Roll Call 202

Thank you Desoxyn

I'm trying to focus on music (violin) and art (drawing, painting, etc) because those bring me the most happiness and anxiety relief and are very fulfilling. So I've invested into those hobbies a bit recently. Like buying/upgrading to the much better violin a couple days ago, and getting better art supplies. I feel like it's worth it if I can afford it and I'll use them and get a lot of joy out of them. Those things, art and instruments are very tactile type hobbies where the the sense of touch is activated a lot because you're holding the instrument, holding the bow, putting your fingers down on the different strings, holding the pencil when sketching, or the paint brush while painting. They're both very mindful activities and help ground me if that makes sense. Especially when I feel like I'm floating when I'm dissociating. You do them and get into a kind of flow state with your focus and it feels good

Anyway, that's what I'm trying to prioritize. Art, Music, exercise, sleep, socialization, fresh air, and balanced eating. I feel like those have the biggest effects on my mental health. When they're all out of alignment I'm a paranoid dissociated anxious mess.

I'm working on it though

Oh yeah, Rubik’s cubes are the ultimate fidget toy they’re so good for anxiety. I’ve been messing with mine all the time lately and I’m learning how to solve them, my bf can solve them extremely fast

April 8th will mark 1 year of my bf and I being together. We’ve known each other way longer than that and dated briefly like 10 years ago and went to high school together. But yeah 1 whole year. I’ve never been in a relationship this long. This is crazy. I’m gonna be visiting him in a few months (we’re currently long distance). We’ve been saving up for us to visit each other so we can see each other in person again. I used to destroy any relationship I went in but this has actually been really good and I haven’t done that. It’s actually been a healthy relationship.

It's crazy this forum is still alive. It's nostalgic now lol

I'm unstoppable, I'm a Porsche with no brakes
I'm invincible, yeah, I win every single game
I'm so powerful, I don't need batteries to play
I'm so confident, yeah, I'm unstoppable today

Unstoppable today, unstoppable today
Unstoppable today, I'm unstoppable today

AND.. I have a cold, so I slept most of the early AMs, couldn't sleep - So got up at 6am. Feels good. I work at 9am.

I had sourdough toast and two eggs sunnyside up for breakfast today. Was really good. Also took a walk to the store to buy cat litter. My new violin will be here on Monday. I have another lesson tomorrow. I feel pretty good. I did some art last night.

Did laundry this morning and am about to wash my sheets too.

I ended up deciding to upgrade the ram in my laptop instead of buy a new laptop. So it’s going from 8gb of ram up to 32 gb. And am gonna replace the battery as well. The ram will be here tomorrow. I should be able to play all of my games once the ram is upgraded. The processor is fine it just was really bad for playing games due to the low ram. 8gb to 32gb. Yeah that’s gonna make a huge difference. And it saves me money instead of buying an entirely new laptop. $50 for 32 gb of ram and $45 for a new battery versus $700 for an entirely new laptop. There’s nothing wrong with my current one so there’s no need to get a new one yet.

About to have my violin lesson

Had a great violin lesson today, learned a lot and have a lot of new stuff to work on. My 32gb (two 16gb) RAM was delivered tonight, so my bf is gonna try to help me with changing my RAM in my laptop over videochat since he knows how to do it. We talked for 2 hours straight today, and then later watched some Naruto. My new violin is arriving on Monday, so freaking hyped for that.

Tomorrow I'm walking downtown to the main library and am gonna sit in one of their study booth areas and just work on some of my music theory workbook for a couple hours. Partly to get out of the house, and partly because I focus better when I'm somewhere like the library, or a cafe etc. Plus it's a 45 min walk all together, so it's a good amount of exercise too. After that when I get home my bf is gonna help me with changing my laptop RAM, so hopefully that goes well, then we're gonna watch The Queens Gambit and play Chess and maybe a round or two of the yugioh TCG . We're gonna start both reading The Clockwork Orange and kind of do a little book club between the two of us, read and discuss what we've read over videochat, his friend might join in too because he likes to read as well.

I'm aiming to start doing that 3 times a week. Just go to the library and spend a couple hours reading and studying music theory.

I'm doing okay. I think the majority of what I deal with is my bipolar and my BPD. I don't know if I have schizoaffective. I'm diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder bipolar type. I suppose it doesn't really matter the meds/treatment are the same for the most part. And I'm to the point with my BPD that I'm not so dysfunctional that I merit a diagnosis for that anymore, which is good. My previous psychiatrist said she thinks it's likely I had it at one point especially due to all my childhood trauma but that over the years I was seeing her I had so much growth and progress that she didn't feel it was necessary to give me a BPD diagnosis. I saw her for 7 years so I trust that she knew me well. Don't get me wrong I still struggle with it and go through phases where it becomes a problem but I'm nowhere near as self destructive as I was 10 years ago and never really sui anymore, and haven't been in the hospital in like 5 years. My current psychiatrist I just met for the first time a month ago, he's focusing on treating the bipolar, but he left my diagnosis as sza bipolar. He may drop the sza part of it eventually idk, I know that he's focusing on treating the bipolar though espeially with me frequently going 2-3 days without any sleep and the energy levels being high and impulsive behavior.

So yeah that's what's up with me. I'm trying to reign in my spending. And doing what I can to manage my stress levels by exercising, limiting caffeine, meditating, and doing self care.

I'm so lost

But I'm sane.

My new violin is out for delivery today!! Yay!!! I’m so excited. Should be here in a couple hours. Now I get to see the difference between my $70 Amazon violin not set up by a luthier and my new $450 violin set up by professional luthiers from an actual violin shop. Should be a huge difference.

I went to sit outside but it’s extremely windy and cold out so I went right back in after 2 minutes lol.

I’m sending my old asus laptop to my bf and am going to use my old HP laptop. I’m gonna get it set up with a new battery and ram upgrade. It’s a little older but I should be fine with it and then in February 2025 I’m gonna upgrade to a brand new HP 64gb ram 2TB SSD laptop. That’s gonna be expensive though so I’ll have to save. But this old one will get me through the next year.

I’m just gonna pay for a computer shop to do the battery replacement and ram upgrade because I don’t feel like messing with it myself. There’s a computer shop near here that services HP Pavillion 15 series which is what I have.

Jesus the violin is stunning and the set up is great the whole outfit, the case is extremely nice too it even locks. Definitely was worth it even though it was expensive ,it’s really high quality, I’m in love with it.

Happy today. Took ket last night and went to sleep with a 5mg diazepam and zopiclone, had a very very deep sleep.

I see the doctor in 1 hour, to get the echocardiogram results. This is a moment.. where I will accept the information given, but for the first time in 6 years (With heart OCD),

And having my heart on my mind, every second of every day, never stopping,

I will know...

I want to say at first, "Please tell me it's ok.. =["

I’m going to a Tolkien hobbit hole wreath making event at my local library on Sunday! Registered. Looking forward to it. They provide all materials.

I went to the dentist today. Yesterday afternoon one of my crowns popped off so I called and they got me in this morning and put it back on. Also scheduled my next cleaning and exam for this coming May.

I also scheduled a physical with my primary for March 28th. And I am getting bloodwork done Monday for my psychiatrist.

The doctor got the echo results and he said that my heart is "completely normal, it's completely fine!" 😄 ❤️ lol.. I said "Really?" - I'm still in disbelief, cuz I was just crying an hour ago before I went to the clinic...

Bad heart OCD I guess haha

Hey everyone, I'm back after a hiatus

And I just realized I'm a 10 year member.

Yikes, not feeling too good today because I was impulsive and said I was going to switch therapists and I did, I know, I know, it's stupid. But I have trouble with this kind of stuff.

Good morning. I’m walking to the library in a few minutes. Picking up some requests.

These are the books I requested from the library

-The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
-Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
-Throne of Glass (book 1) by Sarah J Maas
-A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Just got back from the library. It’s really nice out. 50 degrees and sunny. Was a nice walk.

Only one of my requests was there so far so I’ll have to go grab the other 3 on Friday.

Tomorrow I’m walking down to the social security office so I can give them the paperwork from my psychiatrist to make me my own payee. It’s a pain in the *** going there cause they’re always super busy and it takes forever for your number/ticket to get called but once it is it’s quick. And I’m going as soon as they open tomorrow. And it’s not the beginning or end of the month so hopefully it will be a little less busy. By this weekend I should have the bank account in my name if my sister is able to get there and change everything over on Saturday. Big step towards independence. So yayyyy

I’m really happy for you! Sounds like things are going great.

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Have you ever done any DBT exercises? Is a a good therapy for impulsivity. I use a lot of it myself. Cause I’m very impulsive just like that. I make huge rash decisions suddenly that screw things up. Like I used to randomly stop my meds, randomly impulsively decide to quite going to therapy and my psychiatrist, impulsively drop out of college, quit jobs , randomly apply to jobs I know I can’t handle etc all that impulsive stuff and indecisiveness. What helps me is as soon as I have an urge to do something like that I write it in my journal and then don’t think about it for a few days and distract myself with positive coping skills and wait it out cause eventually the impulsive urge goes away and I’ve saved myself a lot of mental pain by not acting out on those urges.

For example I used to impulsively end relationships all the time. I did this a couple times when my bf and I started dating a year ago but after a few months and 2-3 times of me impulsively breaking up with him then immediately regretting it and getting right back together, I made the conscious effort to act opposite my impulse and not even give it any headway. After the first couple months of us being together I managed to stop breaking up with him. So now we’ve been together a full 12 months on April 8th coming up. And I haven’t tried impulsively breaking up with him in about 7-8 months at least. Don’t get me wrong I still have impulses to do that due to my BPD traits but I’ve managed to stop that particular behavior.

I’m still working on the whole other impulsive stuff like not quitting or applying for jobs impulsively. Etc. and college.

Idk my point I guess is that it is possible to change the tendency to act impulsively. It takes a lot of work and a lot of consciously continually choosing to act opposite your urges over a very long period of time but eventually it gets easier and more natural.

I’d say maybe start with making a rule where if you want to impulsively change therapists or quit therapy try journaling about it it may make the urge less intense

Thanks! Things are going pretty well! I’m doing good at using my coping skills. And I’m really enjoying music and art. (Violin, ukulele, and drawing) they bring me a lot of fulfillment. And my relationship is going really well. He inspires me to do better and makes me feel like I can have a future where I’m working and independent which is something people never encouraged me with due to my mental health.

Volunteering is going well too. I volunteer with the rescue cats every Tuesday from 10am to 12pm. It’s always a lot of fun, pure chaos but fun lol. There’s another volunteer there I work with and she’s really cool and fun too so it’s nice now that I’m not alone there.

I am going back to college in the fall (classes start at the end of August) so I’m finally going to be working towards finishing my associates degree which I started years ago but never finished.

It’s nice having Mocha here. I miss Maybelle so much still but it doesn’t feel as empty now. It was fine with just me and Mustachio but it feels better having two cats. That’s the perfect amount for me I think. It just feels better having two little kitties around the house. Feels more alive in here if that makes sense. They both are so sweet and make me so happy.

I changed the RAM on my laptop by myself! It's up to 16gb now from 12gb, I will install the other when I change my battery this weekend, I just wanted to check and make sure I installed it correctly before putting both sticks of ram in and I need to open it up to put the new battery in anyway soon so why not. Once this is done I'll have 32gb total of ram and a new battery by this weekend And all done myself

So my laptop is wayyyy faster with the 16gb ram now. Once it's up to 32gb with a new battery it'll be perfect. It won't run every game, especially more recent graphics intensive games because it needs a better graphics card but it can run tons of games. I got Skyrim, The Sims 4, tons of Lego games, Five Nights at Freddy's, Lucius, the first Witcher game, the 2nd Witcher game, and Minecraft downloaded and they play fine. Plus I tested my laptop to see if it can run other games I want to get eventually and it can run several of them. So I'm good. I also have my nintendo switch and Xbox One for the more graphic intense games so they can handle all the more recent games.

This is a 5 year old laptop but it's HP and in very good condition and is touchscreen. I can get a couple more years out of it, so I won't need to upgrade to an entirely new laptop for a couple years. It should get me through my associates degree which is mostly what I need it for.

When I upgrade I will go all out and get a awesome gaming laptop but that gives me a few years to save money. So this saves me a lot of money.