"The Fence"

Since I last made an entry there has been no change with my Bipolar Disorder.  I have been depressed and having periodic moments of hypomania that last can last anywhere from five minutes up to an entire day.  I've found that while walking, coloring, listening to meditations, and music can have a positive effect on my hypomania what has helped me most lately is by not letting myself be in a situation where I feel like I need to have an opinion about something.  To do this I basically have to stay indoors and away from other people as much as I can which I feel alright in doing.  There are going to be those times which I need to go out and times I need to be around other people but I need to be aware at all times of what I'm getting myself in to.  Well, this past weekend I was blind sided when the drama came to me and I had to deal with more than I could handle.

First off, I live with my Mother in the same house I grew up in and also have the same neighbors as I did as a child.  I'm forty-two years old and that's a long time to be around the same people.  Because of this I've always felt very comfortable with my neighbors, being around them, talking to them, and I thought they all felt that way as well.  Well, I learned differently this past Saturday when my next door neighbor, in the middle of January, had a six foot fence put down the lot line between her and my Mom's house.  She didn't have fencing put across the back of her yard to connect with her neighbor just a tall fence on our lot line.  I can still walk around the fence and into her yard and walk through her back lot line which has some overgrown hedges.  

She had called my Mom the night before and told her she was thinking about having the yard fenced.  She told my Mom she didn't like people cutting through our backyard into hers to get from one street to the next.  Last September my neighbor was talking to my Mom and told her that all the leaves from our trees and in our yard always blow into her yard.  She's mentioned this too my Mom on several occasions.  Well, I take care of my Mom's yard and mow an average of two times a week during the fall season.  This year all of our leaves were up and done for two weeks before my neighbor's lawn service came to suck hers up.  I keep a good watch on the leaves in the fall and mulch or pick them up if they look out of control which means I end up outside sometimes three times a week.  I should also mention that we only have two big trees in our backyard and that my neighbor has four.  I should also mention that my neighbor uses a walker and doesn't go in her backyard at all.  Even before she started using a walker she probably hadn't been in her yard in twenty years. 

Anyway, this whole fence thing has had me really upset.  It looks like a spite fence to me and all the other neighbors think so as well.  I've looked up the rules set forth by the township we live in and there's no rule saying she can't put a fence on the lot line.  She also doesn't need a permit to do so.  I have looked and looked everywhere for some sort of loophole but I just keep coming up at a dead end.  I have thought about all the meanest things I could do or say to her and I just keep hitting a dead end.  The whole thing has me nuts and the anxiety of it is triggering hypomania for me.

As a result of the constant hypomania I'm having I've come to a conclusion.  I'm going to just let it go as hard as that may be and live with it.  I'm not going to do or say anything about it to my neighbor.  What that means is that I'm going to go about my business and do what I do.  She put that barrier up between us and I don't have to acknowledge her. 

"End Of Week Update"

Since I last wrote an entry my overall mood has been below what I would consider normal with bursts of anger, hypersexual thoughts, racing thoughts, thoughts of death, and times where I say inappropriate things. It's been like this for me since around the beginning of November and the bursts of mania can hit me at anytime and last for any amount of time. Sometimes I think I know when hypomania or mania is going to hit me but it usually hits me like a flip of a light switch. Because of this I have to try and be on my toes at all times to be able to cope with whatever my way. The last couple of weeks I have been listening to a lot of music, listening to meditations, coloring, and walking. Some of these activities work better than others but it's all trial and error and I'm always thinking about new things I can do to cope with the symptoms of my Bipolar Disorder.

"Wish I Didn't Have To Take Insulin"

Today has been an average January day.  It's cold and depressing out which is how I feel.  I wish I could wake up tomorrow and and it was May but we all know that's not possible.  My mood today has been irritable but I haven't been angry.  Probably part of that is due to the fact that I haven't been around anyone but myself.  Have you ever heard of anyone that got irritated with themselves?  I may be that person.  I know the reason I've been irritable today and it's because of having to inject myself with insulin.  I only have to inject once a day which isn't so bad but today it burned when I injected myself.  I cleaned the insulin vile and injection site with alcohol and was very careful as usual.  I later read that if the skin at the injection site isn't completely dry it can cause a burn when injecting.  I thought my skin was dry but I couldn't tell you for sure.  I just know that tomorrow I will make sure injection site is dry.  Now I'm going to bed and hopefully tomorrow is a better day.

"Still Feeling Down"

It's been a number of days since my last post and I still feel down and depressed.  It's hard to get out of bed and even sleeping is depressing.  My mood is still up and down.  One minute I can be alright and the next I snap and get very angry saying the meanest things I can think of.  As usual my family thinks that I'm funny and will laugh which makes it worse for me.  The sad part is that I would be laughing too if I was one of them watching me.  I'm sure I'm pretty entertaining to everyone.  In addition to my mood swings I've also been having a lot of racing thoughts which I think trigger my moods.  Here is a list of what I might be thinking about in a span of about five minutes.

• Did I take my last pills this morning?
• How am I going to lose 160 pounds?
• Will I need to take insulin until I die?
• What's going to happen to me if Mom dies?
• Why can't my family understand what Bipolar Disorder does to a person?
• I just want to have sex with the first person I come in contact with!
• My neighbor across the street takes advantage of everybody and they keep doing for her.
• My sister and her husband keep getting handouts and I can't catch a break when it comes to money.
• I haven't had a car for close to a year and wonder how I'm going to get one.
• I need to find a job.
• Who's going to hire an overweight man in his 40's who hasn't worked in four years.
• My Mom's car needs a wax job.
• There's things around Mom's house that need to be replaced such as the water heater, roof, and windows.

I could add more to the list but I will leave it at this.  There's probably some people that will say I have issues with worrying about other people.  My answer to them will be that they're right.  Since being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder I've rid my life of a lot toxic things that were hurting me and now that I'm seeing things clearer I've become a very bitter person which is something I'm working on changing.  All the bitterness does is cause you to covet things that aren't yours and be jealous. 

Finally, I'm going to continue to work through my Bipolar Disorder by trying to control it.  By controlling it I mean taking my medications on time and practicing coping strategies when I have a trigger.  It's all basically trial and error and but it's all I got right now.

"Another Gloomy Day"

Today has been much like all the other days I've had the last two months or so.  They've been full of depression, anxiety, anger, thoughts about death, hopelessness, grandiose thoughts, and my favorite which is hypersexuality.  It's just been since after Christmas that I've noticed the depression growing which I attribute to the let down of the holidays being over.  I'm able to get around and do what I need to do but I'm having a hard time moving.  

Today we got a little bit of snow and just looking at it made me feel crippled like I couldn't do anything.  When the weather gets snowy and really cold I just can't do anything.  Walking, driving, or doing any kind of task that involves concentration on my part is just so hard.  As a result I end up putting things off I need to do and stuff just piles up.  Nobody in my family can understand or will try to understand what it feels like to walk in my shoes for one day.  They just look at me like I'm some kind of nut that's unapproachable.  Every winter  I go through an episode like this that usually lasts until late spring and the last couple of years I've been trying to keep myself on track by keeping daily schedules, doing deep breathing, meditating, walking, and coloring.  Everything I've done has helped to some degree but I'm having an episode and I'm just going to have to ride it out as much as it pains me.

"New Year Same Old Problems"

2015 is here and nothing has changed but the the date which is the case every year.  I get myself all psyched up for the new year and once it gets here there's a big let down the next day.  I'm sure many people experience the same sort of let down that I am.  It's the kind of let down where all this hype which has been built up for months centered around lights, food, family, traditions, religion, music, and who could forget presents which all just go away.  It can be a big shock to a person's mental well being and I'm convinced that the new year leads to a lot of depression or worsening of depression. 

Well, so far in the new year I've been compliant with insulin injections and taking all my pills.  The only problem I'm having with my medications is that my psychiatrist put me on Topamax at the beginning of December to help with withdrawal effects of coming off Klonopin and I feel like I have bugs crawling all over me.  The sensation is so horrible that I can't sleep.  I will be seeing him next week and hopefully I can take something different.  My insulin is working as my sugar has come quite a bit but still has a way to go.  I see my primary care doctor next week and would assume he'll be tweaking my insulin dosage.  As I learn more I will post it online.

Finally, my mood has been pretty much in the dumps lately.  I feel like I'm on both sides of the bipolar scale.  One side of me is constantly thinking about sex, watching pornography, extreme anger, and having all kinds of grandiose thoughts which are racing most of the time.  The other side of me is depressed, easily cries, wants to do nothing but sleep when I can stop itching, and mad.  My level of anxiety seems to be about the same on both sides which makes it hard to drive sometimes, be around people, or noise in general.

I JUST DON'T KNOW WHY IT'S SO HARD TO GET ME STABILIZED....IT'S GOING ON TWO YEARS!!!!

"Happy New Year"

I just want to take a quick moment and wish anyone that may read this blog a Happy New Year.  May all your dreams and wishes come true.  I don't have any big resolutions for the new year because it seems like every time I do that it blows up in my face and I end up failing.  This year I'm going to concentrate on my health and let the chips of life fall wherever they fall.  Again Happy New Year!