Swelltide.

My head feels a little strange today. Like, I've been on the verge of a migraine that hasn't come. Let's hope it stays that way.

Should be studying. A hundred things that I could be doing. Just don't feel like it. Final exams this week. I am oddly calm about it all, but will probably do what I normally do-- which is mostly nothing until the day before and then freak out because I am not prepared. The things I do to myself...

I am really looking forward to a new year. A fresh start. Getting somewhere. A short break coming up after finals. I can paint and write and read for fun! Only two weeks until the new semester, but so what? I am going to spend some time doing whatever it is that I want. Maybe try to pick up some hours at work. Maybe not.

Anyway, nothing new to report really. Just a lazy day.

Swelltide.

If only there were one more day in a weekend. I might go into Monday feeling a little more rested.

I have done nothing really all day. Watched Family Guy on DVD. Laundry. Took the dog out and walked around for a few minutes. That's it. And here it is, most of the day gone. Haven't done any of the things I have meant to.

Sparta

I still can’t sleep like a regular person…

I’ve been in a weird place recently.  I’m not manic or energetic, but I’m not entirely depressed either.  I just have no desire to do anything remotely productive.  I’m finally going to apply for a job where a few of my friends work.  I’m not excited but at least I’ll be making money and won’t feel like an entire waste of space.  That will probably help my mood at least.

My mood is a funny thing.  It is definitely responsive to external stimuli, and I know that, but I sometimes I don’t put any effort into finding those positive stimuli.  That makes me feel lazy, but I bet the bipolar has something to do with it.  I usually have to leave my comfort zone to improve my mood, which has been really hard to do recently.  Sometimes it doesn’t even involve leaving my comfort zone.  Getting to bed at a reasonable time is really important.  I know this, but I don’t do it.  There are some pretty important things I need to do right now too.  For instance, I need to start working on my application to law school.  I need to find a new psychiatrist because mine is leaving.  I also need to get new sleeping medication and schedule a visit with my therapist.

It is just such a fight to get myself to do all of these things.  The longer I put them off, the harder it is to do them.  I’m ashamed that I haven’t scheduled an appointment or gotten new meds.  Those are super easy to do, but now it’s hard to face the reception lady.  That’s so completely irrational that it borders on the comical.  Still, I can’t do it.  It’s an internal struggle between what I know I should do and what I want to do.  Right now, the good guy is losing, and I have so much trouble turning things around. 

My mind hasn’t been sharp lately either.  I haven’t done much to stimulate it recently.  I’m taking an online class to finish my degree, but I just need the credits and took a super easy class to get them.  Therefore it is not a challenge at all.  I really enjoy intellectually stimulating stuff too.  It’s just that I’m too lazy to do anything that will, so I slip further into the abyss.

I’m stuck in this vicious circle.  Fall behind on work or bills or obligations and my mood declines.  As my mood declines, it becomes harder and harder to do those things that I know I must do.  Ignoring that voice nagging me to get to work only exacerbates the downward trend and so on.

You’re probably thinking that I really am in the middle of a definitively depressed state and am just in denial.  You would be wrong though.  I can get out of bed and function.  I could go for a run or hang out with friends or read a book.  I just don’t have any motivation to.  I’d rather sit around and play videogames, sadly.  I hope that I’ll begin to change that tomorrow.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

And glad to join you Swelltide.

Cheers,

Sparta

Sparta

Greetings,

Swelltide asked for a companion to write along with him in his blog, and I told him that I’d give it a try.  It took me a while to get around to it though.  I finally have.  It’s partly due to my long-distance girlfriend visiting, but it’s also partly not.  I’m not exactly in the best shape currently.  We can get to that later though.

DISCLAIMER: This will probably be a bit lengthy, and you’ll know way more about me than you ever cared to know.  I also will occasionally use swear words or discuss/reference heavy subjects like suicide.  Apologies in advance.

A “QUICK” ASIDE

Suicide isn’t a good idea.  I know you hear the PSAs, etc. often, but if you’re even thinking about suicide then you need to seek help immediately.  That doesn’t mean that you need to seek help once you’re walking to the bridge.  If you are feeling down in the dumps and even have suicide cross your mind then you probably need to talk to someone, even a friend or relative.  Ideally you would go to a counselor, therapist, or other professional, but anything is better than sitting in a hospital gown in the psychiatric ward (not to mention being dead). 

There really isn’t any shame in reaching out before you even get to the point of suicidal thoughts.  There will be people who don’t understand and think that you’re just being dramatic or something like that.  Fuck them.  Most of those people wouldn’t have a different opinion after a suicide attempt.  They just won’t get it.  I don’t mean to say that they’re necessarily bad people.  They’re usually older and come from a time that had even less understanding of the brain and mental health than we do today.  Plus, you just can’t really see a mental health disorder, and someone who hasn’t experienced one may not understand.

END LECTURE

I think a brief introduction would probably be useful now.  I have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder for about three years now.  I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 about two years ago.  Prior to my mental health issues I had been a 3.8 student at a major university with no physical or mental ailments.  I got a cold or the flu every once in a while, but I was very healthy overall.  I then failed all of my classes in the first semester of my junior year.  I would shut myself in my room except for the bathroom and food for days.  Things were pretty bleak.  I had to call a friend in late November while holding a bottle of pills. 

That prompted me to get serious about finding professional help.  I was diagnosed with major depression and began therapy and medicine.  I still failed all but one of my classes during the second semester.  The hardest thing was just getting out of bed and going to class.  Writing papers was the second hardest thing.  That combination isn’t a recipe for success in college or really anywhere for that matter.

Nevertheless, I got a sweet job that summer and was having a great time.  I felt alive again.  I was around a lot of intellectual people, having fun, and doing my job well.  I was really thriving, but then on the last day we all went out to celebrate.  Something like six or eight hours later, I don’t really know for sure, some cops found me drunkenly stumbling down the street with my wrists bleeding.  I spent a few days in inpatient care and then a week in outpatient care, where they diagnosed me with bipolar 2.  Apparently, I had essentially been manic all summer, and that night it all came to a head.

My life has improved since then.  Medicines to treat bipolar disorder and therapy have helped immensely, and my amazing girlfriend, who stuck with me through the whole ordeal, helped even more.  I just graduated with a bachelor’s degree this May for instance.

By no means has it been a smooth ride though.  I can’t say that I haven’t ever had thoughts of suicide since that awful night.  I have lost touch with a lot of friends and have a much-diminished social life.  Keeping obligations, even important ones like therapy, has not been easy.  Paying bills on time is hard.  I can’t seem to handle everything in life at once, and that’s not even during the low points.

I’d say I’m somewhere in a down period right now.  I have to find a new psychiatrist because my current one will be leaving, and I have to contact her to get more sleeping meds.  Consequently, I have been staying awake until 6 or 7 in the morning and sleeping until 4 or 5 in the afternoon.  When I miss appointments with my therapist I usually can’t get myself to reschedule for a few weeks, and I missed an appointment almost a month ago.  So I haven’t seen him in a while.  I need to amend that.

Right now, I have been awake since 4:30 yesterday afternoon.  Videogames and TV have occupied most of my waking hours.  It really isn’t very ideal for a recent college graduate, seeing as I don’t have a job…

If you haven’t noticed already, I’m not the best writer.  I tend to ramble and have a mixture of formal and informal sentences.  Without frequent consultation of a thesaurus, I overuse certain words.  There is probably more that I don’t even notice.  And since I’m pointing out flaws, I have always been an extremely negative, critical person.  Especially toward myself.  (I’m also not going to always use complete sentences, proper grammar, nor proper structure.)  This negativity paralyzes me sometimes.

I want to help with Swelltide’s blog because, as he has pointed out, there isn’t a wealth of information for people with bipolar disorder.  More specifically, I haven’t found anything like this blog.  Message boards can be helpful, but they don’t have running commentary from someone.  You can read about other fucked up people’s problems and find some advice from other anonymous sources.  However, maybe this blog will help someone, and that makes it more that worth it.  Even if it doesn’t, it will still probably be therapeutic for me. 

So you’ll see posts from me now.  They’ll probably be more infrequent than Swelltide’s, but hopefully I’ll be helpful in adding a second perspective to bipolar disorder.  I will also try to keep my posts shorter than this one in the future too.  Congratulations on making it through my first one ever.

Cheers,

Sparta

Swelltide.

I am unmotivated today. Have put a loud of clothes in the wash and I'm now sitting in chair, watching television and thinking about doing something. Thinking about nothing, really.

I should be finishing up some work that I didn't get done on Friday-- that I ignored. I should be writing letters to the universities I won't be attending in the fall. To pay five-hundred dollars in application fees to four other schools when you have one school in mind, was stupid. Still haven't paid all of it off.

School. This fall. Gah. But, I have time to think and worry about it later.