Bothering Me

I have a feeling this post is going to be random and all over the place and not make much sense and you can thank my ECT for that as it's taken away my ability to write eloquently. No, I'm serious. I've been doing ECT for 2 years now and since I started my ability to write has slowly dwindled. I had a different blog where I wrote about my bipolar and my writing was magical at times. It was moving and gripping and drew you in. I wrote poetry. Writing came naturally to me. Now I struggle to write a few sentences about my day. The words get jumbled up in my head until I can hardly make sense of them. They come out all wrong and out of order sometimes. I misuse metaphors and symbolism (or at best I use them poorly). I struggle through each blog post, knowing that they are dry and boring.

Why does this matter? Because I want to write a book. I want to write a book of how it really is to have bipolar disorder. I want it to be witty and funny and heartwarming and real. I want to bring humor into even the shittiest of times. I want people to laugh and cry and learn something about bipolar disorder. And I feel that now, with my inability to write, I'm not going to be able to do this.

To top all of this off, the ECT has taken away my memories. Not all of them - but a lot of them. There's so much my hubby brings up that I just can't remember. My childhood, my son's childhood . . . gone. I forget how to get places - places I've to hundreds of times. I'm trying to learn Spanish - I'm not retaining any of it. Studying for my BLS re-certification - nope. It doesn't stick. Memory loss is a side effect of ECT, I just didn't expect it to hit me so hard. And most likely this memory loss is permanent because I've been doing ECT for so long (and my psychiatrist doesn't see me stopping anytime soon . . . or ever).

All of this is very frustrating. I guess that's it. It's taken me over 30 minutes to write this.  

6/27/17

I've had an okay day today. I've actually had a pretty decent week. There's been nothing exciting, nothing note worthy . . . but I've been doing okay. We joined a new gym. The Y (I get a discount through my hospital - half off monthly dues). Yesterday I met with a personal trainer for an evaluation. She asked me all sorts of questions about working out and eating habits, etc, and did a body composition analysis. I found out I'm 46% fat. Ugh. How horrible is that?! She then did a mini workout with me and showed me different equipment and gave me ideas for future workouts. Then I did a workout after. Go me!

Today I was able to get up early and go to the gym and do a decent workout (which is unlike me - I've been slacking off big time lately). I was pretty proud of that. Did some artwork today (I've been slacking off big time with that, too), and even got reading done and a short nap. Not too bad.

The past couple of days I haven't felt as flat or withdrawn. I've felt more . . . human. I'm hoping this keeps up. Wouldn't that be nice?

6/20/17

I've been doing this thing where I'm not depressed but I'm not really happy either. It's like, low level depression or something. Where I feel withdrawn, unmotivated, flat, and standoff-ish. There's a definite difference between this and depression. But there's also a definite difference between this and feeling good.

See, the days where I'm feeling good are few and far between. And I notice the difference. I even think to myself, "hey, I'm feeling good today!" My mood is effortless, I get more accomplished, I have motivation to do things. I interact more with people and I don't have to think about it. I wish I could feel like this every day

But what I've noticed, since I haven't been in full blown depression, is this grayness around me. It consumes me and follows me and makes everything difficult. Remember now - I'm not depressed. It's just this . . . fog that's everywhere. I wake up in the morning and I know I need to get up to workout. But I have no motivation so I lay in bed for up to another hour. I finally get up and get changed but I sit on the floor and stare at my shoes for 20 minutes before putting them on and finally working out. If I'm at home I don't do much - I have no motivation, I don't care, what does it matter anyway? If I'm at work I have to force interactions with coworkers as it's my natural inclination to hide and avoid and ignore. I feel a little down, I'm flat, withdrawn, and often snippy. I just don't feel good. I'm okay, I guess. I can function and get through my day, but not much brings me joy or makes me feel happy. I lie and pretend so others don't know. I also often find myself questioning life and its meaning - you know, why should I draw or paint? I'm just going to die anyway. (not a fun line of thinking).

I talked with my psychiatrist about this and he said that it's just part of bipolar disorder and that hopefully I'd come out of it - but that there was a chance that this is my new normal. That this is how I feel when I'm stable. How fucking shitty is that? Because this is draining. This is tiring. And it is not okay to not be okay.

I don't know what to do with this other than continue to push on. Continue to be stubborn and make my was as best I can. It really royally sucks though.

6/19/17

I've done very poorly at posting every week (my last post was the beginning of May). Oh well, I guess. My life has been rather boring, nothing exciting going on. I'm stable, so that's good. I went into an irritable hypomanic state for about a week when I was put on a medication for acne (I got off that med ASAP). That was not fun. At all. My hubby was calling me "she-hulk". Denver Comic Con is coming up in a little less than 2 weeks and that will be awesome!

Anyway, that's all I got right now, like I said - I'm boring and I haven't had motivation to write.