I AM...

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates. ~Thomas Szasz

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I'm not doing so well lately. But I'm also doing just fine. I can't seem to keep a grip on any type of reality...how I feel, what I want, who I am...I was pondering that very subject when I came across the quote above. I like it. It makes me feel a little less unsure about my identity. I guess if I don't have all the answers to 'who am I?' it's okay, because I'm still in the making process. I've been worried because my psyche can't seem to settle on how it feels about life and all its aspects. One day I am exstatic and opptomistic about my life and where it can go, but the next I feel like I'm mulling around in an empty void.

I'm reading another book by Richard Paul Evans called 'A Perfect Day'. To be completely honest I really haven't enjoyed it very much, which is saying something because I'm crazy about the rest of his books. But there was something he said in it I found profound. The main character, Robert, just lost his job instead of getting the promotion he was planning on.

"...I've heard it said that the most humble of days is when a man compares what he might have been to who he really is. It is the day when life hands you a looking glass and all you can do is stare at your own reflection and scream."

I know exactly how he feels. "But Jenna...you're eighteen. Life's only beginning." Sure, sure. But right now I have more power to influence the direction of my life then I probably ever will.

I've also been feeling angry and bitter. Irritable. I HATE those feelings when they are so strong, especially when they aren't logical. I don't want to be a witch, I don't want to give way to bitterness or my life will suck. Negativity has become too powerful in my mind and I need to figure out how to battle it more effectively. Bitterness also causes me to become more judgemental...which I DESPISE. I have no right to judge anyone for anything and should be able to show more patience and love then I often do...but it's so hard when I'm consumed by those emotions I don't feel like myself, but then, I am myself...so are those emotions just part of who I am now? The mist is much too thick and the lines much too thin. I need understanding. I need knowledge. I need peace.

A New Perspective

"I am a part of all that I have met."

~Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tonight I was walking in the kitchen after finishing a chapter of "The Last Promise", a book I began reading this morning. I was reminiscing on how much I'm influenced by outside sources...they shape and change my perspective on life constantly. For a moment I felt a vulnerability I've never noticed about myself before. Who am I? What makes me who I am? How much of me is simply made up of everything and everyone around me? It felt like I was standing on a meri-go-round or an escalator, moving slowly, but moving. Unsteady. Like I suddenly realized I wasn't on solid ground.

I hope this doesn't mean I'm ridiculously gullible.

Tired Happiness Muscle

"If life was easy, it wouldn't be hard." -Sheri Dew


Sometimes I get too tired to be happy. It feels like happiness is a dance, but unfornately I'm human and can't dance for very long without losing stamina. Eventully I have to take a water break, sit down, chill. You can't dance 24/7. Heck you can't REALLY dance for 12/7 unless your an olympic athelete. Why can't happiness be the medium of emotion? It wears on you after a while when you are constanting working to hold up a bright face. No, it isn't always this way, there are times when I feel glorious just being alive. These frustrations have come as of late, and I rather despise it. My negative down-hill trails are too worn and it seems my mind is easily convinced to follow them. I.e....I'm bored...there is a whole world out there how am I letting myself be bored...why aren't I more initiative...I'm already entering a new stage of life and I'm not where I want to be...I am unsatisfied with my accomplishments...why am I whinning....why aren't I happy....this is stupid...I'm selfish....this is lame...I hate feeling this way....bleeeeeeehhhhhhhh

Wow enough of that. It is strange I am hesitant to write that thought train here because I'm afriad of what it shows about me as a person...I'm not perfect! What! Lol. I need some serious help. Maybe I should've gone to the shrink last week afterall...I kind of flaked 0ut on him. In fact I don't think I've apolojized for not showing up. Whoops. I really should be sleeping but I really don't want to. I am so negative why won't I grow up. There I go again...

This is worthless. What am I even doing.

I just want to feel good again. I mean, I feel good, but not content. Not happy. Except when I'm with people, I love people. I was definitely not made to be a hermit, because I hate being lonely. Life is splendid when I'm surrounded by the wonderful facinating people around me. Life is bleak when I'm alone. I am driving myself out of my mind! Shouldn't I be the one person I can always like?

This poor post is deteriorating in quality, if it ever had any to begin with.

I'm done complaining now. I'm going to go to sleep and wait anxiously for the sun to wake up so I can meditate under it's warmth. I love the sun. I think I've been indoors too much this summer. Vitamin D is dropping to low levels. Yay I can't wait for daylight!! Flowers! Porch swings! Trees! Barefeet in the grass!

So another half of me keeps feeling bubbley and excited for things in the future. Or from happy memories in the past. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I keep swinging back and forth, this is ridiculous.

I feel sorry for whoever has to put up with me these days.

Thought Pathway

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. . . To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives." ---Thoreau

Is my horse feeling stable in your stable?

The only kind of 'stable' in my vocabulary is the kind people keep horses in.

Okay that isn't completely accurate, but when it comes to my internal self, stable doesn't enter the discription box. "Well duh, Jen, you have bipolar. You're suppose to be unstable." Yeah I know. I guess eighteen years of living with that fact isn't enough time to get use to it. Don't get me wrong...instability isn't ALL bad. I love spontinuity and my adaptabilty to new situations. It's nice in a way to not be predictable. Sometimes things that make everyone else sad or miffed don't phase me. On the flip side, sometimes ridiculous things, that doesn't bother anyone else, upset me greatly. This concept has been rather odd to me, as I don't hear a lot of bipolar-discussion specifially targeting it. I have my normal range of emotions (or at least ones I think are normal) that roll me through day to day life. When I'm abonormally low or high, I feel like my emotional-reactions are broken. Something exciting will happen, but I don't care. Something tragic will happen, but I won't feel sympathetic. Something that usually just cheers me up will send me to cloud nine.

Well those are my thoughts for now. Life is good. The mist is clearing and I have a lot in my future to be excited for. Yes, I still worry about falling off the bike, but I'm looking at the sky and road ahead instead of the pavement.

Metaphore

While taking a shower this morning I suddenly realized I felt good. I even had energy (and still do). It is a wonderful feeling! I hit a low for a few days and I wasn't sure how long it was going to last, and believe me when I say, four days was too long. I went through the extreme of nearly all the negative emotions I can think of, and felt like tearing out hair every other second. I am imensely grateful to be leaving the deep end so quickly, as I've had periods just as bad that have dragged on for weeks. Oh, and I was feeling SO tired all the time, which, if you know anything about me, doesn't work with my lifestyle. Being utterly drained for no reason really wears on me after a few days. I felt lazy and worthless, but couldn't work up to drive to push myself any harder.

So now I feel good. But I sit on that word like a scarred child sits on a bike again after a bad fall. The thrill of finally pedeling along down the road is dampened by the constant worry I will lose balance once again and hit hard pavement.

That's a good metaphore...I just came up with that. Hm. Then mania could be compared to losing grip on the breaks, or them giving out completely. Those moments can be the highlights of my life, or the regrets. They either make me bubbly happy and invincible, or fill me with a thousand time bombs that will blow at the drop of a hat. I really hate those. I really hate feeling angry. I really hate the irritable anger that bites anyone who comes near me unawares. I don't remember being a particularly angry child. Restless, yes. Demanding, definitey. But not angry. Maybe my memory is just faulty.

Sigh. Okay. I think writing this blog is healthy therepy for me. I feel better now. Excited, even. Now I can actually start moving forward with my life. I was really hoping the depression wasn't from going off Lamictal, and I don't think it was. The only perscription drug I'm on right now is Vyvanse, which was originally to target my ADD, my has been the most successful pill I've tried. (And I have quite the list.) I can't think of a way to describe how it works with my brain, besides saying it 'pulls me together'. Gets me focused enough to start my days. Keep me from unwinding into a mess every afternoon. I drive much safer when I'm on it as well, which is reason enough to use it. It keeps my psyche forward enough to concentrate on everything in my external world. It doesn't solve everything, not by a long shot, but it gives me more confidence.

I think that is all for now. Off I go....need to work on saving the world. ;)

I WILL reach the dead end...

Oh my dear complicated life...why must you be so confusing?? It still boggles my mind...or perhaps it's my mind boggling the rest of me...how one day I feel on top of the world; restless and full of aspirations, searching for the next challenge or adventure. Then the next day...or even the next moment...I feel like digging a cave and sitting in it and throwing glass bottles at the wall until dooms day.

Lately I've been having some pretty psyched out cycles, and I'm not sure if it's all part of one big cycle I'll be in for the next six months, or if my mind is just trying to balance itself out again without Lamictal, and failing miserably. That's the kicker to mental illnesses, isn't it? The uncertainty. The lack of definition in dividing lines. %90 of the answers are grey. Are these medications making the difference? Do I need them? Am I really bipolar? Is this feeling me or my illness? Do I really love this person, or did they happen to pop into my life when I was manic? Is this normal?



I'm finding one of my big triggers for depression is boredom. This makes things difficult though because if I'm already feeling down, it's fifty times harder to get myself to do things. My favorite jobs have been ones where I always have something to think about, something to learn, someone to take care of. I thrive on variety and feel the happiest when my life is productive and full of new, exciting, challenges. The probelm comes when these things require consistency. I'm HORRIBLE at consistency. I get so discouraged with myself because I drop goals so fast, simply because I can't keep up a set, every day routine. I have to realize I'm not a complete failure because of this (although it sure feels like it a lot). Because if I do think that then my thoughts just get progresively more negative, downward spiral of doom. It's so hard to stop my mind once it gets spinning fast. I don't think anyone can understand the feeling of true, utter hopelessness depression brings unless they've experienced it first hand. It makes everything bleak. It takes a bright future and strangles it until you look forward and only see the same sadness and dreary mental state you are in then. It is SO incredibly hard to get through. It's like trying to convince yourself to keep walking down a tunnel you know is a dead end. Somewhere, somehow, in the back of your mind you know it will be more then a dead end, but your whole body knows it is a dead end. Doesn't make sense? Exactly.

The End of Lamictal

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

-Will Rogers

So about two-ish weeks ago I completely dropped off of Lamictal. Cold turkey. And yes, I know that is the last thing you're ever suppose to do with any medication, but I was finished. I did the research...I thought seriously about it...I wasn't jumping off blind. Originally I was going to cut the pills into 1/4th and wean myself off slowly, but then I just ran out and decided not to get another bottle.

Newsflash...I'm alive!! No horrible side effects or withdrawels, just some fatigue. Honestly, nothing ever happened to even make me worry. Now I wouldn't suggest this for everyone of course, because a lot of people have had horrible withdrawels, I just wasn't one of them.

The main reason I dropped off this drug is because I didn't feel it was worth taking. I don't want to be on anything that I, as in me and not my doctor, am not abosolutely confident I need. Lamictal was good, I noticed some small improvements, but only small ones. It didn't even touch some of my bigger symptoms that I actually wanted help with. I also want to work with easing my disorder in every natural way I can first (i.e. nutrition, vitamins, sleep, exercise, etc.) before adding the drugs. I think modern medicine is a wonderful blessing and am by no means against it, but I also think that taking care of myself as a normal human being should will help imencely. I've also found great peace in certain meditation techniques, and have found them just as useful, sometimes more then, talk therepy sessions.

The road is still really rough right now, but I'm learning. I'd love to hear other's experiences with Lamictal or alternative medicine techniques.

Where is the 'me' in Bipolar?

This is the first of what will hopefully be a lovely collection of personal insights from my life, with my ever present partner-in-crime, bipolar disorder. Even as I begin the first paragraph there are a million thoughts running through my mind of things I want to share, ask, vent, etc. Hopefuly posting to this blog ends up being one of my rare consistant habbits. I am also hopeful that other people with bipolar find me, add imput, get advice...or just let me know they exist. Makes the hard times easier, knowing you're not alone.



The topic running through my mind lately...the old me. Whoever said 'Ignorance is bliss' must of had some mental disorder pasted to their head. Have you ever looked at an old picture of yourself, a happy one, and wondered where that genuine and well-known smile ran off too? Ever ached to have that same kind of happiness again? Sometimes I feel it creeping back in, a small sliver of light breaking through the black. Once in a while I even get a huge flash of lighting that lasts a few, magnificent moments. Oh wait they have a name for that...mania, right?

That reminds me of another question asked by millions...where am I in the mania? The depression? The middle moments? Which parts do I proudly get to classify as %100 ME, without any tints of my disorder seeping through? Would I have reached some of my successes, that came in the 'lightning flash' moments, had I been born with all chemicals in balance?

Well I suppose wondering won't do me any good, seeing as there isn't a miracle one-size-fits-all drug to completely smooth out the wrinkles in my brain. So, I keep on keeping on and try to add all the snaz to life I can to keep me sane. I seem to be a hard one to entertain, though I partially blame that on my second partner-in-crime, ADD. I know, aren't I just a lovely wreck? Who would want to go through their whole life completly normal anyway? Booooooring.

Well, please, if you happen to stumble upon my ponderings, drop me a line and say hello. It will encourage me to keep writing as well as keep reading the accounts of others.