Post Tagged with: "MentalHealthJourney"

The thing that frustrates me to no end with bipolar disorder

The thing that frustrates me to no end with bipolar disorder is never being able to trust good feelings. Because it might be mania. And it might even be mixed with depression. And it might even be cycling rapidly. Or it’s just a good feeling. A normal, everyday good feeling. The kind everyone enjoys. Without worries. I rarely feel big excitement because its interlaced with fear of mania. Mania of all forms, especially hypomania, or hypomania mixed with depression, presents big challenges in my life. Often in gift wrapped glitter bombs. The glitter finds its way into everything. The universe brought me this chart today. It is helping me recognize some hypomanic things that I have not been paying attention to. It’s helping me understand my recent behaviors, make adjustments to my path of travel, and to repair what needs repair. It also means that the good feelings weren’t real. […]

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Acceptance. And Uncertainty.

Psychological acceptance means embracing thoughts, emotions, and inner experiences without judgment and without trying to change them. In an Internal Family Systems session today, I got a heavy dose of reality. So much of what bothers me comes from my denial, my judgments, my black-and-white thinking, and my constant attempts to change things I don’t like. I have protector parts that guard me from facing these unwanted things. Instead of listening to them or building a relationship, I’ve been denying their existence or blaming them for my struggles. On Monday, I finally accepted something hard: healing my childhood trauma is my responsibility. My anger toward my parents wasn’t helping me heal, it was keeping me stuck. I chose to accept their role in raising me, to stop judging them, and to stop trying to change the past. I can’t rewrite history. I can only accept it, focus on the present, […]

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Tonight I’m grateful for my Vitamix.

A week ago I started a new medication. The first couple of days felt off, strange in my body, though my mind stayed steady. Then I went up to higher elevation, and the heaviness got worse. At the time, I blamed the thinner air. But it wasn’t just the altitude. It was a deep physical fatigue, a weight that made even simple things—cooking, showering, brushing my teeth, take more out of me than they should. Today I learned this is actually a known part of the process. These startup side effects are common, and they return with each increase. I’ve got three more dose increases ahead before I even reach the minimum therapeutic level. Somehow I missed that detail in all my research, and I’ll be honest that realization hit hard. So tonight, when hunger came, cooking wasn’t an option. Even going out felt impossible. I leaned on what I […]

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