Bipolar Check-In #76

Thank you soupe de jour. I am currently glued to Fox Weather right now. Idalia will be coming by Tampa Bay in a few hours. I can hear some of the effects starting. I should be ok weathering in place here. The track went north today. I was so relieved not to go. I don't like driving aimlessly with two cats looking for a hotel...

Hi everyone! Today has been one of those rare, magical times when time is actually moving slow enough for me to get everything done that I need to. This weekend, my boyfriend and I started the process of having deeper conversations because of how long we've been dating. He tried to avoid it, but then seemed to open up. He continues to say my Bipolar diagnosis is a significant concern for him, especially since he hasn't seen the symptoms in me (I am lucky enough to be able to hide them, no matter how bad they are, to the point where people would never guess I've been diagnosed with this). If I do let loose, it's when alone but, as he pointed out, there is less alone time when married. I know we will continue to talk about this, but also realize we both need to accept that we will just need to go with the flow when it comes to working together to manage/cope with my symptoms if we end up getting married. I hate that, if we get married, this burden of mine becomes his too (and, if we have kids, theirs as well)...

The school year continues to go well-the student's personalities are really starting to come out now that we are starting to get into the swing of things so that is fun to watch.

Grad school continues to keep me on my toes-and will until I graduate. oh well.

I'm sorry I am able to directly to respond to anyone's post, but I have been following along with everyone's updates. May you all receive what you need. Have a good day!

My first day of work is tonight!! 4pm to 9pm for orientation. Nervous but excited too

Congratulations Blue Bird 🐦

My teacher confirmed that I’m with her again! Thank goodness, now I can stop worrying. I know most of the students too so I can prepare properly.

I couldn’t sleep again last night and I woke up at 4am out of a nightmare and couldn’t fall back asleep. Eventually I fell asleep around 7:30am. I have no idea what my problem is. I don’t feel revved up so I’m not concerned about mania. I think it’s just from inactivity during the day. I’m still exercising but I’m not out and about.

It’s 75 and sunny here-perfect weather! I needed
This.

My 9 year old nephew now has hand foot and mouth. So now he was over today while the 7 year old was ok to go to school and my niece went to daycare today. As normal I had no say in any of this so we had to bring my nephew to my doctors appointment and he was wearing Darth Vader pajamas and carrying a bucket in case he puked. I'm glad they let us in. He sat in the waiting room playing on his nintendo.

Anyways, the doctor wants me to start pelvic floor therapy, get the GI test done and do some other stuff. Then I'll see her again in a month and we will talk about doing a kinda pain shot. She gave me a refferal to PT and sent in some med with super bad side effects including weight gain and breast enlargements. No way. The nurse used the small blood pressure cuff because I have weenie arms.

I came home and slept all morning and early afternoon. I don't feel good so I just won't eat tonight to avoid an episode like last night.

Had my pdoc appointment today. I told him I haven't been taking my trazodone and he had no choice but to take me off it. Next I'm going to stop taking my prazosin and Lamictal. I'm on too many damn meds!!!!

@raspberytorte; I sympathize on all the meds you are on. I do feel much more stable on less.

Today was a good day. Started with a great nights sleep and easy morn’n. I did get out today and went to the senior center. I didn’t feel like it but I pushed myself to go. Had a chicken salad sandwich and later during the break from 500 a poke cake. Then when I got home my third of the house sell money was waiting for me.

This is it. Mum is gone. Oddly I don’t feel any different but it is final. My sister wants me to buy a new car. But I’m fine with the one I have. It would be nice to have a backup camera. And a parallel parking feature. But I do fine.

My pdoc answered some questions I had about the timing for my next clozaril lab. She answered and then said that we'd probably have to lower it again but that we would make adjustments gently. Which is good. I don't want to be pulled off it fast. But now I'm scared I'm going to have to come off it completely. She hasn't said that (I did send a message asking that she's not answered yet) but it can only go so low. I guess with my levels as high as they are maybe it works properly for me at a much lower dose than I'm on. But I'm very anxious about this. I wish I knew what was going to happen but of course there's no way to know. I assume we lower the dose until I'm in the normal range and we'll know more about how the level comes down with a decreased dose when the next level is drawn. I just want it to be fine now. I think I know when it started to go up because there's a point a lot of weird stuff started happening close together. If I'm right lowering it may make me feel better than I have in a long time. We'll see. I wish this lab had been an option for longer so we knew what my level had done over time like lithium or depakote.

Oh well. Time will tell.

Work went well. Got my badge. 4 hours of sitting in the training room watching training videos and taking quizzes the entire time. Then one hour one the sales floor returning clothing from the fitting room returns to the proper places.

I have another night shift tomorrow (5pm to 11:30pm).

The manager is really nice

The break room is cool. Has a keurig, a fridge, a microwave , and has ramen, and ice cream in the fridge lol

I get two 15 minute breaks as far as I know

Manager took my picture and posted on the companys social media app welcoming me

Tomorrows gonna be hard because it’s a full day of being on the sales floor. I’m probably going to be starting on cash registers. There was a lot of information overload in my brain, like so much to learn and remember. But I think I’ll get the hang of it after awhile

Congratulations on a good first day! Glad you got the computer training done with. That's never fun.

@Soupe du jour

Thank you for your kind words Soupe!

I've been slightly better after stopping nicotine. Will have a 4 day weekend, will try not to drink - try to be productive. Something I can build on.. something more than temperary.

Hello, checking in: I have had a good time for some weeks. I motivated myself to read a book about depression and as they say in the CBT approach: To learn something new, is activating the brain and is helping. It really helped me. I felt proud over doing it.

So it happened one day not long ago, that a Christian person started to talk to me about judgment day, as if the person meant that I had to prepare better. It must be more than 40 years ago since I have heard such talk. I do believe in God and try to live as a Christian every day. I don't think that minor faults will keep one out of Heaven. But still I felt that the words said to me, put me out of balance.

I am moving to another apartment in another neighborhood. I am too slow with the packing. I am sad and it is difficult to concentrate. I am so sad that this should happen now when I have so much to do.

I think that when something happens that we are not prepared for, it is difficult to use our tools. I hope to bring the most important of my "things" into my new apartment and to restart reading the book and restart using my CBT tools.

Well, my first prazosin and seroquel free night went well. Had a nice, cozy night of sleep. I knew I didn't need that ****!!!!

@raspberrytorte Great to hear that the first night went well!

Thanks, rosi! That's very nice of you. I'm going to call my pdoc and tell him I'm not taking my prazosin anymore.

Saw my pdoc today. He’s concerned and wants to see me in a month. I think he feels a bit helpless since I cannot take any antidepressants of any kind. I told him it’s really about me needing to push myself right now to do things no matter how I feel. It’s a matter of cognitive thinking. He put me on gabapentin as needed. Now when I wake up I I take that to get back to sleep. If it doesn’t work I can stop taking it. He encouraged me to sign up for the art classes since I feel obligated to go. You have to pay when you sign up. So even if I don’t “feel” like going I go because there’s no refunds.

Praise
The heavens I get paid tomorrow. I
Drove here to work on gas fumes and $0 til
Tomorrow morning. I’m
Feeling pretty stressed

I saw my primary today. It went well. He told me to restart my vitamin D. I told him how tired I have been. He said my levels were low and my tiredness was caused by that. He wants me to start metmucil daily for various things and agrees with me, and not my therapist that I need to lose weight. I did lose a couple pounds since my appointment earlier this month.

He said to just hold off with the pain and nausea stuff until I have my scan next week. He is thinking there may be some stuff from my hystrectomy leftover inside. Or something like that.

Anyways it was a good and validating appointment. Even though my niece was here today and had to be taken out of the room.

For people who do not believe in the afterlife, it would have no meaning is somebody suggests that you can lose your place in heaven ...

For me who believe in God it is a catastrophe. I have done so many of the things that the person meant is sinful (even before I was old enough to remember) that if this was the truth, there would be no hope for me.

I talked to a friend and together we saw that this was nonsense. This was about a person who was very finicky. It was not about me.

I need to reflect about it because it sat me out of balance. I am not a person who usually am afraid of God. Now I have blamed myself because I have become depressed and forgot all about my CBT tools. I have started to understand that this was nothing I could have foreseen and built a proper defense against.

It is good to see that what happened was not among normal triggers. Now that I see that, it is more easy to forgive myself and go on with my life in a slow tact. To move is always draining.

Sorry for ranting, but this knocked me out for a while.

By the way, I respect that people have whatever religion they want to have or if they don't want to have a religion at all. If we are to live well in this world with so much differences between people, we need to respect each other and the choices each one has decided for themself with regard to a higher power (or no higher power)!

so I have covid.Which created problems for me at work. Being self employed with 20 clients that I see every week, and I already have a waiting list.So the 20 clients get put on to a wait list prior to the list already waiting. If that makes any sense.
I feel better taking the anti viral meds. They are supposed to help you shorten the length of time of the virus is affecting me.
I have brain fog, spontaneous coughing fits. Post nasal took an allegra 24 hour. and that seems to help some. I got up at 1pm so I needed my sleep. slept in the spare bed room hubby doesn't want to get reinfected, I swear he had it before I did he had all of the symptoms but waited too long to get tested it was past the window of being infected. He tested 2 times once at home and once at the minute med clinic.negative so he feels that he just had a sinus infection. and so did they and gave him antibiotics. He continues to have some symptoms.
I just used a nasal device to rinse out my sinuses. But hate that. have been drinking coffee and hot tea for my dry throat. so I am just ranting about being sick.
hope you are all well.
bizi

Feeling relaxed and calm as i usually do in the evening. At the mall a man joined me on a bench and tried to talk to me. He said he's seen me there before and i have a nice smile. But he seemed kind of shabby so i didn't encourage him.

The daytime sucked as per usual. I spent most of it in bed.

My dog continues to do well.

The weather is chilly for the moment which suits me fine. It went down to 9 C (less than 50 F) last night. Yay for single digits! We've got a heat wave coming tho. Ack!