Swelltide.

My prescription has lapsed, again. It has been a couple of days and I haven't had the ambition, the drive to get it filled. I am not even sure where the prescription actually is and my next psychiatry meeting isn't until next week. Therapy this week, I need to cancel because of circumstances at work.

I alternate between feeling invincible and being full of energy, to feeling like I can't do anything. The last couple of days, I've barely been able to get myself out of bed on time and show up to work when I am supposed to. It just doesn't seem important. Due in no small part, because of nights like tonight where it gets late and I'm not tired, or don't want to go to bed.

Work has been a bust for me the last few days. I drive the hour to work and find out that nothing is really going on. I am glad for the break, seeing as how last week I worked a jillion hours. I deserve it, somehow. Though I know that I should be working all that I can now as school is coming up and I could use the money.

What ever. Woe is me. I keep coming back to that, no matter how much I try. Try to focus on the positive. Try not to forget where I set something down. Try not to forget to put my reports through the system at the end of the day. Try to wake up on time. I always forget something, or forget to do something. It gets old. Having to make excuses, because I can't get out of bed on time or remember where something is.

On a lighter note, I was reading the Hobbit aloud to my girlfriend in bed. She fell asleep. It has been a while since we've done anything like this. Having our own place has been good for us both. I am afraid that when school starts, I am going to be so busy with work and my studies that I won't have time for things like this anymore. Spending time with her grounds me. It keeps me stable and focused. If it wasn't for her, I would probably be living out of my car and selling bootlegged movies to feed myself or something. She makes me sane.

Swelltide.

The disorganization of my job stresses me out. What a waste of a day that today was.

Everything could be so easy, and everything could go so smoothly if someone wanted them to. I am not really sure whose job such things is and I've been working at this same place for years. I understand that some things are out of my control and some things are better left alone. Pick your battles and all of that. Who would I be to to even mention any of this stuff at work. anyway? My life is a mess. I am one of the most disorganized people that I know.

I have still been irritable. Still been lethargic. Still feeling isolated.

I've been eating mostly junk. I haven't been sticking with a steady sleep schedule, as impractical as that is for me most of the time anyway. I haven't been getting much exercise. I am smoking too much. Add a little stress on top of it all, and my mood has not been surprising.

I must cancel or postpone therapy this week because of work. After missing the last week because my therapist was on vacation.

I have been thinking about seeking some kind of support from the university when I go this fall. Maybe going without therapy altogether and having meetings with a school therapist. I don't even know if it is realistic to expect that they have one. I don't want special treatment. But, it may be good for someone with the university know what is going on with me.

I'll be glad when the summer is over and I have started classes. When I stop anticipating, and things are really happening.

Swelltide.

What a battle.


I have not been sleeping well, which leaves me irritable, tired and grumpy for most of the day. Then comes the time for me to start thinking about going to bed, and I am not tired. I lay in bed thinking about stupid things that seem profound, large and important at the time. I toss and turn. I keep my girlfriend awake.


I have learned that my mood cycle is roughly two weeks. At the peek of those two weeks, I feel great and sleep without any problem. I am productive and sociable. You know the deal. For most of that time I am on my way down, or on my way up, or otherwise not feeling much like myself. I live for those for days where I am myself.


I guess this would be considered rapid cycling. Though, my periods of mania are not extreme. I have no delusions, though am more confident in myself than usual. I do talk faster, think faster. The classic bipolar symptoms.


A few days ago, at work, I came through the office upset. Frustrated. Talked about some things a little too honestly. My boss. Other people I work with. I sometimes have very little control over how I feel. Things just seem to spill over. I don't think any of these people consider me unstable, but they are cautious now. It is kind of a blessing. I get to tell people how things are and speak honestly. I get to vent and speak my mind. I am approached as a person, instead of being approached as an employee.


Well, that is where I am at. Not sleeping well. Tired. Irritable, but otherwise doing okay.

Swelltide.

Home. Quiet. She is at work and here I am, drinking cheap wine and watching Youtube videos. Clearing out the 5k emails I have.

I like quiet. Gives me the mental room I need to actually clear the air, focus on some things that I've been thinking about.

I like the implications of where life seems to be headed. I don't know if I am gong to like getting there so much. A lot of work. A lot of drive. A lot of focus. I need it all to get where I want to be. I really hope that I am up for it.

I know that everyone has heard bout the theater shooting in Colorado. It worries me. I got bored at work today in did some bipolar research on my cell phone.

My girlfriend said to me, not to long after my diagnosis of bipolar, that she didn't know if she could be with someone who acted on impulse alone and didn't have complete control of their actions. I reassured her. I have never been suicidal. I have never seriously given any thought to taking my own life, or anyone else's. But I have been someone else. I have had moments where I did really stupid things without thinking about them. It is a disturbing idea. That you are not yourself at times.

Deciding to kill strangers is obviously irrational. It screams mental-illness. Unbalance. A broken mind.

Like mine?

Swelltide.

My life is exceedingly lonely, at times. It is easy to feel like people don't care, or don't bother to show that they care. It is easy to feel like the only person on earth going through what I go through. It isn't true, I know, but it feels that way at times.

Here it is, after two in the morning and I am scanning Facebook, inevitably coming across people that I once considered close friends. I search for people that I haven't talked to in years. People that I have had a falling-out with. Everything seems so distant and permanent.

My girlfriend and I were sitting around, talking about my family. I speak now about them in the past-tense. I feel like an outsider everywhere. At work. Here, living so close to my parents. When I am around my siblings. Around 'friends'. I have never been one of those people who have this need or drive to fit in. I have never understood conformist thinking. Not that I have dyed my hair blue and pierced my nose or anything. I am not much of a nonconformist either.

It would be nice to have more than a just one or two close friends around me, that I knew intimately. It is so hard to have an honest conversation with people now. Especially men. And I work in an industry full of bravado and ego. Blegh. How do you make friends, as an adult?

Swelltide.

Therapy today. Kind of a review session. It's been ten visits, from the first session I've had. We talked about how some circumstances have changed. How I feel now compared to how I felt then.

Much better. Not perfect. Not 'healed'. Not euphoric, but better. I can think straight. I can see things closer to reality now. Much of my cognitive shifts have very little to do with my being bipolar, though maybe the medication helps more than I give it credit for.

I do miss the ups. I don't miss the ups and downs, and since I am not currently taking anything for depression alone, my feelings about life can't be attributed to a chemical state in my brain. I am still living with the depression. I still have trouble sleeping sometimes. I still have a hard time getting out of bed sometimes. I still deal with feeling numb occasionally. Despair, occasionally. This to me, is worth the alternative. Being a zombie. Feeling nothing. I get the ups-- much less frequent, and I get the downs, but thanks to therapy I've handled much of this a lot better.

My perspective has completely changed-- about everything. I am not dreading all of the upcoming school work (which is daunting, but not scary) and the relationship that I have with my family has improved somewhat. They may never know about my being bipolar. Even the stress of deciding whether they should know is gone. They may never know, and I don't need to tell them. I don't need much of anything.

Should my job accommodate my school schedule like they claim, then I am set. Time to study. I have the kind of job with plenty of down-time. It is perfect.

I have felt exceedingly level, lately. The calm before the storm, maybe. I will find out. There are so many positive changes coming up. I have oriented life where I want it to go, something I had made many excuses for not doing before.

I still don't know everything about bipolar. I still don't know what to expect in the long-term. I won't know. Bipolar is a different animal for everyone living with it. Which, can be frustrating for someone trying to learn about it. Trying to tame the animal. Some things, like all of the stress that I had carried around for so long, you just have to let go. You have to assume that some things are out of your control.

Swelltide.

Spilled a can of soda yesterday, and immediately extremely angry. I overreacted, clearly. Swore. Stomped around a bit, and proceeded to try to clean up the mess.

She says that I have 'ruin' everything. All of the quiet moments are corrupted by emotional outbursts. My irritability. My energy. I don't know what to do about that.