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.
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
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?
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?
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
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.
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.
Monday, June 19, 2017
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.
Anyway, that's all I got right now, like I said - I'm boring and I haven't had motivation to write.
Monday, May 1, 2017
5/1/17
I don't have much to write about today, there's not much going on. Really. It's pretty boring.
Today is day 5 on metformin and day 4 on my new probiotic. These two things make me hopeful that I can lose some weight. I've been consistently working out and I feel good about that. I'm eating better and avoiding all of the yummy snacks in the break room at work (go me! They're my weakness). I colored my hair today so it's a little bit darker. Not much, but a little.
My mood has been stable. I've had "normal" changes in mood (as opposed to more extreme bipolar mood swings), so I call that a win. Hopefully my stability will last longer than 4 months (my current record).
That's really all for today. I don't feel like writing.
Today is day 5 on metformin and day 4 on my new probiotic. These two things make me hopeful that I can lose some weight. I've been consistently working out and I feel good about that. I'm eating better and avoiding all of the yummy snacks in the break room at work (go me! They're my weakness). I colored my hair today so it's a little bit darker. Not much, but a little.
My mood has been stable. I've had "normal" changes in mood (as opposed to more extreme bipolar mood swings), so I call that a win. Hopefully my stability will last longer than 4 months (my current record).
That's really all for today. I don't feel like writing.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
4/26/17
Well I had my appointments today, one with my therapist and one with my psychiatrist. They both went well.
I went into therapy wanting to talk about my apparent inability to accept my diagnosis of bipolar disorder. And we talked about this, and how I can accept it when I'm not in a mood episode but once I am in an episode, BOOM! I no longer can accept I'm bipolar. Everything becomes unfair, I can't possibly do this again, etc, etc. We discussed ways I can try to work my way around this, even though this thinking will surface most likely with every episode I go through (that's just the nature of depression).
We also talked about things I want to change and what I can do to change them, and the good things in my life. All of this was to remind me that I'm more than my illness, a fact that I often forget (especially with my most recent depressive episode).
Then came my appointment with Dr. M, for which I was nervous. We started by talking about my ECT, and how I'm doing with every 4 weeks and I told him about my recent depression. He seemed a little exasperated and told me that my case of bipolar is on of the most difficult and stubborn cases he's treated. He said it's obvious that we can only manage my episodes and try to keep them to a minimum but I will never be symptom free. I'll also probably never be free of ECT. Oh well. I then asked him about metformin for weight loss. I explained that over the last 10 months I've gained 50 pounds thanks to my meds and have been exercising and eating well and can't seem to lose any. Surprisingly he looked it up real quick, agreed that it might prove beneficial and wrote me a prescription. I was surprised by that, honestly. I figured he'd be a no go on the metformin but he was all for it. Fingers crossed it works!
Mood wise I've been pretty okay today, even, stable. And that's good! I was that way yesterday too. Hopefully this will continue, that would be awesome.
I went into therapy wanting to talk about my apparent inability to accept my diagnosis of bipolar disorder. And we talked about this, and how I can accept it when I'm not in a mood episode but once I am in an episode, BOOM! I no longer can accept I'm bipolar. Everything becomes unfair, I can't possibly do this again, etc, etc. We discussed ways I can try to work my way around this, even though this thinking will surface most likely with every episode I go through (that's just the nature of depression).
We also talked about things I want to change and what I can do to change them, and the good things in my life. All of this was to remind me that I'm more than my illness, a fact that I often forget (especially with my most recent depressive episode).
Then came my appointment with Dr. M, for which I was nervous. We started by talking about my ECT, and how I'm doing with every 4 weeks and I told him about my recent depression. He seemed a little exasperated and told me that my case of bipolar is on of the most difficult and stubborn cases he's treated. He said it's obvious that we can only manage my episodes and try to keep them to a minimum but I will never be symptom free. I'll also probably never be free of ECT. Oh well. I then asked him about metformin for weight loss. I explained that over the last 10 months I've gained 50 pounds thanks to my meds and have been exercising and eating well and can't seem to lose any. Surprisingly he looked it up real quick, agreed that it might prove beneficial and wrote me a prescription. I was surprised by that, honestly. I figured he'd be a no go on the metformin but he was all for it. Fingers crossed it works!
Mood wise I've been pretty okay today, even, stable. And that's good! I was that way yesterday too. Hopefully this will continue, that would be awesome.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
4/25/17
I'm a bit stuck right now. I'm a bit stuck on something so fundamentally stupid that I should really have no problem getting over it. But here I am, stuck. What is it, you ask? Here, let me tell you.
I have bipolar disorder. A progressive, life long disorder characterized by extreme lows and highs of mood. I've had symptoms of it for probably 25 years but was only diagnosed 6 years ago. I've been on 23 different meds, have done CBT, DBT, group therapy, equine therapy, Al-Anon, meditation, acupuncture, ECT, and God knows what else to help manage it. And that's the thing - you manage it. That's it. There'e no cure. Currently I'm on 3 medications and do ECT once a month to manage my bipolar. But here's the catch - I can go into a mood episode at any time, for any reason. Or for no reason. It just happens. Despite my meds and ECT and exercising and eating healthy and vitamins and and and . . . And that's really fucking annoying. I'm doing everything right and I'm still battling my bipolar. But the thing is, I know this. That's just the nature of bipolar disorder. And I fucking know this.
But I'm not accepting it. At least I haven't been and I think that's part of my problem. I think I would do better in my depressions if I could accept this fact and move forward. I'm having a hard time with that though. See, the meds and the ECT help to keep me stable. And when I have a mood episode, they help to keep it hopefully not as intense and not as long lasting. I come out of my mood episode and I'm stable again. Until the next episode happens then we manage it, I get through it, and I move on again. This is how it works. This is how it will always work because that's just how bipolar is. And again, I know this. I'm just having a hard time accepting it. I see both my therapist and my psychiatrist tomorrow and I'm going to bring this up with both of them. I think having it reinforced by them will be helpful.
I hope.
I have bipolar disorder. A progressive, life long disorder characterized by extreme lows and highs of mood. I've had symptoms of it for probably 25 years but was only diagnosed 6 years ago. I've been on 23 different meds, have done CBT, DBT, group therapy, equine therapy, Al-Anon, meditation, acupuncture, ECT, and God knows what else to help manage it. And that's the thing - you manage it. That's it. There'e no cure. Currently I'm on 3 medications and do ECT once a month to manage my bipolar. But here's the catch - I can go into a mood episode at any time, for any reason. Or for no reason. It just happens. Despite my meds and ECT and exercising and eating healthy and vitamins and and and . . . And that's really fucking annoying. I'm doing everything right and I'm still battling my bipolar. But the thing is, I know this. That's just the nature of bipolar disorder. And I fucking know this.
But I'm not accepting it. At least I haven't been and I think that's part of my problem. I think I would do better in my depressions if I could accept this fact and move forward. I'm having a hard time with that though. See, the meds and the ECT help to keep me stable. And when I have a mood episode, they help to keep it hopefully not as intense and not as long lasting. I come out of my mood episode and I'm stable again. Until the next episode happens then we manage it, I get through it, and I move on again. This is how it works. This is how it will always work because that's just how bipolar is. And again, I know this. I'm just having a hard time accepting it. I see both my therapist and my psychiatrist tomorrow and I'm going to bring this up with both of them. I think having it reinforced by them will be helpful.
I hope.
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