mental illness

  • Distress Tolerance

    Distress Tolerance

    I expect to be able to approve the final draft in the next day or two. The publisher is waiting on it. I am digging deep into the IOP/DBT skills for distress tolerance. I have stressors on all sides. My mother, my house, my Sacred Heart job and all its constant triggers. Being a federal…

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  • Disciplining my Anxiety?

    Now I have to have the discipline to structure and occupy the time I have to myself. By myself. I’ve struggled with this in the past – it’s why I thrived in a military environment and why I work almost every night – I like to have a structure. I respond well to that. It’s…

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  • My Mind on My Time Off

    My Mind on My Time Off

    Today I get my new living room light fixture installed. My coworker has a lot of experience with stuff like this so he’s doing it for me. Ceila invited me to her bonfire/barbecue tonight. The weather is unusually warm for the pacific northwest. As I type that, the weather just took a turn toward rain…

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  • Visions

    Visions

    I have terrible visions. Not just flashbacks, though that’s part of it. They play in my head like a movie, vivid and painful. I also see things. I can see the future, my future. I can see flashes of police and more imprisonment in hospitals. Subjecting me to weird experiments and injections. I am rather…

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  • Flat Grey

    Flat Grey

    The publisher just let me know I’ll receive the whole book, edits and formatting and corrections complete, for my final review. It includes the cover design by my friend Mike, and the acknowledgment and dedication. I’m amazed it’s happening. Makes me motivated to keep writing, I suppose. I’m absolutely flat as a pancake. I have…

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  • Just a Taste

    Just a Taste

    I forced myself to engage in the DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) skill: building positive experiences – and got up early to go to a comedy show with Ceila. I’m hammered with triggers at work. Currently my formerly catatonic patient is back in restraints for violence, and I have a patient almost identical to me in…

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  • Bipolar Balance?

    Bipolar Balance?

    They say you can control your mind, your emotions, your thoughts and how we respond to the things that happen to us. What a crock of shit. I have always felt like a prisoner of my own mind. During a manic phase, I am certain of my superiority and special knowledge known only to me.…

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  • Blank Nothing

    Blank Nothing

    Jesus Christ the flashbacks…I am lost in my head so often. Stuck in memories, stuck in the past. The juxtaposition of bipolar with PTSD is painful and aggravating and weird. A doctor found that this PTSD profoundly affects my life. Pile on a manic or depressive episode and I’m suddenly dealing with intrusive thoughts and…

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  • Bipolar Book Cover

    Bipolar Book Cover

    I have been slacking off on the book – the publisher sends me edited and proofread chunks and I’m supposed to go over it, changing names, making corrections, etc. I have simply been really busy at work, and I need my own laptop to do it. I’m determined to do it this weekend though, while…

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  • I’ve been working on my acknowledgment and dedication for my book. I am dedicating it to Ceila, Shelly, Mike, Dr Black and all the other psych patients of the world. The acknowledgement is for those who made it possible. Also, my closest friends, who stuck around after I fucked up so much and became unbearable.…

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