Bipolar Check-in #83

@Nammu

I'm sad to hear you're depressed. I don't want you to be depressed! I don't want anyone to be depressed! I'm sorry to hear the seroquel didn't help you sleep. I normally take 0mg - 200mg before bed and no matter what I only get three to five hours of sleep. It doesn't give me a hangover or anything though. I always wake up quite alert. My morning 50mg dose combined with my 50mg loxapine dose knocks me out for about an hour every morning though. Something with the combination so early in the morning I guess. I don't know. My afternoon 50mg dose doesn't make me tired, but I'm also not taking it with loxapine (just diazy and gabbies).

I hope 50mg works for you! I'm happy you got an earlier appointment to see your psychiatrist. I hope an even earlier one opens up. 🫂 ❤️ I hope you feel better soon. We all love you.

@Blueberrybook

I'm sorry to hear you're feeling down as well. Like others have said I think SAD is caused from the lack of sunlight. I hope you feel better soon. Don't think even passive SI thoughts like the ones you were having. We all love you too and don't want anything to happen to you. 🫂 ❤️

Sorry if I sound gushy. I'm still so emotional. 😭

I kinda think SAD is getting to me a bit too. Theres just these slight rumblings right now.

I finally figured out I have face blindness. I didn't even recgonize Kanye West until they said who he was. Jennifer Garner can be in one commercial and I will totally not recgonize her in another.

Don't get me started on people I actually "know"

Mania is here. Time to start scaring away my friends! Oh whatever- it’s already started!

I have no memory of writing this!

I’ve decided to spoil myself and go to the hairdresser this morning. My gray roots are really coming through. I have dark brown hair. My 5 year old son asked me the other day what that was and when I said to him it’s gray hair his immediate response was no get rid of it lol

I'm very tired after being up most of last night. I didn't sleep well and didn't sleep long enough.

I tried to do some guided meditations this morning but I just couldn't get into it. My anxiety is way up again and I couldn't let the thoughts pass by while I was trying to meditate - they just kept on coming up one after the other.

I'm going to try again tonight, maybe do a sleep guided meditation and hopefully fall asleep to that.

Was just looking through the aurora images I captured on Thursday. Just reliving a nice memory even though it was just a few days ago.

I am so mad at how small Little Debbie snacks have gotten. The creme pies used to be huge. Also I used to eat the Cosmic Brownies as a sensory food because of how dense they were. Now they are all dry.

Yeah its great when I can take a shower. But I didn't do anything all day and I feel like I could use another for some reason. I feel sticky and gross. From sitting.

I am too, they have gotten insanely small over the years. They were always one of my favorite snacks. Not healthy but delicious. I loved the cosmic brownies too those were always my favorite when I was growing up.

So far, I've been able to keep my mood okay despite not having much to do. I'm allowing myself some Starbucks every day as a little pick me up. Yesterday, I sat there and read for a bit which was nice. Today, POTs is kicking my butt so I'm staying home but did pick up a drink to bring home. I missed Mass and only went grocery shopping because I had no food to eat for today. I'm annoyed/confused by these symptoms because I just got an IV yesterday, but I might have made my body angry already because I walked for the first time in awhile yesterday and did my vertigo exercises right after that.

I had a somewhat tough/annoying conversation with my mom so I hope that doesn't trigger anything. She'll argue with me about everything. I mentioned how some places are going to be closed because of the holiday tomorrow and she fought me on it. She even tried to argue with me when I told her the diocese I work for always aligns fall break with this holiday weekend as if she knows more about my job than I do. She does all of the talking whenever we're on the phone so how would she know anything about my job anyway. I'm not really looking forward to going back to my home state for Thanksgiving anymore, but I really want to/need to see my godsons.

Ok. Ok. Let's delete that and try a little more coherently and less dramatically this time.

A thing happened with an ex of mine and I feel really bad about it today, and I'm pretty sure I have the Devil's blood in my loins. To be fair I didn't know she knew how to get a hold of the dealer and actually did.

But now they have commercials for microdosing so that's interesting.

eta: should I go hiking tomorrow? Forecast looks good (see below)

Currently sitting at the hairdresser with a head full of foils. I drank their coffee. Bad idea I need to go wee but that will entail walking through the mall with a head full of foils … I think not. So now not only are they dying my gray roots they’re making my hair lighter so when the gray roots appear it’s not going to be as noticeable. She recommended getting foils as opposed to putting bleach on my entire hair because she said my hair is quite damaged in certain parts and bleaching all my hair will make it worse

This weekend is really hard because it's Canadian Thanksgiving and i'm all alone. I had a miserable time in the daytime. I even looked into charity church dinners as i know they are open to the lonely, not just the poor. It was not too realistic tho. I tried a Christmas meal one year and the experience was awful.

I found i felt a little better when i took my dog out for her afternoon break even tho it's cold so i went out a second time. Then i finally felt hungry and ordered a veg pizza. At least spending the holiday alone i am able to keep to my vegetarianism. Night has fallen and that makes it more comfortable too.

Tomorrow is a holiday so just one more day...

Happy Thanksgiving for Monday! May it be an acceptable one for you 🫂

Its so weird to feel "OK" after having been depressed, manic and mixed since july. idk really know what to do with myself. we went to a farm today for lunch and got some pumpkins on the way home.

We should have a virtual canadian thanksgiving dinner! We always do for the USAian holidays.

ETA - I AM setting one up in General Social Chat

@JaneOnceMore thanks for the reminder

Had a decent day. I guess. I didn’t go anywhere though or do anything. I need to get out of the house tomorrow. I’ve been inside too much. It rained all day today and is gonna rain most of the day tomorrow but I plan on taking a walk in the morning with my umbrella.

I’m looking forward to going to sleep later. I am gonna stay up till around midnight. It’s 8:30pm now. I tend to sleep better and for longer when I go to sleep later in the night. If I go to sleep early I end up wide awake a couple hours later and unable to get back to sleep.

It’s been a long day though. I’ve been up since like 4am. I did sketch something today. I need to get out tomorrow though I’m getting really bad cabin fever. I’ve been isolating in my apartment for 3 days and it’s negatively affecting me now so I definitely need to get outside even if it’s just for a walk downtown.

Maybe I’ll meditate some tonight. My anxiety is pretty bad though it always is in the afternoons and evenings. I started dissociating a bit earlier today but managed to pull myself back.

Tuesday I have an appointment with my psychiatrist. It’s been quite awhile since I’ve seen him since he rescheduled our appointment twice, and I rescheduled it once so it’s been a big gap of like 3 months or more between our last visit. I’m gonna see if he can put my Thorazine back to 200mg. I sleep better on that than on 100mg. Aside from that I might see if I can get back on something for anxiety like hydroxyzine. Hopefully though cutting out the coffee helps. It should. I mean 6-7 cups of coffee a day is horrible for anxiety

My anxiety is really bad. I've tried everything. I don't need to email my therapist. I'm just like really really anxious though

. I am so desperate for some relief

Well I canceled dinner with the family, I just couldn’t handle the long drive in the dark. In part because it would be so easy to crash at those speeds and I don’t trust myself fully yet. My thoughts are dark. So I forced myself to go to the monthly potluck here. I didn’t stay long but I was more open tonight. My aunts best friend asked why I had to go, and I told her I am depressed and it’s hard to be with people. So I’m opening up a little. A friend over heard a did the I heart you sign. I’ve had a tolerable night watching my pbs shows. One is set in Amsterdam and is pretty dark but the people are close. They fight big pharma, the far right and big agriculture there too.

So I spent a fortune at the hairdressers and I like it but because of my self esteem I’m not in love with it. Of course all the hairdressers were saying how fabulous it looks but they work there so their opinion doesn’t count as much.

Why can’t I just be happy. At least I’ve got dead straight hair. She blow waved it for me. Lately Ive has been washing my hair and tying it up. I have wavy frizzy hair it’s high maintenance especially when I’m depressed.

@JaneOnceMore I'm sorry you are having to spend the holiday by yourself. Loneliness is such a tough thing to experience. I hope tomorrow isn't to tough for you.

@Nammu Nice job taking care of yourself by going to the pot luck for a bit. It takes a lot of strength to do something like that when you're struggling.

I hope everyone is able to get the sleep they need and that those struggling are able to get some relief soon.

Drove 2 hours down and 2 hours back to see my niece's chorus concert today. They do such a nice job. She's an alto and there aren't too many of those at her age so that was interesting to see. I am so proud of her and the woman she's becoming (as well as her sister who I barely saw b/c she was with a friend).


We drove past the house that we are seeing next weekend. They listed it but it doesn't go on the market for a week. It looks nice on the outside. The inside only has 8 pictures so it's hard to get an idea of what the inside is like. It will sell fast and over the asking price (ie we're not getting it)..

I'm tired enough I'm having trouble typing so I hope that I will fall asleep easily tonight. Last night wasn't too bad. I was up for 45 minutes or so because I got into an uncomfortable position and my hand fell sound asleep.


Hope everyone else gets a good night of sleep.

@Nammu are you allowed to increase the dose of Seroquel or do you have to wait until you see your pdoc again? (It may not work as quickly as I remember. It was a pretty jumbled time when I started it.

In person he told me I could take 50 at once if the 25 didn’t work. So yes. Plus I can message him though the portal any time. They say it takes 3-4 days to get back to you but both times I messaged him before he got back to me in a day and that wasn’t an urgent thing. So if 50 doesn’t work I’ve always that option.

25 would not put me to sleep. In fact a few times I've taken 25 when I was very anxious and knew that 12.5 was going to help and I didn't get even slightly sleepy. 50 is more sedating.

I just took a shower and dressed in pjs.

Feeling accomplished.

I woke up early because I woke up coughing in my sleep so hard I ended up getting sick. I feel groggy so I wouldn't mind dozing off for 20 minutes.

Good morning, I slept pretty good. Woke up early and watched a couple episodes of Pokemon and an episode of The Witcher on Netflix.

I've been treating myself in the mornings to hot chocolate made with almond milk and splenda. Since I'm not drinking coffee anymore it's nice to still have a warm comforting drink in the mornings without all the caffeine. I know there's still technically a tiny amount of caffeine in cocoa but it's so miniscule compared to the 7 cups of coffee I was drinking every single day so it's perfectly okay. And it tastes pretty good considering I'm not really generally a fan of artifical sweeteners but it's better than going overboard with sugar which is a bad habit I have too. I'm enjoying it, it's a healthier alternative. Plus it satisfies my sweet craving.

It's a nice chilly rainy fall morning. I have the heat on right now and am listening to music while my cats eat their breakfasts.