Bipolar Check-in #86

I’m so tired. I hope I can actually sleep tonight. I have to go get bloodwork done tomorrow

Now that I added my melatonin back into my cocktail I’m sleeping again. So frustrating how many meds I need just to sleep. I hope you get a good nights rest blue bird 🐦

I slept so much this last few days! I hope I can sleep tonight and wake up in time to contact my psych case manager.

I might be going back to college in the fall! That’s the goal anyway

I think I have another butt yeast infection. It hurts! Good thing I’m seeing my primary dr tomorrow!

i slpt til noon today and ti felt amazing. i saw a play last night call love, lies and the lottery and it was SO FUNNY!!!!!

Depression, irritability, and SI have been slowly creeping in as today has progressed so I took my prn of seroquel. Not much to report on from today. Went to Mass, got a walk in, and tidied up my bathroom. Overall, the day was kind of boring. Weekends always go fast, but this one seemed to go by faster than normal. Maybe, it's because I'm not looking forward to work this week since we spend three days of it getting evaluated and I'm over admin telling us to put on a show instead of letting things stay as they are. All the things they've added for our evaluation are just going to disappear once we pass anyway.

I’m stable. I’ll take the small wins. I had a good day at work today. Small blessings. I’ll count that as a huge blessing given what I went through last year. There is just one class on my timetable that I see tomorrow who will possibly need a seating plan but I will give them the benefit of the doubt. Haven’t actually taught them yet but heard from other teachers last week they were AWFUL. UGHHHHH.

Yup. Wide awake!

Was reading about high liver enzymes since that’s why I’m getting a liver biopsy. Not good. So many things can cause it. I think I’m just fat. It’s my own fault. And I could die. First it was the psych meds - which I’ve been taking almost nonstop for 20 years- and now I guess I eat too much? I’m going to a nutrition class! I bought fresh fruit and it made me constipated! What am I supposed to do??? Seeing my primary dr at noon. Maybe she’ll have me run my A1C again. Diabetes can mess up your liver too.

Throat is sore. No fever. It’s also almost 5 a.m. and the soft pallet of mouth and tongue hurt. Just changed my corticosteroid inhaler to two puffs twice a day. Maybe haven’t been rinsing after. Might be thrush. Still haven’t slept. Dry mouth from psych meds could increase the likelihood of getting thrush.

I've been busy trying to get things done with the neurotypicals. It's been a bad experience. I cannot work that slow. Delays, red-tape, fevered egos, people with visual impairment, people with aural impairment, people with BOTH -- gosh, it was like trying to get something done when your partners are all Helen Kellers, BEFORE she learned the cue for water and became a poet. These people were so disabled it was like they were way far out on the autism spectrum. It was so frustrating.

I was trying to do a project for my condo apartment building. My idea was to turn our wretched convenience store here in the building, whose lease is expiring, into a bodega specializing in superb fruit, and vegetables. Convenience stores only sell cancer and diabetes. We live in what the urban planners call a "food desert." This is an urban area where there are no shopping opportunities for healthy food. There are 2000 people in our neighborhood -- more than enough to support a mid-range small grocery store bodega.

There are 17,000 bodegas in New York City. Half of them are owned by Yemeni immigrants. The other half are a mix, mostly Hispanics. A bodega earning revenues of $500,000 a year (mid-range) would provide a profit of 20% to 30%, or $100,000 to $150,000. This far exceeds the profits from a convenience store.

I did a rudimentary business plan, and all sorts of hours of online research. I prepared a display of products the bodega would carry. I created an entrepreneur's pitch, and practiced it with my neighbors until i got it down to three minutes.

The monthly owners' meeting arrived, and building management would NOT let me speak! Not for three bleeping minutes! Rats! I had all these visual aids (a flip chart, samples of products to hold up), music over my hidden Blue Tooth speaker while i took the floor, alcohol free wine and alcohol free beer samples, homemade confetti, etc.

I wanted to do an entrepreneur's pitch first thing in the meeting, because the matter of the convenience store closing is divisive, and controversial. I knew the meeting would turn ugly if i did not offer a solution to all our problems first on the agenda, before everyone started yelling.

But they wouldn't let me speak, and just as i expected, the meeting turned ugly, and a fight almost broke out. It was a real bleep-show. I did not even attend, as i am sensitive to rancor, and knew it would upset me to be exposed to all that negative energy. My neighbors told me about it the next day. We all agreed that all the ugliness, and fighting could have been avoided if management had only let me speak for my measley three minutes.

Honestly, management does not act in their own best interests in this building! I did all that work for free. Well, there was a screw-up with my grocery delivery order, and i got four free bottles of alcohol free wine, so that's something. It also brought me closer to my neighbors, so that's worthwhile too.

I don't know. I exchanged a maelstrom of emails with building management, so they have all my research, and a rudimentary business plan, so maybe something will come of it in time. I just cannot work with those people, they are so slow, and entitled, questioning how i arrived at every little decision i made. It was enormously frustrating trying to work that way.

I worked on a franchising project for the federal government in the nineties as the department computer programmer, have a univerisity degree, and am a quick learn. I am friends with the convenience store owner/operators, a loving Middle-Eastern family who have done me countless kindnesses. I am experienced enough to launch a small business.

I did not intend to manage the project permanently, for health reasons. But i feel well enough to take on a nine month project, as that is how long it would have taken to re-imagine the convenience store into a bodega selling mainly superb fruit, vegetables, and other healthy foods.

It's also in MY best interests that we replace the convenience store, which sells mainly junk, with a healthy food option. I am taking an interest in my physical health, and without a car, there is no way i can get fruit and veg other than to order them online from a delivery service. This is expensive, and not sustainable permanently.

I've been experimenting with cooking. I can now make excellent vegan rice and bean dishes. I've shared my cooking with my neighbors, and they have all been in raptures over them. But, again, it's expensive ordering fruit and veg online, so this is not sustainable permanently either.

I don't know what to do. Shopping in-person is a nightmare. It shreds my psyche to be exposed to all that stimulation, and the horror that is currently public transit in my city. I've tried to invite myself along grocery shopping with my closest neighbor, but she uses a meal delivery service, and only does the occasional grocery shopping trip for bread, eggs, milk, etc., so that's not really practical.

So: it's an obstacle i cannot overcome at this time. I'll limp along with online grocery shopping for the moment, but i have to save for retirement, or rather for when i turn 65 and lose 67% of my disability benefits income.

Cooking is not affordable. The start-up costs of stocking my kitchen have been steep. I'm hoping it will be worth it in the long run, but the steep price of eating healthy is discouraging, compared to the affordability of eating chips and pop.

It's just not right that eating healthy should be MORE expensive than eating junk. After all, with a steady diet of junk, one ends up being a burden on the health care system, as it destroys your health. High blood pressure, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, cancer, you name it, eating junk will get you in the end.

But i just don't have the money to eat healthy. I've clawed into my savings and i've only been at it six weeks. Hopefully the costs will settle down once the capitol costs of setting up my kitchen (new heavy-duty fry pan, an order of a ton of staples, seasonings, herbs, spices -- all expensive).

So: thing are not going that well. Part of the problem with the bodega project was having to interact closely with neurotypicals. That project did not suit me. I am a one-man-band, always have been. I move faster when i go alone. I cannot tolerate having my judgement questioned, having to persuade people of my every tiniest decision, dealing with the sight and hearing impaired seniors, delays, red-tape, bureaucracy, all the negativity, and their attempts to destroy my joy.

So i'm putting that project in my rearview mirror. It was fun to work on, and that will have to be enough. I can't do much if management won't support me. That is not going to change. It's a deal-breaker for me. Best to cut my losses and move on.

My diagnosis got reclassified from bipolar (which was never a firm diagnosis anyways, the doctor was so ambivalent about it, he wrote "atypical, mild form" in his notes, which isn't even a thing in the DSM). The first doctor i saw didn't know what to do with me, and just made something up for insurance coding purposes.

The bipolar meds have NEVER worked. I found out why, when the diagnosis of "Prolonged Grief Disorder" (PGD) came up in my support group. Turns out this has been a new diagnosis since the 2022 revision of the DSM. PGD much more accurately describes my experience. There was the and the long years of Stockholm Syndrome, befriending my horrific parents for the purposes of survival when i felt intense contempt for them,

Then there was my divorce at 29, which, while not grief due to death, was still intense grief due to the rejection by my beloved husband, and the deafening silence of his absence in my life.

There was the grief of becoming too disabled to work, and losing my career, which was my whole identity.

Then there was the recent death of my younger sister, probably due to a lethal dose of alcohol. She was only 53, and i am astounded that of the two of us, it is *i* who have survived, being that she was so much better adjusted than me, so much healthier, physically, and mentally. She had anger mangement issues tho, and anger can poison you.

Well, i'll leave it at that, and thank the few of you who have made it thru this long, long post. I'll try to get back here participating on the forum, as i surely am not successful out among the neurotypicals.

Heading out to get my bloodwork done today to recheck my vitamin d levels. My psychiatrist and my primary both want them up. They were a 9 last time we tested which is extremely low. I guess healthy levels are between 30 and 100.

Texted my psych case manager. Waiting for a response.

Hey @JaneOnceMore good to see you! Sounds like you've been busy. How have you been sleeping lately? I can agree that it's hard working with neurotypicals. Even outside of bipolar, with my ADHD people don't understand why I can't work consistently and say I'm lazy or don't care when I screw up simple stuff while doing what can seemingly be impossible. I simply just get bored and need a challenge or novelty for motivation. Looking forward to hearing from you more

Back in Dump's first term my dad kept going around saying Dump and Kushner tried poisoning him with fake vodka... (maybe psychosis does run in the family even if we're just more prone to the drug-induced kind). I'm watching Don't Look Up and it's reminding me too much of early COVID days.

My pdoc referred me to a sleep specialist that I see in April. Filled out a questionnaire that was poorly formatted. "How many hours do you sleep on average?" Umm... some nights I get zero and sometimes I sleep 16 hours out of a 24 hour period? Where's the "no consistency" option or the comment box? I can put "6" and hope they ask me to explain that average has large tails and is not by any means a normal distribution. My median amount of sleep is probably 4 hours, my mode probably 5, my mean probably 8. "How many times do you wake up a night?" Dude, sometimes I feel like I sleep 10 minutes, wake up, sleep 20 minutes, wake up, sleep 12 minutes, wake up, etc. for 5 hours and sometimes I wake up once between 2pm and 8am. Oh well, they're sleep specialists, I'm going to assume they're used to that kind of shyt and the questionnaire is just to see any obvious problems.

I canceled my CM today to go skiing, but I'm not even going skiing. I've decided it's boring af if I do lift operated, so I'm gonna work on building a pair of touring skis so I never have to wait in line or sit down to ascend again! (Also I am barely able to not turn making pasta into a self-harm event so I'm not going to drive to the mountain and put myself 30 feet in the air and in the woods and shyt) But yeah, I'm just gonna drink a crap ton of chamomile tea to try and stay chill.

I'm peeing so freaking much. I've realized I have way too much tea stocked up and have been drinking it like a fiend (I just bought like $100 worth on impulse even though I still had 6 or 7 half full boxes and three tins of loose leaf).

Oh, and the tariff wars with Canada and friends are cool. Our electricity and oil and sometimes wood come from Canada. I hope any of my Trumpian neighbors are pleased with themselves and will continue to do so when the cost of any necessities other than food (sometimes even including food) go up by 25%. I know I'm gonna stock up on camping stove fuel and getting legit winter camping gear on Wednesday.

Just spilled on computer. TTYL

long week ahead. filing taxes tomorrow night to get that over with. thank goodness. then t on wednesday. i havent been seeing anything since i started going high dose of risperdal. thank god. sleepy today as i couldnt fall asleep til after midnight anf had to take melatonin twice to fall asleep.

I feel pretty good today. I didn't realize how much the zofran and unisom messed with my anxiety. I slept good. I woke up at 5 and got a bit sick mid workout so I stopped for an hour before finishing it. My mom is trying to get me to leave the house to go out to eat or something for my birthday which isn't even until tommorow, but I feel perfectly fine staying at home. I discovered Clio bars yesterday. I know people on here eat them. Those and Yasso frozen Greek yogurt bars make this diet bearable.

I sent my therapist some pictures of me pre transition with really long hair and a size G chest and before the weight distribution. She said it was ok to send them. She said she could tell how much happier I look now. I wonder if she was taken aback at all from them. I haven't shown them to any therapist before.

Idk but today has been fine.

So I'm home. V comes home Wednesday. We have decided to go back to school and get careers. We just can't wait for assistance to go away before having a back up plan. Last I heard on the apartment the management denied us but HUD approved the increase in payment. So I don't know what is happening.

I'm doing well today. Sorry, I have to go back and read the previous posts as I need to get lunch ready for my family & myself. I slept well last night though I had a weird dream where my best friend from college decided to throw in the towel on being a veternarian and become a chiropracter and was practicing chiropractic adjustments on me (yeah, not that much fun!). Not sure if that dream was helped along in that my lower back was hurting last night, and I took a prn muscle relaxer (tizandine) before falling asleep last night.

I took a long power walk, practiced holding the plank position for 1 minute, showered, had breakfast, read with the SAD lamp. Did a load of laundry and now am washing all my daughter's bedding, which is a pain but needed to be done. I drew 3 pictures (in the creative corner forum). Not sure how well they turned out but I had fun drawing them, which is my main drawing goal.

Time to make pita pizzas and get them in the oven for lunch! Hope everyone has a wonderful day!

Oh, @MuddyBoots, your message was so welcome at a moment when i have just been given a caution by building management for the flurry of emails i wrote them yesterday. I feel so embarrassed and ashamed. The property manager was very gracious and polite but she DID let me know that my excessive emails were a problem.

I get a good vibe from her, so i disclosed that i have a disability, and that hypergraphia is one of the features of it. I explained that it is a constant struggle, but that i will redouble my efforts to keep it in check. I think she will be receptive to my news.

And, no, i am not sleeping well. I've had chronic insomnia since Christmas, when i discovered the work of artist Bill Hicks. Listening to him was tremendously therapeutic. It gave me evidence that i am not alone in this world, tho he has passed, but at least for a brief time there lived someone who thinks and feels as i do.

The sleep is improving with light deprivation therapy. I deprive myself of light from 5:00pm to 7:00am. It is relatively easy as in Canada the daylight follows these hours in the dead of Winter. I take my meds at 11:00pm every day, but i may not go to bed for one or more hours.

I do not force myself to go to bed, as this just makes for an unpleasant experience of being awake in bed, and i begin to associate it with imprisonment. I wake up hours before dawn. I'm averaging about three hours a night. I cannot nap in the daytime.

I'm having trouble getting along with people. I am getting hostile, and so assertive that it borders on aggression. This is new to me, and not that unwelcome, as all my life i have tended in the other direction, of being too submissive.

It's exhausting me tho. What a healthy person would brush off as someone who misbehaves to them because the other person is having a bad day, i make a big deal out of. It is getting dysfunctional, and i sense people withdrawing from me because i am so ferocious.

Again, the ferocity is not necessarily bad, but i feel i am inspiring fear in others. I don't mind it that much, but i am not winning any friends. I note my one closest neighbor has been brief with me the past few days, and this is a departure from the warm, and welcoming vibe she usually gives me.

So, i am having some identity disturbance. I don't really know who this person is, that i have become, someone who hangs up on people on the phone when the situation warrants it.

It's so true that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar, and i think i will back off with the balls-out attitude and revert back into my warm, and loving vibe. It is true that i must not let people disrespect me, but it is also true that being too in-your-face attracts a lot of attention, and not all of it benign.

I am happy to be back here on the forum, and look forward to catching up with your news, Muddy, and of all the other strugglers here. It will relieve my hypergraphia to write here too. I also stopped journaling on Christmas, and i must get back to that too, as it is also a benign way of relieving my hypergraphia.

Don't get me wrong, i have had some high times these past seven weeks, and met many people i have really gotten a kick out of. But i sense i am becoming annoying, and unpleasant. I just don't care that much about being liked tho.

I've always been a bit of a loner. Why not be a ferocious loner, than a submissive loner? Respect matters more to me than friendship.

I have my Saturday night ZOOM social with many good people at one of my IRL support groups, and we have a great time, and it's very educational. I think from now on, i will focus on attending this one social event per week. Health experts advise that one social event per week is necessary for well-being.

I must not let myself get distracted, and be too tired to attend, like happened this weekend when i attended a fun but exhausting movie night put on by a real firecracker of a graphic designer who is new to the building.

He was very harsh with me because of the extreme time pressure he was under, and it stung. We emailed about it later and he said he was sorry for being terse and hostile. We concluded that we have different work styles, with me flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, and him liking to have everything organized far in advance, and last-minute changes upsetting him.

I decided i cannot work with him in the future, and this is for the best, even tho it breaks my heart to have to abandon such a dynamic, powerhouse of a person, with tremendous life experience (he was a DJ in Germany, presiding over a light-up floor of 3000 dancers).

He is also so funny i had tears hearing one of his stories. But i have to protect myself. I also sense that we are too much alike to be able to get along, and i find myself manipulating him with ease, and that's scary, that i have that skill, latent for so many years, now suddenly rearing as a wild horse.

If i act strong, people expect me to BE strong, and this just invites the wrong sort of attention. I've GOT to reign it in, and be less reactive, less sensitive to provocation. I've GOT to learn to laugh it off.

Well, the Senior Superintendent swearing at me DID require attention, but even that is dicey because he knows where i live, and i see him around the building on a regular basis. I just felt he had to know that swearing at me is not allowed. I feel i am in the right for this incident, but also that i am engaging in risky behavior that is not in my best interest.

Not to scare anyone, but i also have a police report for a hate crime of discrimination on the basis of perceived disability that happened on January 12, at a fancy hotel downtown. The lawyer who did my disability benefits has advised that i DO have a human rights complaint, but i am merely trying to get the police to take action on the issue, as a human rights complaint requires plowing thru fifty pages of legal documentation, and i'm just not healthy enough to undertake that at the moment.

If the police will not act on my behalf, i will just have to let it go. I thought of hiring a law student or paralegal, but i don't want to put money towards it. There is video surveillance footage to review, showing the male hotel employee confronting me, and interrogating me, and insulting me, but all he has to say is that he did NOT think i was neurodivergent, just that i was accessing the facillities illegally, which i was not, as i had taken a room at the hotel for the night to escape a stressful situation here at my home.

From bad to worse.

Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't!

I guess i just don't know who i am at the moment. I've had flickers of this power inside me before, but it's never been so controlled. Surely, i am making mistakes, and need to review my policies, but i am happy to discover that i am a force to be reckoned with.

For the moment anyways...

I'm still feeling blah today. I haven't gotten out of bed. Or eaten much. I'm trying to figure out how to set up a contacts exam appointment. I get $500 a year through my insurance in contacts and glasses and the exam is free I just have to find a place.

@MuddyBoots:

Just read your last post about Dump and your extreme impatience with the ski lift and laughed and laughed. I'm impatient too. When i was working on the bodega project i just wanted to scream at people, "Keep up!" They were so dense, and slow. I actually DID tell my one close neighbor to keep up with me when she was questioning me about, how did i know this, how did i know that? Well, you ffuucckkiinngg moron, i know this, and that, because i just talked to the individual in question. Crap, why does everyone want an explanation of my work? Why don't they just give me the respect i deserve? Jane moves fast fast fast!!!

Do you know what the phrase "a magpie mind" is? A magpie is a sort of bird who gets attracted, and then momentarily fascinated with shiny things. They focus on them intently, then abruptly lose interest, and move on.

Does that ring any bells?

Back to me! I just got the warmest, kindest, most loving email from our property manager, assuring me that they will respect my request for privacy, and not barge into my home a third time to investigate a problem with the cold temperature in here that they have already inspected twice, and have advised that there is nothing to be done about the building heating units, and that i must buy an external, portable heater, and pay for the privilege myself.

This does not seem fair, given that my condo fees include all utilities. But building management is just stupefied with red-tape, and delays, and this is just one battle i will have to concede the point on. I have a high-end external, portable heater coming from an online shopping service today by 10:00pm. And then i will have heat heat heat for the first time this Winter, which has been hair-raisingly cold, such that i am wearing my parka indoors.

I’m currently sitting in my classroom trying not to hall my eyes out/trying to collect myself before I have to go to lunch duty. I just got an email saying my work is changing insurances effective July 1. I’m terrified this will lead to more expensive bills and less mental health coverage. Right now, there is no limit to how many appointments I have with a counselor and my pdoc. And, my copays for everything are dirt cheep. I’ll double check with my pdoc today, but if his website is up to date, I’m going to have to switch pdocs because my soon to be insurance provider isn’t listed as one that he accepts and I can’t afford to pay out of pocket (if he even accepts patients to pay out of pocket). Outside of losing a great proc, I’m starting to get really nervous about how I am going to make it financially (which is part of why I’m trying not to ball my eyes out. My eyes are probably super red-hopefully, people don’t really notice. Sorry if there are a bunch of typos in this post-I’m using my phone so it’s hard to proofread what autocorrect might have filled in.

Busy day today. I teach 4 classes. 3 of the classes should be good. I need a benzo to get through one of the classes though. They’re tough from what Ive been told. I’ll have to use all the behaviour management strategies available to me.

Please may this be a good day!