Bipolar Check-in #75

I don't mean to interupt the conversation flow. I feel a little awkward in the way that I'm moving to this forum from the Neurotalk forum which is closing. I was a member there for 15 years. You can see my activity there because it's still there until july. My picture and over 5000 posts my friends and my elder status is there in the Bipolar forum on Neurotalk. Again I apologize for suddenly coming in like this. A friend told me that I should come to #75. I have issues with bipolar depression mixed with anxiety and panic attacks. I've been living with these disorders for many years. Hello everyone. My name is Steve. I'm going by the handle"Brokenfriend". That's the name that I used on the Neurotalk forum. BF (Hugs)

You’re not interrupting, just jump in. Welcome.

I am so glad to hear that you are on your way home. Good luck with the Prague Spring Festival!

I am filled with pain, both shoulders and upper arms + problems with my hips.

Its supposed to be my brother in laws day to watch my niece. But yesterday he asked my mom to watch her because he needed to get stuff for my nephews scout camping trip. My mom told me this yesterday and then said "so we'll have to get all your stuff done today." I kinda got annoyed that she'll just drop anything for my sisters family like they are more important. I did mention this so my mom said we could get things done and just bring the baby with us

I'm not trying to be a jerk but it seems like they always want my mom to watch the baby or go to a game or something. I also feel like my brother in law favors my nephews. Next school year my brother in law "won't be able" to watch my niece since she'll be more active and starting to walk around and it will interfere with his work.So she'll be going to day care 3 days instead of 2 and then our house twice. My mom claims it won't be an issue taking care of my niece when shes moving around, but my mom is 71 years old. And I don't know. I just don't think my brother in law gets things sometimes.

Woke up at 3 AM and couldn't go back to sleep....sigh. I did manage a 20 minutes beginner pilates video (mostly....I have doubts as to how "beginner" it really was and needed a couple short breaks) and a 20 minute walk. Dead tired though and I have to take my daughter to the library this afternoon because she volunteers there for the National Junior Honor Society (and I am also hoping these volunteer hours help with scholarships later on). Right now, she is only in 9th grade (though that's nearly over). She wants to have a relationship with the libriarians and aides there and a solid volunteer record by junior and senior years.

I feel you there. I have so much chronic pain it's not even funny. I know it is a tough thing to get through.

Thank you for caring! It was very cold outside yesterday and may be my body reacted to that. I went to bed with 1000 mg Paracetamol and still woke up with pain and tense muscles. The pain in the shoulders shall be there (I am told that it will take three months to heal), but when my arms and hips added to what I expected, it felt terrible.

I did my exercises for the shoulder and fond some new ones for my arms. I feel better now!

Tomorrow we will have a family-gathering. It is good to have the pain under control. Now it is possible for me to look forward to meeting people I haven't met since before Covid. I was so sad this morning because I thought I had to stay home because of the pain. I am grateful for everyone who has sent me a good wish for my bodily pain.

Well my sisters descended at 10 o’clock this morning though the garage sale doesn’t start until 5. There’s nothing that needs doing. My sister is going around changing the prices. I don’t know who she talked to but finally she understood that her prices were too low. But when I said that, nope I was wrong. But she swung a bit too far. Two days of this.

I'm SO worried about my daughter! She's been having almost constant suicidal thoughts and has been having intrusive thoughts about hurting people. Like last night she had intrusive thoughts about stabbing my husband. WHY is this happening to an eleven year old? She's only eleven!

This is my fault She inherited this from me, except I never had violent or suicidal thoughts when I was eleven. I just had bad anxiety. I can't stop crying.

Why do kids have to be little turds?! My poor daughter uses the bathroom in the school office because she gets bullied by the other girls in the regular restroom for "looking like a boy". She doesn't look like a boy!!!!! She's just a Tom boy. And the kids constantly harass her and tell her she's transgender when she's not.

Don't know. Had to vent.

Cold outside! LOL! Here it's hot! I live in Texas, and driving this afternoon, I could tell yeah, spring is pretty much over.

I have fibromyalgia, so I have pain to varying degrees most of the time. I am on gabapentin for it, but it only helps a little.

Well on 4 hours' sleep, I managed to drive my daughter to the library this afternoon for her volunteer work. Luckily, it's an easy drive.

Soupe I am so happy your going home ! Safe travels

Rosi I’m so sorry things are so tough right now. Pain is so destabilizing. Gentle hugs

Scooter that’s great it’s going well ! I always found group sessions helpful because Yes it helps remind us we aren’t alone.

Nammu I’m still made at your sisters for doing this nonsense while you still live in the home! Shame in them. How’s Sir ?

Raspberry.. that has to be terrifying with your daughter going through this ! What about IP for her? Her and you guys would be safer. Try not to beat yourself up ( I know easier said that done )

Jane glad your getting out

Rainbow ?? How are you doing ?

MM’s?? How’s things going ?

Wild ?? Just wanting to check in and see how your doing ? Is the school year over for you yet? Schools just ending here this week I think.

Blue ? How’s things? Still volunteering with the kitties ?

Sunflower reviews are scary . I’m sure things will be fine though. Hugs !

Hugs and love to anyone I missed it is not I on purpose.

~~~~~

Waiting on pre Auth for Stelara. My insurance company is never in a hurry to do anything helpful. I feel like a dog with mange having to scratch all the time

I’ve been working on a “Diamond art” It’s a pre printed canvas and you apply small shiny plastic bits to form a picture, the pieces are about the size of pencil lead. Well maybe a bit bigger. The one I have has 24 colors. The one I’m working on has about 19,000 pieces. Got it for 6.00 on the Temu ( love this site) I’m actually enjoying it. I literally have to slow my mind to do it. It’s enjoyable. Anyway a quick search on YouTube shows what it is. Maybe something a person might want to try?

It’s been pretty humid here this week so Steve’s having trouble catching his breath at times when he’s active.

I’ve been taking a walk every day. Something I’ve really been needing to do. I’m at about a mile a day. Sure it’s not a lot but with all this ongoing pain I think it’s pretty good. Going a bit further each day. Gus is enjoying the walks.

I could be doing a lot worse with the pain and all but I’m forcing myself to follow a schedule daily the best I can.

Steve is pulling the last of the truck engine this weekend. We were able to finally get the last parts we needed. Rebuilding the engine will take sometime of course it’s a big job then put all 1047 parts back together and hope there’s nothing left over LOL. It will be glorious getting it back on the road after over a year.

I’m rambling… sorry

I hope everyone has a wonderful pleasant weekend.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sorry to hear about this, especially for being mocked. Is there some form of school service (Psychologist or other) that can help?) . Understand that you had to went, but may be it's time to take her to someone who has specialized in those kind of problems because kids don't stop to mock.

When I was a kid I became bullied because I was new in class. It took me many years to come over it. My parents wanted to talk to the school, but respected my no. May be they shouldn't. It is difficult to be a parent. I hope you find some sort of solution that is good for your daughter. Take your time.

(Hope you don't see this as intruding. It is meant as support).

@~Christina;7333783


Thank you for support! I use schedules as well. Without schedules my motivation falls away.

Wish you all the best for your walks!

@Blueberrybook Sorry to hear about your fibromyalgia! I have a "bad back" so I know a lot about pain. But a "bad back" one can learn to live with (exercises and so on). Fibromyalgia you have to live with when it comes. Somtimes it knocks you out. A friend of mine has it, so I know a little bit about it.

Wish you well!

I'm back in Czech Republic. I'll be happy to get back to a routine and be further away from stress and conflict.

@~Christina

Thank you for checking in with me! I truly appreciate it. My school year does not end until June 21. But this week was the last full week of school. Yesterday was full of unnecessary screaming and crying. One of the nonverbal boys literally screams at the top of his lungs when a demand is put on him. He had to sit for music yesterday and spent a good half hour screaming in my ear. Another nonverbal girl attempted to bite and scratch when she had to sit. I could use a break! Next week we only have three days because we didn’t use any snow days this year so they’re giving us days back. So at least there’s that.

My treatments are going well. I wish I didn’t have to do them because I hate the actual treatments. Well, I just hate being put to sleep. I’m scared of anesthesia so it’s a panic attack. But it’s the only thing that helps so oh well.

Today I am participating in the NAMI walk for my county. Unfortunately it is supposed to rain :-/ the one day in weeks that it’s rained and it has to be today. I have to steal CR’s umbrella.

I remembered my melatonin last night so I slept well for the first time in 2 nights. I woke up at 12:30 to use the bathroom and I was dealing with urinary retention but I was so tired at the same time, I almost fell off the pot so I had to give up and get back to bed where I fell back asleep instantly. I slept until 2:45 and I took my AM meds and I ate some cheese and a Dole Whip. Then I got back to sleep until 7:45. Thanks to the melatonin.

Today I feel decent. My stomach still hurts and I'm kinda nauseated. The same stuff as normal. I'm not as bloated though so I look better than yesterday. My niece was only over for a couple of hours in the afternoon yesterday. So I got stuff done in the morning. I don't have any plans for today. I kinda want to watch The Brady Bunch movie.

I'm tired today and binge watching TV in bed and lying on my side. kinda unusual for me. Normally I'm sitting up and on my phone with CNN on. Idk. I feel fine mental health wise. Maybe the melatonin is getting to me after skipping it 2 nights

Now everytime I get up I keep losing my balance and I am stumbling like I am totally wasted. Idk what that means.

You're not intruding. Don't worry.

She has a therapy appointment on Monday, so hopefully her therapist will be able to help her work through her intrusive thoughts about hurting people and her suicidal thoughts. We already talked to the principal about her bathroom situation (because we had to take her to urgent care because we thought she had a UTI from holding it in all day), but the only thing the principal offered was that she use the office bathroom. Soph doesn't want to talk to the school counselor. She doesn't even like talking to her therapist.

I fear she's depressed . We thought this was all just anxiety, but with the constant suicidal thoughts I'm starting to think depression as well. I'll talk to my husband about it and see what he says. Soph DOES NOT like talking about it!

~Christina - We don't want to put her IP because she's never been away from home like that and we fear it would traumatized her

@raspberrytorte, I learned a technique for dealing with a crisis situation:

Put your daughter's face in cold water, or use a Ziploc bag full of cold water and hold it over her eyes and cheeks. After 15-30 secs this invokes the body's dive response that causes the heart to slow down and blood flow is redirected to the brain.

This is a distress tolerance strategy that I learned when having very strong, distressing emotions or when having very strong urges to engage in dangerous behaviors.

Talk with your daughter about the consequences of her decisions, are they making things worse?

Use a skill called STOP...

S - Don't react. Stop! Freeze! Your emotions may try to make you act without thinking.

T - take a step back from the situation. Take a deep breath.

O - observe. Notice what's going on inside and outside.

P - proceed mindfully. Act with awareness, consider thoughts and feelings and other people's thoughts and feelings. Which actions will make it better or worse?

These are crisis management techniques that can help lower the level of crisis from a 10/10 to maybe a 7/10 which can make a big difference in the moment.

I bit the bullet and went to the local Strawberry Festival with my family. It's the first time I've felt like doing something with them in over a year. I usually avoid this festival as it's pretty much crowded and overpriced, but I managed not to be a crab even though we got rained on (without umbrellas) during the long walk back to the car as we left. My husband said it was a nice experience. Maybe the Vraylar the doctor started me on for extreme depression is starting to help? The jury's still out on that one.

My pdoc tells me that I might start vraylar soon too. I hope it works for you!

I dragged myself to my drop-in's arts and crafts afternoon in the rain. It didn't work out as it was very disappointing and i left early. I made a special effort to get out as Monday is a holiday and i didn't want to go four days without any activity. Que sera, sera, i guess.

Thank you for the advice!