The following excerpts are from Chapter 5 of the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous and are my favorite part of the book. I relate to them today as much as I did ten years ago when I first got sober: Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever […]
The post Perfectionism Increases Suicide Risk appeared first on Insights From A Bipolar Bear.
Posted in Read Along
The following excerpts are from Chapter 5 of the “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous and are my favorite part of the book. I relate to them today as much as I did ten years ago when I first got sober: Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever […]
The post Perfectionism Increases Suicide Risk appeared first on Insights From A Bipolar Bear.
Posted in Read Along
It seems I have been confusing what is Primary- and Secondary care and have got them the wrong way round.
So far I have been meeting with a PRIMARY care nurse – the 3rd (and apparently final) meeting was this morning. Now that SECONDARY care have given me an appointment for assessment and, hopefully, expedited diagnosis, I cannot meet with the nurse I’ve been speaking with over the past months. You can’t be on the books of both levels of care.
I now have no contact with the Mental Health team until my Secondary care appointment at the end of November.
This morning we discussed ‘magical thinking’, which I somehow hadn’t heard of before. It’s what I do, habitually, it seems. I admitted that I believe the many ‘coincidences’ that happen in my day to day life aren’t such at all but are manufactured by me. How else would such coincidences occur? Most of them are very narrow and virtually impossible. Sorry, ‘impossible’.
I also admitted that I’m not entirely certain all THIS is real; I fancy that I might be in a coma or psychiatric ward somewhere (or even dead) imagining all of this existence and creating it all. Solipsism. Or, magical thinking.
Having spent 4 meetings telling the nurse all my symptoms (for want of a better word) I will now have to go through all that again in 7 weeks time at the Secondary care assessment appointment.
The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess. William F. Allman
Yesterday, the whole day, there was screaming in my head. It was me doing it and I couldn’t make it stop. It finally stopped on its own at around 19h00 and the peace and relief were truly exquisite. I smiled for about half an hour.
Before, when I had mixed episodes and didn’t know what they were (oh you know, most of my 44 years on earth), I assumed they were character flaws. The world reinforced that view and people close to me sometimes tried to help both themselves and me by not taking my shit. Amazingly, the simple addition of a diagnosis is actually helping me deal with the previously terrifying mood shifts.
Mind you, I drive people bananas even when I’m stable, because, well, I’m only talkative and lively when I’m somewhere on the mania spectrum. Otherwise I am quiet and frankly reclusive.
My head is sore, everything tastes bad. I’m all over the place. Definitely less nausea since dropping lithium to 1000mg, still can’t eat. But I did manage to harness some manic energy to go to town and then walk the dogs on the beach. Win. Yesterday I kept wanting to write and I felt my brain shut down and despair kick in every time. Fucking bipolar fucking disorder. And can’t someone do something about the taste lithium makes? It’s so vile there isn’t even a word for it.
I’m starting to wonder if my baseline is depression.
I have no idea whether my perceptions are off, but I feel like I’m trying to express stuff irl and just not getting through. I’ve got to stop grieving the fact that there’s nobody in my life who will educate themselves about bipolar and hold my hand a bit, and work out how to accept it and just get on with stuff. The same can be said for many things in my life this year. Stop grieving, start accepting.
Well, acknowledging it is the first step, amirite?
I read a blog entry yesterday, where someone used the word misgivings as soon as she found out her bf was bipolar. And I mean, that’s fine as long as she would use the same word if he had children or cancer … but I bet she bloody wouldn’t.
Here’s an outstanding quote in the you don’t know what it’s like genre. Take it away, KRJ …
Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re “not at all like yourself but will be soon,” but you know you won’t.”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
I was thinking about how humanity maps stuff and I figured I might be able to find myself somewhat.
Looking at the roller coaster of change as the discovery of the bipolar coaster, I guess I’m at the focused study phase.
That one is Kubler-Ross’ 5 stages of grief, adapted for mental neurobiological disorders. And looks what’s right at the bottom – blahs. That’s where I am.
And the original stages of grief … well, I can apply that to a lot, including three deaths last year.
As for where I am on that … all over the damn thing like a ping pong ball. So I looked a little more to find a more accurate map …
I have no motivation, yet I want to do a million things at once. Once I accomplish something I feel like it is shit.
For example my very first try at a manga drawing wasn’t horrible. I just think it was a big piece of shit.
I havent showered in a week. Tonight was my first one and it is only because tomorrow I am going to the doctor to get a mole checked on my back instead of going to therapy.
I wish I hadn’t of cancelled my appt with the therapist but I’ve already had precancerous moles removed and hubby does a mole check every month. He found a couple new one and is concerned about one. I trust him. It may be nothing but if it is I’d rather another giant scar on my back then death.
I’m stressed out which honestly with everything going on is not surprising. Adding one more thing to the mix just makes things interesting in my head. It’s batshit crazy in there right now.
I’m trying to find the positive, but it is lower on the horizon then it has been the past few days. I feel like I am sinking.
Posted in Read Along
Button button, who's got the button? You do now - why not put it on your website to show your affiliation with, or love of The Bipolar Blogger Network?
