In Memoriam
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Daily Archives: January 10, 2015
So Many Amazing Blogs….
After two looooong weeks without reading your blogs, I suffered the malady known as SBWS, a.k.a. sudden blog withdrawal syndrome. I returned to catching up with your lives this past week, and what a relief it was! I cared about … Continue reading
So Many Amazing Blogs….
After two looooong weeks without reading your blogs, I suffered the malady known as SBWS, a.k.a. sudden blog withdrawal syndrome. I returned to catching up with your lives this past week, and what a relief it was! I cared about … Continue reading
Calming Down. . .
Went back to my psychiatrist yesterday to see if I had come down from my manic episode. I told him I was feeling a lot better, but Bob pointed out that I had started “flitting”–moving from place to place and project and project in the house and suddenly leaving the house needing to get out. I acknowledged this, and my doctor said my Abilify dose was likely too high. So we cut it back to 15 milligrams a day to see if we could calm that behavior down.
Also talked to him about my upcoming procedure I may have to alleviate my periods–endometrial ablation. He said he was familiar with the procedure and had no reservations about my doing it. We asked about taking my morning meds since I was going to be put under, and he said taking them later in the day after the procedure should be fine. So that worry is out of the way. I have a pre-op visit scheduled the 20th and will likely have the surgery the next Tuesday. So that’s what I’m looking at down the road. Pray that it will have the desired effect of stopping all this bleeding I’m doing.
Posted in Read Along
reclaiming the bipolar weather catchphrase
So this is an article about the perils of winter in Montreal; I snipped bits out of it to turn it into something that fits the word bipolar a little more accurately. I didn’t add or alter anything. Personally, if I had to compare bipolar to an element of winter weather, I’d go with black ice – no matter how carefully you walk, there’s always a big risk of falling. (He didn’t bother fact checking that last line of his, did he?)
Josh Freed: Good luck navigating the bipolar vortex
We have obviously entered a strange new weather system that I call:
The bipolar vortex.
With rapidly shifting bipolar conditions, you must adroitly choose the correct walking style for every moment:
the ice slither walk. In this manoeuvre, you never actually lift your feet from the ground while walking — you plant one foot flatly on the icy pavement, then slither carefully onto the other.
the minefield tiptoe, where you delicately place one foot down to see if it’s safe, then tiptoe another baby step, crossing the sidewalk like a soldier in a minefield.
the snowbank step-and-test technique, where you prod a snowbank with your toe before putting your weight on it. Is it rock-hard and slippery — or does it collapse into slush, shooting nine inches of water into your boot?
Those who walk incorrectly wind up in emergency wards that have been overwhelmed with concussions, frostbite and fractures in the last week — victims of bipolar winter combat.
DRIVING is also tricky in the bipolar vortex.
But this weekend, relax — the bipolar vortex is stable and on lithium for three days.
The Collaborator
♥
As I was gleaning the other day, I found this little gem from Anne Lamott in an issue of AARP. It cracked me up, so thought I’d share.
♥
When I sit on my bed now, writing on my iPad, the top roll of tummy sometimes creeps over onto the screen and starts typing away. In the old days, upon noticing this unsought collaboration, I would have decided to start a new diet, or to end it all. Now I think, “Who knows? Maybe it’s got something interesting to add.”
Posted in Read Along
searches, side effects, sisters of mercy
“Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.”
“When I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back.”
From Andrea Gibson – The Madness Vase (spoken word) & you can find it as text here.
I have a youtube playlist with a fair few merry/morbid choons about bipolar on it. Link is on the film and music page of this blog.
Modest Mouse – Manic Depressive Named Laughing Boy
I’ve been on 200mg lamotrigine for about 4 days now – another bout of heartburn and upset stomach is welcoming me to what might be my regular dose. Judging by past dose increases, the side effects will vanish within a week or two. I might get the rash I’ve had a few times – strange constellations of very small red dots, that don’t itch or hurt. It’ll be good if lamotrigine works out; it gives me so little trouble compared to seroquel and lithium. It’s nice to be able to think cool, I hope this works, rather than something like oh hell, please make the puking stop.
Noisy: Queens of the Stone Age – Medication (Live in Detroit 2005)
Quiet: Modest Mouse – Medication
A recent search term in my blog stats: suicide note diaries bipolar. I’ve tried and failed suicide twice; I didn’t write notes. Just as well, since I’m alive. I can completely understand the fascination with suicide, but I refuse to glorify it; death is always a tragedy even when it isn’t. If you see what I mean.
Johnny Mandel – Suicide is Painless (Theme from M*A*S*H 1970)
The other search term that still keeps coming up is bipolar nun so I’m glad I wrote a post about it, even I still don’t have a clue what they’re actually looking for. And I guess there’s always Sister Maria Euthymia, purely for the lols.
Leonard Cohen – Sisters of Mercy (Live in London 2009)
(My life is riddled with sad songs that console me.)
Holy Batman in a blanket fort!
In The Middle of the Middle
I have no idea how I feel. I’m not sad, I’m not angry, I’m not happy, I’m not joy filled. I’m just in the middle of the middle.
Nothing happened today which is good, because if nothing happens, nothing bad happened.
I think I am a little frustrated and a little stressed because of the house.
I start the Lithium tonight, I am a little nervous but honestly I need to stop the spinning. Ok I am more than nervous I think I am terrified to try adding another medication in when honestly the last week has been pretty damned good.
New stuff always makes me fearful. I’ve been having a few more anxiety attacks lately then I was having before. I know it will pass and I have to just fight through it.
Fight, breathe, fight, breathe, fight…I can do it.
Follow the red light
I’ve been crying my eyes out this evening, missing my dad. A week before he died I brought a book to the nursing home to read to him. It was a book of essays by E.B. White. My favorite one is called Death of a Pig, and is, well, about the death of a pig that E. B. was raising. As I began I suddenly panicked, thinking here I am reading a rather gruesome story about death to a man who is very close to death himself. So I said, Dad, do you mind some black humor? It was an effort for him to speak at that point, but he gave me the best grin he could muster and said, “The blacker, the better!” So here’s a wonderful bit of black humor for you, Dad, full of awful puns that you would love.
A laser sight makes murder too easy.
You could be the worst sniper in the world
use the laser sight
& kill a whole lot of cats.
*
The JFK assassination would have played out a lot differently
if we elected cats to the presidency.
You’d watch the Zapurruder film
& after the first shot
John Furry Kittendy Jr.
would see the laser
& bat the back of the Texas Governpurr’s hat.
At the end
Jackie Meowcatsus
would still climb out the back
to get scraps of skull and brain,
but to eat them.
***
I promise I will never make another cat pun for the rest of my writing career.
E.I
Posted in Read Along
