Bipolar Check-in #80

There's actually more animals...there's a cat and another aquatic thing. In years past this group has got a lot of laughs out of the things the cat has killed and left for me every night I've been here; this year they put a bell on the little murderess and all she's killed was a chipmunk. Thank God.


There are 11 chickens. 1 chick in a separate pen (4 others were lost earlier in the week before I came) and 10 in a big coop (1 lost earlier in the week before I came----see where the anxiety comes from?). I am not fond of birds in general. We have chickens at home and I'm fine with them; they are more pets than anything and come to be petted. Most of these are fine. There is one I've developed a hatred for because she picks on the young 2. The young 2 are then frightened of everything so to get them into the night pen I have to cover them with a towel which makes them immediately relax until they can see again. They aren't particularly fond of being covered by a towel but hopefully tonight will be like last night when they just did it. I'm hoping they are getting used to it and will not fun from me tonight. I feel so mean chasing scared birds around but they have to go in or there will be more deaths. And there will be no deaths on my watch. (Again, see where the anxiety arises?)

Roosters are mean. The past few years they've had roosters that they had to have culled because they were mean. Sometimes you are told you're getting a hen and wind up with a rooster. This year either they only got hens or it is too soon to tell.


The eggs are laid in a box thing and as long as nobody is in there it's very easy to grab eggs. If someone is occupying the box I just leave and come back later.


there's a novel about chickens......I need to vacuum the kitchen before it is chicken fighting time. Then I will just have to shower, pack everything possible so I can leave as soon as my meds wear off in the morning, and sweep the bathroom floor. Tomorrow I have to load my cooler, finish packing toiletries and stuff and load my car and then I can head home. I can't wait to see my AbbyCat.

@Scooter9 - Sorry so much is going on with your mom on top of the congestive heart failure. Hospitals and the prime breeding ground for all sorts of germs and it is much easier to catch pneumonia at hospitals than most other places. I hope you feel better soon! You have enough on your plate without being sick too.

@LadyShadow - I'm glad you are embracing your independence and feeling less codependent.

@raspberrytorte - How are you doing?

Physically, I feel about to keel over so sorry if I missed anyone I'm very forgetful right now. Going to try taking my night meds now and wait and see if they work, which can be an 1, 1.5 hr. or so depending.I really need rest. But my brain is still wired. I have a Spotify playlist of calming music I will try that tonight and see if it helps. Music did help me fall asleep last night but then my cat jumped on me at like 2 AM and I was awake from there.

Ok so I drank all 13 glasses and all I have are super bad stomach cramps and my stomach is huge.

Get ready!

I am doing as best as I can. I was diagnosed with BPD a month ago. I was told that I still have bipolar but it's NOS. There really isn't an active BPD group on this site. So, I turned to Facebook for a group. I don't come on here too much anymore. Just enough to see what everyone has been up to. I don't post much as you can see by my posting number. I've found this site helpful in the past. But I need one that focuses more on BPD than Bipolar now. So, I wish everyone well. I'll still check in from time to time.

Anxiety is really bad. I had V check on H because I was convinced he passed away. My parents play the news all day which doesn't help. My mom's getting upset I'm not doing more training with Artemis but I can't walk as much as much as she thinks I should. I have issues moving and talking I'm trying to take up as little space as possible. I'm trying not to check out but it's hard. They are going to a club tonight.

Thanks @Blueberrybook! I have been sick for 8 days now, so pneumonia wouldn't surprise me. I'll know more tomorrow. If it is pneumonia, I hope it's over soon. It's painful to cough!

The last night of chasing chickens and locking them up is over. Tonight was the 2nd hardest. The first night I was trying to figure out how to get the young ones when 2 adults escaped and I had to chase them around for half an hour before I was able to even begin to get the young ones. Tonight the bullies were really bad and the little ones were frantic so ran to an area I can't reach. I finally had to scare them out of there by making noise. That made me feel awful because they are already so scared. But it is done now and I have a while to think about if this is a good idea for next year. The money is great but the stress this year has been awful. However the stress was situational and so won't repeat next year barring something so statistically unlikely that it might as well not be considered. I'm not sure they'll even want me again after the stress although I've done this for them for years.

I have to find something to eat and take my meds. That's another thing that's off; I always take my meds at the exact same time and haven't been able to while doing this. But the whole week I've not been hungry at all. I've been living on blueberries and cereal. I think that's mainly because it's been extremely hot (adding also to the stress; my meds make me heat sensitive and I've had to go outside at least some on these 95 degree days which I wouldn't do normally.

But the good thing is I've not had time to worry about my therapist being out for surgery! There's always something good I guess, if you look hard enough. Even when it's a stretch...

Yep. Almost done with a whole roll of toilet paper. Its starting to get clear at least. I was worried it wasn't going to work or that I'd throw up the prep stuff.

My poor aunt did the prep and then threw it up and had to do it all over. I'm glad it is going well for you. If it's getting clear already that's great. I didn't get to 100% clear so the results up the upper colon weren't clear. But because of my MAOI they made me drink the entire bottle of prep at once instead of in 2 periods of time and I guess that's harder to get a clear prep. I'm just glad that with cologuard unless I have a problem I don't have to do another one. It wasn't so awful but definitely not fun.

Glad it is going well for you.

I woke up with what I'm pretty sure are early cold symptoms. This explains why my vertigo exercises have been making me dizzier than normal the past few days. This makes me nervous because I am scheduled to get on a plane later in the week and be gone for several days. Maybe, I'll be lucky and it's just my allergies acting weird. But, I don't think so.

I didn't feel to bad, but still chose to lay low today since I do seem to be getting sick.

I see my pcp tomorrow and plan on asking her about getting IV fluids on a regular basis. This morning, it was a lot harder to get out of bed, which makes me think the positive effects of the one I had Tuesday are waring off. That and/or it's because I'm getting sick.

Mood has been stable though! It's early but, so far, deciding to use birth control meds to manage my mood seems to be having a positive effect.

Chicken stress is doing me in. There's a latch on the coop that I have had to start taking pictures of because I kept freaking out that I wasn't shutting it and having to go back to the coop (1/4 mile away) to check. Of course it was always fine.

Now I'm laying here obsessing that I didn't block off the door with cement blocks. 99% sure I did and I am not going to go check at this time of night. Besides even if something got in there now the chickens are safely shut in their box and the bottom of the door has some extra support, plus the top has a secure closure. But I soooo want to go check. (My OCD is playing with me). But this may require a PRN.


Cats are so much easier than chickens...

I had a good volunteer shift with the rescue cats today. They’re all so sweet. I’m just waiting for my night meds to kick in so I can go to sleep. Idk I’m kind of tempted to pull an all nighter.

I had a good day. Spent time with my boyfriend. I’m looking forward to Tuesday because I have a violin lesson that day.

Printed out some DBT workbook worksheets.

I really want some oreos right now. That sounds really good right now. I got the mega stuffed ones awhile back, they were so good. I’ve been craving chocolate a lot lately. Oreos, Nutella etc What I’ve been eating though is frozen grapes when I want something sweet. I like them frozen better than regular. They’re really good that way. I just buy a bag of grapes and put the entire thing in the freezer and take some out whenever I want some. But I am gonna get some Oreos this week cause it’s all about balance

I made some pasta yesterday. It actually came out good. It was just ziti with jar sauce, ground turkey and a lot of melted mozzarella on it. Pretty happy with how it came out. I wasn’t sure how the ground turkey would be in it but it was good together. Kind of like a deconstructed lasagna.

Ok so I had to wake up at 4 and drink the last 5 glasses. Now its yellow and mostly clear. I'm kinda worried about going during the endoscopy and waking up wearing a diaper or something.

But it went ok. Better then I was expecting. I got a few hours of sleep. Not much but some.

@Mountaindewed
What time is your endoscopy? It will be OK. I had an endoscopy a few years ago. Honestly, the worst part of it was the prep and drinking the stuff. I woke up a little out of it but came around pretty fast, and I was starving from being on the liquid diet and having no solid food and just water to drink IDK was it after 12 AM till time before the endoscopy? I remember afterwards, H drove me straight to a nearby Mexican restaurant and got me a huge plate of Mexican food at the drive-thru. By the time I was home, I felt pretty normal again. H had an endoscopy around a year ago. His prep was different from mine he had to take I gues some sort of prescription laxative and down a lot of water within a given time period, not drink the stuff likd me. His prep was a lot worse than mine for some reason. He was having dry heaves (don't remember if he threw up but maybe some) along with diarrhea. The rest of his endoscopy went OK. He woke up groggier than I did and mumbled in the car before he had some real food. Afterwards, I drove him straight to McDonalds (H ate a ton of food for him, he's always been a moderate eater). He was a little tired from everything (mostly his prep I mean) but got back to normal quickly though I remember he took a couple days off of work.

I am starting to come down, maybe already? SHYYT! H and my daughter found a ton of mistakes in my med boxes (one for morning, one for night) and he thinks it was a med screwup. Anyone else have that happen? A med screwup causing mania? Well that in the fact that I only took oxycarbazepine whenever I felt like it, but honestly, the neurologist prescribed that for neuropathy and since my neuropathy wasn't getting ANY better I figured the oxycarbazeopine was not necessary and I only took it when I felt like it. Since the neurologist prescribed oxycarbazepine and NOT the pdoc (though pdoc knows I am supposed to be taking oxycarbazepine, Pdoc was out of sorts that I wasn't taking it . Pdoc told H that oxycarbazepine has some sort of effect for bipolar (God knows what) and I was also only taking half of the quetiapine tablet because I wanted to lose weight. Pdoc said get on the full dose of quetiapine pronto (BUMMER! Pdoc is such a downer!) I promised H that I would take my meds as prescribed and that once I was better I would use a medication app with pill identifers (and look at the practically invisible numbers and letters on each pill before putting it in my pillbox) and reminders as to when to take the pills. SHYYT! I tried that once before and got annoyed at all the stupid reminders. But I did make several pillbox mistakes. SOOO many pills look practically the same; especially the pills that are round white circles. And gabapentin looks a TON like Alpha-lipoic-acid (a supplement that I had been taking to help neuropathy).

Anyone else have meds that look practically the same? So that it's easy to confuse them when getting your weekly pillbox filled? And I HATE refilling my pillbox. It's such a pain. Not to mention EVERY week it reminds me I have bipolar and that I am crazy abnormal and mentally ill.

Oh, and pdoc put me back on lamotrigine. What the heck is that supposed to do? Also pdoc put me back on hydroxyzine which is supposed to help my anxiety and panic attacks. But hydoxyzine does NOT help anxiety a bit like a benzo would. I REALLY, REALLy wanted to go back on clonazepam, but pdoc said I was too forgetful on clonazepam at my appts. and H agreed wit pdoc. SH'yTT.

Crazy thing I think I am already coming down from mania. I felt SOO happy and energtic. Now my body feels exhausted though slept 8 hours last night. I want to go for a walk this morning, but my body is physically exhausted. Now I am drinking coffee from the stronges caffeine concentration Starbucks makes for the K-cups.

I am now peeing a lot more than I was and have weighed 5 lb. less this morning. Well, THA:T at least I hope is permanent and NOT a fluke. I still want to lose 5-10 more pounds.

Sorry if I missed anyone.

I am still hypomanic at least and wish I'd stay that way longer. I feel a LOT better when I am hypo and being blunted in the middle is NO fun AT ALL.

I still have pressured writing. Obviously.

DAYMN I have a lot of typos in this. I went back to edit them and couldn't concentrate to get thru the first paragrah Sorry abou that. Hope you get the gist of it.

SHYYT I am now CRAZy dizzy Tryindto type this with my eyes closed. Goijgto lie down a ibit. \ Listen to music with my eyes closed. Eyyyes closed is better. Hope this majkes sense.. Gladk I didn't go wallkjing yet. I would have falleeed down. Called pdoc's office . Leeft aa meshagekh. Message. I can ofpen eyaes ssoem to see nowtk . edited this .