bipolar

  • Two Weeks In

    Two weeks complete of grad school. This morning I was nearly in tears, overwhelmed at all of it. Overwhelmed at my home life and the misery of my mother and stressed by increasing demands from a totally online Master of Public Health program. I’m trying to roll with it, enjoy it. I was very good…

    Read more →

  • I’m trying so hard to psych myself up. To get excited at the prospect of using my brain. Of not letting it go to rot. Of doing something that isn’t being a glorified chambermaid. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. I did a lot of therapy and so much thinking over the job I…

    Read more →

  • This Time is Different

    What a painful night. For some reason, nightmares during the day. At work I’m exhausted and surrounded by screaming patients, patients in restraints, staff who need too much from me, and haunted by memories. I’ve tried to focus on work, to distract, anything. The memories come unbidden, untriggered, and then they are exacerbated by that…

    Read more →

  • DBT Maintenance

    DBT Maintenance

    A lot of firsts this week. A first week at work back at my house. A first night back at Sacred Heart with a new commute. I drove by the mental hospital as there is no avoiding it and forced myself not to look. Every time, I have to force myself not to look. It’s…

    Read more →

  • Emotional Labor

    Emotional Labor

    Slowly and methodically, I’m going through my small house and clearing a lot of things out, and cleaning a lot. My mother is not as clean as she thinks she is so it’s been a whole spring cleaning style endeavor. I enjoy it, I can meditate while I do chores and look after the seven…

    Read more →

  • Environmental Context

    Mental health, or lack of it, always occurs in concert with the environment. They are intertwined. It’s difficult to be well adjusted if the environment is negative or unhealthy. There are certainly worse times in which to have lived, and worse places to live, but it feels like normal life hangs by a thread. Democracy…

    Read more →

  • Just Existing

    Just Existing

    Sometimes I am just floating, going through the motions, not sad or depressed or manic or anything. I exist in a state of melancholy. I use work to cope. I’m working 9 days this week, and I realize 9 days is more than a week but that’s just what it is. If I didn’t have…

    Read more →

  • One More Week

    One More Week

    T-minus one week and I’m moving. Well, mostly. The move date is the 19th. I have to call movers in the morning. My brain is a frantic mess of preparation. I keep imagining problems where there may be none. I think of scenarios that haven’t happened, when it comes to living with my mother, and…

    Read more →

  • Adaptation

    Adaptation

    I have kept crazy busy to avoid the anxiety, but the stress of a lot to do with the mental preparation of living with my mother again has my heart beating fast sometimes. I got a carload over there. Started taking stuff over, whatever can fit in my car. Going through the last of my…

    Read more →

  • Untitled post 2168

    Every time I drive to work, I have to drive by the mental hospital. In the beginning, this was a major trigger for me and required I sit for a minute and let the panic dissipate before heading in. So many flashbacks and so much anxiety. Now I drive by and try to reframe it…

    Read more →