Bipolar Check-in #85

If it's making things worse, definitely don't use it! I seem to remember reading that it could trigger mania in bipolar people.

I slept pretty well, had lots of dreams last night. I took a day off from exercising b/c I haven't had a rest day in forever. Also, I think I pulled a quad muscle, and it's bothering me a bit. I may be having to only do pilates while it heals instead of power walking

I had to take my daughter to the dentist today to get 3 fillings. I don't even know how I got through it, I was dissociating so much. Anyway, thank God that's over.

Supposed to get the new refrigerator delivered today. Ready to get that over and done with. I'm sick of the refrigerator saga.

We're all still missing Sugarberry, it's just awful that we had to put him to sleep exactly to the day one year from our first cat, Hungry. We did the best we could with him, but it's still not easy.

I’m sorry blueberry.

Today was a snow day. We didn’t get much but still lunch was canceled. So I had a half a pump. Slice with deli ham and chipotle sauce.

I woke up at 9 but stayed in bed until noon. Good day to stay in bed. Supposed to snow more later but I’m not sure. Here we didn’t get much.


I’m just wanting the weather to get better for Christmas. I’m supposed to drive over to my daughter’s the next town over. I’m such a nervous driver in winter. Ever since I hit that black ice. The car was completely out of control. I tried steering into it, but nothing. Hit a bridge on my side of the interstate and spun clear across the other side and down a steep hill. Took out several trees! To get to her house I have to take the interstate!

Was feeling panicky earlier. Feeling a bit better now. The day has been going by fast. Sometimes I want to disappear. I love life for the most part but sometimes I’m sick of dealing with my brain. If I had a choice to get rid of the schizoaffective disorder bipolar type I have or the trauma history at a young age that ****ed me up so much due to severe amounts of stress that shouldn’t be put on a 7 year old. I would get rid of the trauma, even if that sounds crazy. I feel like it permanently changed the way my brain developed. My previous psychiatrist said something about all the severe stress I dealt with for so many years as a young child, because it occurred when I was that young changed me. I was basically growing up with my alcoholic severely depressed mother and we were homeless most of the time and bouncing around from place to place getting kicked out constantly and having to leave our stuff and being around scary/sometimes aggressive people and sometimes not having food to eat. I just remember constantly being worried every day about whether we’d have a place to stay. 7 year olds shouldn’t have to deal with that kind of stress. Nobody should but especially not in the developmental ages. And it went on till I was like 15 and then we finally had a stable place to live.

I never thought it affected me. I acted like it was no big deal until I started dealing with the dissociation around 19. I never connected the dots. Until this past year. I never considered it a trauma. But my new therapist started EMDR with me immediately when I started seeing her and that’s a therapy for traumatic memories.

My last therapist was great, I saw her for 8 years. Then she suddenly died unexpectedly a few months ago. She was great but I realize now that her form of therapy wasn’t really getting me anywhere, just based on how direct my new therapist and how she like aggressively works on problems.

My last therapist, It was just talk therapy and it was very casual and basic and she didn’t challenge me or aim the therapy towards any specific things to work on. So it was more like a somewhat therapeutic chat with a friend. She wasn’t experienced with dissociation or anything like that.

I feel like there’s so many people that have had such worse experiences, so Idk why my brain chose to start dissociating.

F yeah! Told you I'm FKING INVINCIBLE!!!!!! (But I was hit for saying that to my man candy) Even my therapist and psychiatrist confirmed I'm built differently! Was I a little off for a couple days? Maybe! AM I SEEING GREEN BECAUSE I SAW OTHER PEOPLE DIE? HELL YEAH!

But, life, man,
life= l death l
I HATE who I am!!! I FEEL LIKE A FKING PSYCHO! He said he can tell I'm clingy and (failing at) desperately trying not to look needy af, but clingy doesn't have to be bad, and now I just want to cut him open and crawl inside and be like "love me, love me, LOVE ME!" (I realize cutting him open and crawling inside wouldn't make him love me though).
But last night I was trying to fall asleep and I heard his VOICE! I was alone! He called me a useless parasite! FUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!

When I got meds yesterday there was someone all iin black and in a mask in the parking lot and I was freaking out. The med nurse seemed really mad at me. The front desk lady was acting weird. My therapist said "see you January 8th" because there was some emergency during my hour... but I'm telling you, death is FAKE!!! I'm gonna go to Colorado (or Montana, maybe) and start avalanches with explosives!

How illegal is mixing chemicals in the electronics department at Walmart?

@Blue_Bird I agree, I'd completely get rid of young-age trauma if I could. I know it affected me. There was sexual abuse by an uncle when I was 5. Growing up, my dad was constantly yelling and angry and strict, spanked for very minor offenses, I remember hiding in cornfields in the middle of summer just so he wouldn't find me and yell at me or spank me (and that is hot, itchy, very uncomfortable). And he spanked why beyond an appropriate age and with a belt as well. My mom just stood by and let it happen even though I knew that she never disciplined that way when it was just her home with us. I am still not close to my father for that reason, well, also I think he has some form of Asperger's or something, he is impossible to converse with, everyone who meets him says that right after the first time they try to communicate with him. We lived paycheck to paycheck growing up, not homeless so my situation was better than yours but pretty close to poverty; my dad had has own business repairing things (cars, tractors, TVs, VCRs, etc.) in farming country, and there were a lot of customers who couldn't pay or wouldn't pay for ages. If my grandparents had not given us food, I don't know what we would have done. All our clothes came from garage sales, which really doesn't make you very popular in school. The lack of living on the edge with money was very stressful; I can't even imagine how bad homelessness would have been. I had sexual trauma again in my 30s, but I swear it's the stuff that happened in my childhood that shaped my personality and my brain.

I’m sorry you dealt with all that @Blueberrybook yeah I think trauma around the age where the brain is developing really shapes a person and can have life long consequences unfortunately. I always think back and think it would be cool to see what kind of person I’d be if I hadn’t experienced that.

Holy carp nammu, i cant believe you survived that! The down the hill part esp. I would permanently need diapers after that! I have done more than my share of snowy driving. I couldnt do it now. I do not mind not having a car.

Blubird there was a book out oh 30 years ago or so? About children raised right, like mozart and others, who did NOT get their synapses rudely clipped but who were encouraged in life.

Yeah I think I’ve heard of that. It would have been nice to be encouraged as a child. My mom supported me but very passively. She mostly just drank in front of the tv or slept most of the day because she was depressed, so she was bordering on I guess what I’d call emotionally neglectful. I twisted my ankle really severely when I was 8 playing soccer and she didn’t take me to the doctor. I couldn’t walk so I hopped around on one foot for a week. It was really painful.

She also wouldn’t acknowledge that I had an eating disorder. And would get mad at me for it

I'd trade in my childhood for "normal" or whatever (does that even exist? I know literally no one who didn't have something that a therapist would count as "trauma") over trading in the bipolar, too. Hell, if I wasn't raised in a building of randos using meth and heroin and whatever and taught substances were a good solution and had experiences were I saw and felt a healthy "love" maybe the bipolar symptoms wouldn't be as severe and hard to handle. Maybe I wouldn't have cried in a diner after seeing a stranger with brown hair and a beard today! But oh-fking-well, I got what I got, I'm just gonna make sure I don't have babies to make them take the wheel so I can hold a pipe and a lighter while driving. I saw a drunk driver run a red into another car yesterday.

I’m so ready for it to be Christmas already. Literally nothing exciting is going on until then. I have a violin lesson on Sunday. But idk if I’m looking forward to it or dreading it cause I can’t seem to get myself to practice the past few days.

I took the propofol (except unfortunately it was propranolol) so now I can be still, BUT I STILL WANT TO RIP OUT THE DEMONS INSIDE AND STUFF MYSELF WITH MINI WHEATS AND NARNIA SNOW!

Fahhhk, can we dance? It gets dark too much! I saw a coyote on a walk yesterday, but the boi (or girl, don't know, don't care to know right now) was working on a deer. Acres upon acres of "THE EARTH CAN GO FK ITSELF BECAUSE WE NEED MILLION DOLLAR HOMES MADE OF POPSICLE STICKS AND PAINTED IN SUBFREEZING TEMPS!"

I did my nails. It’s like free therapy for me. I’m in my happy place and I hope I stay here until well after Christmas. It’s been a shyt year.

Had a big old Buick. It was crunched on all corners but me and Sir walked away. But my Tupperware of cookies came open and strewed cookies everywhere. Gotta love those big American cars. But according to the info they don’t make the new ones reliable. So now I have a Hyundai, reliable but not built for crashes down a tree lined hill.

Speaking of trauma that was the real reason son I left my husband. No way I was exposing My daughter to his abusive behavior. I didn’t want her to grow up thinking it was ok for dad to hit mum. Then I was committed and turned over power of attorney to my parents so she’d have a stable life. I was homeless for years, no way would I want that for her. She had a good life though it was hard to have grandparents for parents. We have a good relationship now.

Man, the asian market had a goldmine today. They had lemon Pepsi, lime zero Pepsi, strawberry Coke, exotic Kit Kats and Snickers. All for super low prices. Unlike those speciality shops that sell exotic snacks for outragous prices. I've been looking for lemon Pepsi forvever but I didn't want to pay $10 for a bottle from an exoctic snack shop. But $2.50 is perfectly fine. My cart was pretty full.

I've been on the go all day I haven't eaten much and I did 100 push ups with my ab roller on carpet this morning. But my stomach was fine all day.

I'm going out to dinner in a bit

There were some rowdy young adult boys at one of the stores. I'm not used to groups of young guys. They didn't pay me any attention. I was dressed decently. Dark jeans and Nikes, as the Taylor Swift song goes.

my stepdad is gone. passed earlier today.

Went to primary doctor this afternoon. Still reacting to something- probably the vinegar in the ham I ate last night- after it started at 6 last night. I still had swelling despite taking Benadryl every 4 hours over night. The dr examined me and said I need the ER saying "I'm very concerned "-. Then she called an ambulance. The ER gave me Benadryl and long-acting steroids. They wanted to watch me for an hour so I just waited for the meds to work. I should've, in retrospect- used my EpiPen last night and gone in to the ER then!

Caleb said it's all psychological! He thinks he's so smart so why does he say such dumb things??

I'm home. I gotta eat dinner.

I'm so sorry for your loss @HALLIEBETH87

So sorry @HALLIEBETH87 You've had so much loss this year.

So sorry for your loss.

Sorry for your loss @HALLIEBETH87 💖

Nammu, your car musta been like a pinball bouncing offa trees. Omg. Cookies caroming all over the interior should be in more movie crashes. In slo-mo. This was definitely the car equivalent of the horsey expression, "Rode hard and put away wet." Respect, girl. Respect. You are one tough cookie.

I feel sshhiittttyy about Christmas and i am tired of trying to talk myself out of it. I tried a virtual support group but they were all on about friends and family and Christmas so i quit right away. Six more days. Ack! I ordered groceries today and it went very smoothly, like magic. It's a shopper i've had before and rated highly so i hoped for the best and he didn't disappoint.

Thoughts of the past attacked me causing shame. I've fallen out of the spell of mindfulness. The past matters. It matters to me. FFuucckk mindfulness!

@Blue_Bird:

Thanks for the support but sorry you are in the same boat re lonely holidays. Keep an eye out for the virtual Christmas dinner thread i'll start in the social forum Christmas Eve. I found it made my Thanksgiving a bit more cheerful and hopefully you will enjoy it too.