Bipolar Check-in #80

Great job reaching your goal @Rosi700 Its hard to motivate oneself to exercise. I’ve been working on that too. Making myself take walks and get on the treadmill. It’s really good for physical and mental health though

I love that more people are posting, but what happened to @raspberrytorte@ ?

I hope she didn't think that my telling her she was posting TMI on her hypersexuality didn't scare her away. It just was something if it were me, I'd probably think that was private between her and her H?? I'm starting to think she took my post too harsh. I REALLY didnt mean it that way, and now I feel very bad and guilty. I shouldn't have posted that. I think when I did, I was already hypomanic. And I mean I post TMI stuff too, like about my period and such. I feel I am guilty of TMI posts and shouldn't have told raspberry anything about it and moved on.

OMG, I feel so bad. I'm such a hypocrite.

Took a walk and picked up my meds from the pharmacy including the vitamin D prescription my psychiatrist prescribed. So I will be taking the vitamin D once a week.

It’s hot out. Like extremely hot out. I’m ready for the autumn.

I slept good. I slept way too late because I had planned to have a very early productive day today but I ended up sleeping till like 11am now my schedule is all thrown off. It’s okay though. I needed the sleep.

My mood is good. I’m glad I didn’t pull an all nighter last night. I do those occasionally and I always end up regretting them the next day. Sleep is very important despite how fun it can be sometimes to go to without it and be super productive. It’s not really worth it.

Gonna practice violin later today. Other than that not much going on. Will probably watch some shows/movies, play games, read books. I might see if I can push myself to do some painting today. I paint miniatures that come with tabletop RPG boardgames. I’m not good at it by any means cause I’m fairly inexperienced with it and it takes skill to be good at it which I haven’t had enough practice yet but it is a VERY relaxing mindful activity. You really have to be focused when doing it because the figures are so small and the details so tiny. It’s very relaxing to do it while having a show, or YouTube, or podcast or music on in the background on my phone on my Bluetooth headphones. It’s like the ultimate way to relax for me, you end up really focused and immersed. I don’t do it often enough. I’m gonna try to start making time for it again though more regularly. I’m pretty bad at it but maybe with practice I’ll get better.

I saw my doctor and I've got pneumonia! Confirming via x-ray but I've got 6 days of antibiotics.

My mother is stable. Still undergoing tests, no results yet but they are treating her. Her heart rate is much better and her overall swelling is reducing.

Thanks for your well wishes! Much appreciated!

listening to david crowder at work and wishing i could be at home hiding in bed. life is very loud.

Don't be too harsh on yourself for mentioning some of her posts lately were a bit too revealing. They made you uncomfortable and stuck up for yourself. There's a good chance she's going to come down and realize it was getting a bit excessive. I'm guilty of TMI posts (some incredibly triggering) myself, and if it gets too much I'd appreciate someone (as kindly as possible) telling me to chill with that stuff myself.

The both of you are flying high right now too, so I understand her posting excessively about the hypersexuality when it's clearly her most severe symptom, but I commend you for pointing out it was a bit much. I do feel like you went on a little too much though in trying to set that boundary (it was a less than brief post). There's have a "have to share this!" quality in a lot of thoughts, increasingly more so I've noticed (regardless of mental health status...I blame twitter).

I've been working on journaling more (want to every day, but I slack a bit) and getting the thoughts "I have to share" out that way, and when I actually do it, I think my posts are a tad more controlled. Maybe we all could work on finding an outlet like that, and come here for the site's purpose to support each other.

I'm not trying to bash or insult anyone, especially considering I'm confessing to very similar posts. I guess this post is just saying we do shyt when we have that combo of racing thoughts, poor decision making skills, and impulsivity, and it's good to practice continually finding better ways to cope with that. The great thing about this site is spending some time writing here instead of emptying our bank account on all of Ernest Hemingway's literature like I said earlier, the great thing is we can usually understand each other and always empathize with one another.

I'm sorry all my posts lately have been extremely long winded. I swear I edited this one down

And please come back and let us know you're okay @raspberrytorte!

Thank you @Rosi700

The colonoscopy went fine. Everything came back fine. My doctor said my issue is the ulcers that are causing the vomiting and the nausea. He is still waiting on the biopsies and told me to keep up with the prilosec until then.

I had a pretty easy time with the sedation. I woke up as soon as I got back to my room. I wasn't hungry. Just thirsty. I still haven't eaten. I'm home and in bed and just groggy and cold.

The doctor commented on how far they were able to get. They even got to parts of my appendix. Lol. I guess the prep worked pretty well.

I always get uncomfortable when techs start putting those sticky EKG things on my chest because then they see my top scars and find out. But I haven't had an issue any place.

I almost just mixed up my meds and took an extra Prestiq instead of my lamictal. I caught it in time.

I just threw up and I can't eat anything. Idk if these ulcers are a bigger issue then I thought or if its a reaction to the sedation.

Also the chapel or whatever his title is came into my room and asked if I needed a prayer. I politely told him I was fine. My mom and I laughed when he was gone.

I'm coming down, just hypo now, but my daughter STILL won't give back my car keys

Dizziness is improving. THANK GOD!

OMG! I'm FINALLY getting a sex drive back! It's been over a year since I had one. Fingers crossed this is not a part of hypomania that will go away once I'm stable. It's not that sex has been bad. It still was good, but if I went without it, it was no biggie to me.

@MuddyBoots

Thank you for your kind words. As you point out we are both flying high right now, and I know I was excessive in my post to @raspberrytorte

I am happy to hear you are journaling. I've tried it before but never could commit. Do you journal just whatever's on your mind each day or do you have a prompt that you use to get the idea to start each entry? Maybe I should try journalling with prompts. They must have that free online somewhere? I do love writing. Or I used to. I just don't seem to have any ideas I feel are good enough to write about. I thought about writing a comedic texting story (with a disclaimer in the front stating bipolar and mental illnesses are serious health concerns not to be taken lightly...blah...blah...if you can't laugh about it sometimes, you just cry about it all the time.... and call it something like Texing with my Bipolar Mother (or daughter): a Comedy. But then I thought too many people would get offended and take it the wrong way and I'd be hearing about it ad infinitum. So I haven't done it.

One of my big symptoms of hypomania is pressured writing. I feel so sorry for all of you here having to read my treatises!

Yes, @raspberrytorte I am worried about you too, just like Muddy! Please, please, please let us know you are OK!! We are all concerned that you are not postingEven if you could manage to PM one person in the bipolar forum and let them know you're okay so they can tell us you're doing fine. Everyone here is concerned. We love you

My PCP appointment went exactly like I wanted it to. She can't give an official diagnosis (a neurologist has to) but she is calling my physical illness POTS for now. This is all insurance pending, but she sent in a referral for a second opinion with a different neurologist and sent in a referral for IV fluids once a week. Fingers crossed these both are approved!

I wonder how much the fluids cost.

She also wrote me a doctor's note saying I can't perform a pretty big task I am usually in charge of planning/running at school. My boss had said I didn't need to do it this year, but he hasn't told me who would replace me, so I wanted this as a friendly reminder to him that I can't do it. Like many people, he doesn't want to hear/accept that I am sicker than I look and that this is a life long thing so this doctor's note will hopefully also help with this issue. Thankfully, my coworkers completely believe me and have been SUPER supportive.

I've added zinc to my daily regimen to try and get rid of these cold symptoms.

@Blue_Bird thanks for sharing the cat pictures-they're adorable!

Yeah I stayed up till 6:40am this morning after pulling an all-nighter. So yeah, that's a thing now. I am not mad about it per se, only annoyed that I couldn't get up early enough to get some work done this morning. I don't know if what I am doing is caused by some kind of hypomania, but I managing pretty well.

Accomplished a lot today. Worked on my itinerary for GalaxyCon in two weeks, stupid William Shatner is not showing up for the PhotoOP till 6:30pm lol, I guess he's still a premadonna lol. I guess I will walk around all day - I am going to get there early to see Wil Wheaton speak at 11am. Also planning to go to a music festival in two weeks as well with my good friend, so that should be fun.

Just all in all, I am enjoying my time being independent and living alone. I have a lot of people in my life I can count on, and just really grateful for everything I have. The power will be out for three hours tomorrow morning for maintenance, so that should be extremely fun in all this heat, ugh. I am going to the gym in the morning to kill the time and since my probation meeting has been changed it should be interesting to figure out to do with all that time tomorrow morning and pray my power comes back on time.

Hope everybody is doing well, I am glad to see every posting - hope @raspberrytorte comes back soon! Love you guys

@Blueberrybook, I have a few different methods of journaling. Personally, I don't really do the type of prompts you see when you look them up online, but I practice some DBT stuff which is a lot easier with a pen and paper when I am focused on that one thing and can physically see it written down. Stuff like chain-analyses, looking at things from wise mind instead of emotion mind, the pros and cons chart information just not in a chart (especially when I feel myself heading towards a relapse). That's really all I've learned so far (well, some distress tolerance and mindfulness stuff, but that's not really material for journaling). If you want me to explain any of this in more depth, I'd be happy to!

Sometimes I'm just pissed or scared or despondent or craving and rant about that though. Can make things worse if you dig further down that hole though (I've had to stop writing about the craving bits because if my timing isn't perfect I'd just end up glamorizing getting wasted).

I also have a separate notebook for my "ingenious ideas" that are sometimes even realistic

I'm home, tucked into my own comfortable bed, meds are inside me and my cat is purring by my head. All chickens survived my care and my sister was pleased with how things went. That's about as good as can be hoped for.

I am so tired and hope I can get to sleep really early since I have therapy tomorrow and my nieces are coming up so I'll be gone all day.

So, so glad to be here where I belong instead of chasing chickens around a pen feeling mean.

Hello everyone! Sorry I've been MIA. I said I wasn't going to post anymore and I don't like going back on my word but @Blueberrybook you don't have to feel bad or guilty or anything at all! Don't worry. We're cool. 😊

Today has been absolutely DIVINE. Everything tastes good, is beautiful and I'm excited because I convinced Husband to take me to see KMFDM in Milwaukee in October. I got all angry. I was all like, "We're going to TWO concerts you like, and you wouldn't even drive me three hours to Chicago to see Sleep Token driving me to the point where my mania brain was willing to fly ALL THE WAY TO EUROPE to see them and empty out my retirement fund!!!!!"

Lol. Anyway, I thought I was censoring my hypersexual posts. I could have been MUCH MUCH more raunchy and graphic. I never once said sex, sucking ****, etc. This is the strangest hypomanic episode I've ever had. I've never had one quite like it. All I can think about are things that are too tmi to mention anymore and Sleep Token. I spent ALL DAY yesterday listening to all their albums straight through and following along with the lyrics to the songs and typing out the lyrics that touched me the most. Apparently I talk about Sleep Token all the time. This morning I was like, "I DO NOT talk about Sleep Token all the time!" and Husband and Daughter just looked at each other and laughed and were like, "Um, yes you do." And then they spent a good half hour making fun of the band and Vessel and saying I probably wanted a full body Vessel pillow, etc. Lol. Husband and Daughter are funny. 😁

I'm also excited because Saturday night Husband and I are going to a concert downtown and having a date night. It's going to be a night of LOVE. The other day (after a love encounter.... sorry) he said, "What, are we 20 again?!" Haha.

Daughter and I are getting matching bi pride shirts with the bi flag colors that say "can't think straight". Hahaha. I know pride month is over and we're just a little late to the party, but oh well. It's pride month year round around here.

I'm ALSO excited (sorry. I'm kind of excited right now 😊 ) because on Wednesday I get "paid" (aka get my SSDI check) and I'm getting Sleep Token merch. Also plan on getting a Sleep Token tattoo. Haven't decided the design yet, but I want the lyrics: the night belongs to you.

I've also been saying things today that haven't been coming out right. Like in the morning I told Husband and Daughter, "I don't love you more than Sleep Token." And at the park tonight I said, "He's still hot. I don't give a **** if he beats women." Obviously those things were NOT what I meant to say! Lol.

What else?

Oh, and I'm weaning myself off seroquel. I cut my dose in half (from 400mg to 200mg). It makes me so fat and thirsty!!!! I've been gaining, on average, five pounds every six weeks. At this rate I'll be in one of those scooters fat people ride by around this time next year. Ugh. I'm going to ask Dr. A at my first appointment with her if I can try latuda. I think I'm just going to have to because this weight gain is starting to scare me!!!!

Think that's all.

I'll shut up now. 😊

Looking forward to a nice night with Husband after Daughter goes to bed and some love. ❤️

Everyone have a nice night! Keep cool! Love you all. ❤️

It's noisy here. My head is spinning. I can't concentrate. Anxiety is off the charts. I can't wait to go home but I feel bad. I want to see everyone. I want to do stuff with them but I'm stuck in this hell of anxiety. I have to train with the dog but it's hard. I decided I will not take the art classes. It doesn't start until September but I can't concentrate, my head is a mess. I have to just understand I can't take on strenuous things even if I've waited years for the opportunity.

grnany is in the hospital. she was going up the stairs outside my sisters house and began to fall. we had hold of her and gently laid her down so she wouldnt fall but she ended up with a horrible skin tear. i called EMS and they admitted her. i jsut got home.

I ate some cottage cheese and pretzel chips for dinner. I only ate 980 calories all day but it was legit calories and my protein was pretty good. I fell asleep at 5:17. I feel pretty good right now. No pain or cramps or nausea. Or depression from the procedure.

I'm glad you're feeling good, MD, also happy that your colonoscopy went well!

Sometimes it's not the amount of calories but their quality that matters and it's good that you got protein!

I had a semi-rough night last night - very unsettled sleep with strange dreams.

Still having pain on my left side from the pneumonia but that should go away soon. I'm visiting my mother in the evening today along with my wife.

Depression and anxiety remain unchanged.