Daily Archives: January 18, 2016

Book Plug- “Redemption of Shadows”

cathy's book

If you like “Phantom of the Opera” or just a good old-fashioned romance, try this book! It is the first full length book written by my good friend, Cathy. It’s available here on Amazon. Give it a read and a review and let me know how you liked it.

It’s pretty exciting stuff to publish your first novel. If this is happening for you, let me know and possibly I can feature your book.

 

Bipolar Disorder Statistics Infographic

Bipolar Disorder Stats Infographic


Same Shit, Different Day

I am living in the movie Groundhog Day.  Every day is the same.  This fucking winter is never going to end.  Get up, drink coffee, sit in front of therapy light for an hour, wonder what in the fuck I am going to do for the rest of the day . . . it’s GREAT!  How did I ever live with responsibilities?  A job?  I’m not for sure but I think I *may* have the winter doldrums.  Why write?  What IS there to write?  I get up.  I take medicine.  I go through the motions.  I pee  I poop.  Woo!  This is LIVING!!  I’d say I need another trip to Florida for a temporary lifting of the SAD symptoms, but the re-entry into winter last time was so harsh, I don’t know if I can take it again!  Underlying everything is the fear of ending up in the mental hospital.  Yes, that same mental hospital where I kind of burned up my bridges with gasoline and a cigarette.  See, the last time I went for maintenance ECT, they kept me waiting for more than an hour, and I flew into a rage, called my ride, started to leave, they came out to get me as I was leaving, and I cussed them the fuck out.  It was only appropriate!  Don’t keep me waiting for an hour!!  I was more mad for my Mom, who was going to pick me up, and would be waiting an extra hour.  I can just see me showing up in the hospital, and them saying “Hey, let’s shock the shit out of you again!” and me showing up in the ECT room where I bitched them out, and being forced to have treatment.  And eat shit for being such an asshole.  All my fears.  So this is why I get up, and take my medicine, and go through the motions every day.  Why I sit in front of my therapy light an hour in the morning and an hour at night.  Why I exercise every day.  I just want to stay out of the mental hospital!  I wish I could say I had loftier goals, but this is what I’m living for right now.  Just to stay sane and non-suicidal.  It’s a tightrope I walk that’s balanced by daily actions that I take, whether I want to or not, even if I’m sick to death of going to that fucking health club, I get in there and move.  I sit in front of that fucking light and try to entertain myself.  No, I haven’t tried masturbating while sitting in front of the light.  Thanks for the idea.  Just saying “entertain myself” gave me the idea.  I hardly even have the desire to entertain myself!  Ok well . . . one day at a time, one workout at a time, one pill at a time, I will get through this fucking winter.  Sing it with me now “I will survive!  Hay-HAY!”


Filed under: Bipolar, Bipolar Exercise, Psychology Shmyshmology Tagged: Bipolar, Bipolar Seasonal Affective Disorder, Hope, Mental Illness, Psychology, Reader

Monday Weirdness

Life getting to be “same old same old”?

Get yourself a cup/glass of your favorite drinkable, maybe a nosh, and dive down this astonishing Russian animated rabbit-hole.

Have fun😆


Holiday

SO the kids are out of school today, and we are waiting on my mom and dad and niece to come down for a visit.  They will likely go watch the latest Chipmunks movie and I will go to my therapy appointment.    Hopefully at the same time so I don’t have to go to the movie with them.  Have I mentioned before how much I hate movies?

I’ve stayed awake so far, so I count that as a good thing.  My anxiety is still at bay. so that is good. I just hope it stays under control.  That is going to be the focus of my therapy today is how to keep it at bay.  SO we will see how it goes.

 


Because things are never simple…

I spent my entire first trimester expecting to miscarry.

I knew I was at high risk, given my history, and my autoimmune disease. And the fact that I had numerous episodes of spotting didn’t help to quell my fears.

The time that wasn’t spent worrying about miscarriage was spent dealing with dreadful morning sickness. At first I welcomed the nausea and vomiting, thinking “hey, this is great! It means my hormone levels are nice and high and the baby is healthy!”. So jolly I was not, however, by the time I was being prescribed Zofran and being admitted to hospital for rehydration.

Then for some reason my bladder decided to go on holiday, leaving me hospitalised with a catheter. That was a particularly “what the dickens”couple  of days, I can tell you.

And then there were the infections, and the allergic reactions to the antibiotics I took for said infections.

But you know, I got through it. Every scan showed a beautiful healthy baby, despite whatever the hell my body was doing. Eventually the morning sickness eased. I had the all important 12 week scan and was deemed low risk for any nasty pasties. And we told Master D. We told our families and friends. We told  the world.

Then a week later I woke up and quickly realised I was soaked in blood.

A lot of blood.

By the time we got to the hospital I was hysterical. I couldn’t believe it was happening. In my second trimester. Days after a perfect scan. After the risk for miscarriage was supposedly wildly reduced. After we had told EVERYONE.

Then the doctor switched on the ultrasound machine…one very active bouncing baby, and a healthy placenta.

Another “what the dickens?!” moment.

It turned out I had a blood clot in a place that was of no threat to the baby. The fact that I was on heavy duty blood  thinners at the time did not help matters. I stayed in hospital for about four days, took medication to try and stop the bleeding and put on bedrest. I may also need a cervical stitch put in (oh, yay) depending on the results of the next few scans.

So now I am back home again, and struggling emotionally.

I know there was nothing I did that caused this. That it is just a freak thing that could happen to anyone. But this all happened just as I let my guard down and trusted in my body, and my ability to carry a pregnancy. How can I possibly let my guard down again? How can I trust that everything will be ok, when me being admitted to hospital (for one reason or another) is like a broken record?

I’m taking each  day at a time, and I’m grateful every moment of every day for the beautiful little human that, against the odds, continues to thrive.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish things could be simpler.

 

 

 

 


Because things are never simple…

I spent my entire first trimester expecting to miscarry.

I knew I was at high risk, given my history, and my autoimmune disease. And the fact that I had numerous episodes of spotting didn’t help to quell my fears.

The time that wasn’t spent worrying about miscarriage was spent dealing with dreadful morning sickness. At first I welcomed the nausea and vomiting, thinking “hey, this is great! It means my hormone levels are nice and high and the baby is healthy!”. So jolly I was not, however, by the time I was being prescribed Zofran and being admitted to hospital for rehydration.

Then for some reason my bladder decided to go on holiday, leaving me hospitalised with a catheter. That was a particularly “what the dickens”couple  of days, I can tell you.

And then there were the infections, and the allergic reactions to the antibiotics I took for said infections.

But you know, I got through it. Every scan showed a beautiful healthy baby, despite whatever the hell my body was doing. Eventually the morning sickness eased. I had the all important 12 week scan and was deemed low risk for any nasty pasties. And we told Master D. We told our families and friends. We told  the world.

Then a week later I woke up and quickly realised I was soaked in blood.

A lot of blood.

By the time we got to the hospital I was hysterical. I couldn’t believe it was happening. In my second trimester. Days after a perfect scan. After the risk for miscarriage was supposedly wildly reduced. After we had told EVERYONE.

Then the doctor switched on the ultrasound machine…one very active bouncing baby, and a healthy placenta.

Another “what the dickens?!” moment.

It turned out I had a blood clot in a place that was of no threat to the baby. The fact that I was on heavy duty blood  thinners at the time did not help matters. I stayed in hospital for about four days, took medication to try and stop the bleeding and put on bedrest. I may also need a cervical stitch put in (oh, yay) depending on the results of the next few scans.

So now I am back home again, and struggling emotionally.

I know there was nothing I did that caused this. That it is just a freak thing that could happen to anyone. But this all happened just as I let my guard down and trusted in my body, and my ability to carry a pregnancy. How can I possibly let my guard down again? How can I trust that everything will be ok, when me being admitted to hospital (for one reason or another) is like a broken record?

I’m taking each  day at a time, and I’m grateful every moment of every day for the beautiful little human that, against the odds, continues to thrive.

But sometimes, just sometimes, I wish things could be simpler.

 

 

 

 


Learning Spanish

I studied French in middle and high schools. Then once I got to college, I switched to studying Spanish. The result was that I knew neither language well. For instance, I would know a word in one language but not the other.

Case in point: I studied abroad the summer before my senior year of college in Spain, Morocco, Egypt, and Italy. While in Spain, some of my friends and I went to a local grocery store to buy sandwich meat, cheese, and bread. All I could think was "fromage." Fromage is cheese. But in French! For the life of me I could not remember the word "queso." And everybody knows queso is cheese, even people who haven't studied Spanish.

Well, when I was hospitalized in 2013, I was highly manic. Somehow I became fluent in Spanish. The Spanish that I learned in college combined with working one-on-one for a few days with my Spanish-speaking roommate worked a miracle. A symptom of mania is pressured speech (aka talking really fast), combine my pressured speech with the Spanish and I sounded like a native. One of the hospital techs thought I was Latina!

However, once the mania subsided so too did my Spanish-speaking ability. Three years later and I'm doing something to reclaim my lost fluency. In November, I enrolled in a 10-week beginner course that I found a $79 Groupon for. (Yay for Groupon!) The class meets in Manhattan once per week for 90 minutes. I'm nearly done with the course. I take the exam this Tuesday to see how much I mastered from Level 1. But I know I'll pass. I feel pretty confident about the basics of Spanish. So I already went ahead and registered for Level 2, for another 10-week course. It starts next week.

Yo quiero hablar espanol. I want to speak Spanish.

Give me time, and I will be fluent again.

Learning Spanish

I studied French in middle and high schools. Then once I got to college, I switched to studying Spanish. The result was that I knew neither language well. For instance, I would know a word in one language but not the other.

Case in point: I studied abroad the summer before my senior year of college in Spain, Morocco, Egypt, and Italy. While in Spain, some of my friends and I went to a local grocery store to buy sandwich meat, cheese, and bread. All I could think was "fromage." Fromage is cheese. But in French! For the life of me I could not remember the word "queso." And everybody knows queso is cheese, even people who haven't studied Spanish.

Well, when I was hospitalized in 2013, I was highly manic. Somehow I became fluent in Spanish. The Spanish that I learned in college combined with working one-on-one for a few days with my Spanish-speaking roommate worked a miracle. A symptom of mania is pressured speech (aka talking really fast), combine my pressured speech with the Spanish and I sounded like a native. One of the hospital techs thought I was Latina!

However, once the mania subsided so too did my Spanish-speaking ability. Three years later and I'm doing something to reclaim my lost fluency. In November, I enrolled in a 10-week beginner course that I found a $79 Groupon for. (Yay for Groupon!) The class meets in Manhattan once per week for 90 minutes. I'm nearly done with the course. I take the exam this Tuesday to see how much I mastered from Level 1. But I know I'll pass. I feel pretty confident about the basics of Spanish. So I already went ahead and registered for Level 2, for another 10-week course. It starts next week.

Yo quiero hablar espanol. I want to speak Spanish.

Give me time, and I will be fluent again.

Another new year dawns

Are you still feeling the residue of the stress and scramble of the holiday season? Or are you in a reflective mood about the year just gone? Perhaps you have […]