Monday 6/22/20 A New Direction

Well folks, today I embarked on a new adventure. One that I'm hoping will get me results in conquering my depression. I'm excited and nervous about it and for the first time in a long time I have real hope.

So what is this new adventure? Well, it's kind of like therapy . . . but completely different. It's a way of retraining my mind, of "shifting" my mindset from a depressive state to a more positive one. It's an intense 3 month program that focuses on letting go of the "coping mindset". The mastermind behind this is a gentleman named Ty Hicks. I happened to "like" a post of his on Instagram and he looked at my profile and messaged me, asking about my bipolar and depression. Now, I normally don't answer random messages but for some reason I responded to his. We messaged back and forth and he asked me for my phone number to discuss his program. I was a bit taken aback and, honestly, a little weirded out and suspicious, but I ultimately gave it to him.

He called, the next day I think, and we talked briefly about what he could do and we set up a time for him to talk at length with me and hubby. I felt very nervous and unsure. Was this guy for real? What the hell was going on? But, I decided to give a go because why the hell not? At worst it would be an hour and a half of my time gone. At best, well, maybe he could actually help me.

He called this past Saturday and spoke with me and hubby for almost 2 hours. He wanted my full history with mental illness, what I've tried, what worked, what didn't work, how do I feel about it, how does hubby feel about it. He was very thorough and, strangely, very calming and reassuring. I felt comfortable talking to him, baring my soul to a complete stranger. It was very surreal. At the end of it all, hubby and I decided to go for it.

I had my first coaching session with him today and it was intense. He gave me tons - like, a metric fuck ton - of information. I took pages of notes. And what he was saying was making sense. Which freaked me out a little bit. After talking I started going through the videos on the website - my homework. I have 5-7 hours of homework each week along with the coaching calls. It's an intense program.

So anyway, yeah. My new adventure. I'm excited and nervous and hopeful. The End.

Tuesday 10/1/19

So it's been a month since I last wrote (well, close enough), and I'm happy to say that my black cloud has dissipated. It's still there sometimes, when I'm by myself - or even in a group - lurking, waiting to take over. But, for the most part, it seems to be gone. And for this I'm grateful.

I went to my primary doc last week because I've been having joint pain. Let me be a little more specific: every joint except for my fingers and elbows have been hurting for the past 8 months and getting progressively worse over the last 2 months. And when I say hurting I mean H U R T I N G. Especially my hips and my wrists and thumbs. They ache. When I move I get sharp stabbing pain. I've also had random muscle soreness not congruent with working out. And we can't forget my headaches or fatigue (I actually went to my doc about 6 months ago because of the fatigue and he thought it was just my depression).

Well, now I have a diagnosis: Fibromyalgia.

Ugh. Yeah. Fibromyalgia. Joy. When he told me that my stomach dropped. Fibromyalgia is a chronic, lifelong illness that isn't very well understood or treated. Not necessarily the thing I want to hear. And it's weird, I immediately thought that I would have to reinvent myself. You know, as someone with both bipolar disorder and fibro.

But I don't really have to do that. I can still be me, just another version of me. One who's in pain from time to time. I don't know. I don't think that I've accepted that I have fibro. Maybe because I'm not as bad off as some other people are with it. I've been researching it like crazy and my symptoms certainly match those of fibro. If I'm in a flare right now - which my doc thinks I am - then it's tolerable. Will it always stay tolerable? Only time will tell. As of right now I've opted to go med free as I don't want to deal with more side effects (I deal with enough from my bipolar meds). I'm going to continue to research it and look for blogs to read. What I have started doing is taking more supplements. Glucosamine, collagen powder, turmeric, magnesium, and cinnamon. All have been touted to help fibromyalgia. We'll see.

So yeah. That's where I'm at. A new diagnosis that I don't want and haven't accepted. But I'll get there. Eventually.