment. I have some Wellbutrin on hand from this Spring as i take it at the end of Winter when my depression gets severe and it flips me over into mania, which has it's own set of problems, but better manic and alive than depressed and dead. I will take a lesson from my recent experiment that i MUST balance fun and chores and attempt to have some fun this Winter. Having fun in the Winter is a tall order, but all i can do is try. I have a made a new friend who is a former competitive skier and she's keen on us going skiing but that's an all-day project and i doubt i'll have the energy for that. Short trips to the mall and my drop-in might be all i can handle. I'll follow your story with interest and let's see if we can both help each other to have an easier time of it!

N3 called me this morning just as I had already awoken. I'd asked him to call me at 6:00 so we could make it to Starbucks by 7. It was so nice to be out and about that early! We were the only two customers in the store for about an hour. It was low to mid 60°F and lightly raining. We had our coffees and split a cream cheese danish and just talked until 8:45 or so whereupon we went for a walk in the cool and the drizzle. It was all very pleasant!

That will probably be helpful!

I’ve been on the brink of a panic attack all day

What kept you from actually having an attack?

So, I have this friend who lives about an hour from me. We've gotten together a handful of times. So a couple weeks ago he says he is going to drive here to visit me . We made plans for 3 p.m. today. At 10-to-3:00 he Facebook messages me and says can we reschedule because one of his kids brought their car over to be fixed. So 50 minutes AFTER he should've left, he cancels. So then he says we can get together tomorrow. I say "What time". He takes a while to get back to me and then says "How about Tuesday? I have to fix the oxygen sensor on my truck. It will be safe driving that way.". I call ********. Even if your oxygen sensor is bad, you've been driving the car like that for weeks. I just feel like everything else in his life is more important than me . But I can't say anything because I'm not his girlfriend (and never will be). Btw, he's done this before too. Not last time . Last time he showed up on time and we had a fun time. That's why I assumed that today would be no different. Now I know that him showing up is the exception to the rule . And just yesterday I told another friend to never attempt to contact me again. I feel like doing that with this guy. It really was difficult not to tell him off today.

Fact checking. Paced breathing. Reassuring myself I was safe

I had to unfriend a whole lot of "friends" and relatives recently.

What is an oxygen sensor @moose?

Noah and Kim took David and I to lunch and it was perfect. They are both such delightful, lovely people, truly a joy to spend time with. Noah has always been tall and thin, but for the first time today I see he has filled out and looks like a mature man instead of a young man (he'll be 34 in early October). He looks very handsome and Kim is so pretty. She's petite, but has a solid inner strength about her.

I held Noah's hand across the table for a while; it's amazing to me how he was this little person in my arms, and here he is, a man much taller than I am with big, long hands. My eyes (much to my annoyance) teared up, and when the tears began to fall I dabbed at my eyes with my napkin and said "Oh, I'm so allergic to this eye liner." I hate for them to think I start bawling every time I see them.

Anyway, they make such a good couple. We had wonderful conversation, talked about all sorts of things. And they always bring us thoughtful gifts from the various places they travel to. In a few weeks they're headed to Georgia (the country, not the state). David cautioned them about being careful not to set foot in Russia and they assured us that they'll be cautious.

So it was a beautiful afternoon and the only hard part is afterwards, knowing we won't see each other for at least some months. That part is hard for both David and I.

The kids must have brought a bit of weather from the coast! Today was the first day in weeks that was below 100 degrees and here it is, 7 p.m. and only 80 degrees! In fact, there is a coastal breeze and tonight should drop down to 60. I have the windows wide open and feel I've been let out of a box.

I am exhausted and will soon be lying down to read. I have accepted that I need to come off the Gabapentin. It's been so helpful for reducing anxiety, but I am constantly nauseated. I'm quite sure the nausea is from the Gabapentin. I don't know what I'll do if that severe anxiety returns, but feeling sick all the time is no longer bearable.

So i'm feeling pretty shattered now. It's an important anniversary today for me and i only had six online messages today, three of which spelled my name wrong. My real name isn't Jane, it's something unusual. I always feel destroyed when someone spells my name wrong. I feel self-conscious and sensitive about my name and it's just so painful when people get it wrong. The messages were over Facebook, where my name is spelled out correctly just two centimeters above so there's no excuse. I felt hope die for me for a few hours today. I ate a cake in the parking lot of Walmart. I've got mixed-mood now, i guess, i was happy and laughing after the hours of despair, thinking about an elaborate lie i'd tell about how the day went if anyone asked. I got really zany. Mixed-mood is somewhat harder than just straight depressed because it's so hard to manage, so unpredictable and exhausting. If last year is any indication, i'll have mixed-mood for the rest of August and September before i finally switch into straight depression in October. What an absurd life this is.

I should probably just legally change my name to Jane. I don't have the energy now but come next April when i get manic, i'll keep it in mind. I'm sick of being saddled with this unusual name. I don't know what my mom was thinking of when she gave me an unusual name. I just want to be Jane.

Today was good! I met with my mom and arranged to have lunch with my pastor friend next week.

No work today, so apart from the Sunday service, I lazed around all day. My biggest action was sorting out old vacation photos again.

Tomorrow, I have a few things. I meet with my PsychNP for a regular meeting. Usual chit-chat to make sure I'm at baseline. Then later on, I'll get a haircut. Just a no frills buzz cut. I've got a lot of hair right now!

The big event is my neurology appointment tomorrow afternoon. I've been waiting for this for seven months! I get to find out how big of a risk I have for brain bleeds. They found blood clots in the brain during an ER visit in January. This concerned the ER doc so much he put me on statins and scheduled me with a neurologist. My job fired me so quickly I didn't have time to make the appointment while I had insurance and the rest of the year has been crap. That neurologist was a jackwagon, Medicaid took five months past two weeks to approve and then I had to wait two more months. I just don't want to stress out and stroke out and the sad part is I don't know how likely of a possibility that might be.

All I want is a sit-rep with my brain and everyone since February has actively hindered me. Tomorrow should bring clarity.

I slept till 5 pm today. My heads not doing the clicky thing it was doing every time I shut my eyes. "bugs" are still there but less. I had a conversation with H about subjective reality. So I got nothing done today. I'm trying to color every day but the past 2 days I haven't been doing well. mood wise I'm okay. It's not like it's bothering me or scaring me but I'm starting to think my injection is wearing off sooner then they should or it's just break through symptoms. This is not the time for this. I have my headphones on and keep checking my phone as it's "ringing" to me. My anxiety is high too.

In 2 weeks we're taking our older dog to the vet and for a tumor on her knee. We're bandaging it and everything but I'm worried that we wont be able to afford the treatment. That was the soonest appointment they had. So much stuff going wrong mixed with good things mixed in I don't know how to deal.

Intense dream woke me up before the sun. I had an appointment with my pdoc only it was my PCP who was acting as a pdoc. I ran though the sprinklers on my way to the appointment and was sitting there dripping denying that I was manic, just spontaneous! He told me I couldn’t work anymore that I was a danger to others. I got very upset saying that SSDI isn’t enough I need my job, it’s just an entry level job. So he relented and said if I took time off I could keep it. Then he had me sign papers to that effect but I couldn’t stop signing my name. I sat there denying I was manic and wanted to know why my denials weren’t working cause they work for T**** and he’s worse than manic he’s a criminal. Why won’t you listen?

Then I woke after 4 hours of sleep, too rev’d up to go back to sleep. Man, it bought back memories of being locked up!