4am and I’m going to clean the bathroom!

4am and I’m still wide awake. Sitting in front of me is a list of 40 things that I must get done before we leave. I have enough energy to start doing these things…..but I have sleeping children and I do not want to wake them up. So, it’ll have to wait.

I sit here waiting for the first child to wake up for the day so I can get started on what needs to be finished for this move. The problem with all of this lies in the fact that once I get too tired, I get irritable and agitated easily. I’m tired, but my mind won’t shut up about all the things I need to get done. I want to be doing them NOW! not later….

I have all the kids clothes sorted for the trip and packed. I cleaned up the entire kitchen (we’ve been using paper and plastic) and I’d start cleaning the fridge, but there’s no room in our outside garbage cans until the garbage man comes in the morning. I wish he’d come at 5am like most garbage people, but no, ours shows up sometime around 10am or 11am.

All the other work I have to do is in the bedrooms where the kids are asleep. Somehow I managed to sneak into the girl’s bedroom, gather up all the clothes and sneak out without waking a soul. Thank God! The boy’s room has nothing in it, so that room is completely done. I could go clean the bathroom, but there is a sleeping child on the floor next to her Daddy and I don’t want to disturb her. I could shut the door and then no one would hear anything….hmm….that’s a thought and another task checked off of my list, which leaves more time for other things to get done.

I decided sometime around 2am that we needed a diaper bag. We don’t have one and it’ll be easier to pack all of Emmie’s toys, snacks, juice, an extra sippy cup, a change of clothes, diapers and wipes into one bag rather than having to take 2 or 3. Then M&M would only need two bags herself. One for her formula, bottles and water and the other for toys, diapers and wipes. We’ll be riding in separate cars, Emmie with me and M&M with Hubs.

Well….I guess I’ll go clean up the bathroom and then try to get some sleep. The kids start to get up sometime around 7am……Hubs will go to Wal-Mart in the morning for the diaper bag, formula and zip lock bags for me to put all mine and Gitty’s medications in and then I’ll get started on getting the rest of everything boxed up for the trip! Thank God my Dad has a camper!

Until tomorrow….

Becca ♥

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Bipolar Moments! Uh??

Bipolar is a big deal and unfortunately one of two things has happened since Bipolar has been widely recognized over the last few years. Either everyone has it or wants to have it, like it’s some new fad or something. Or it’s the worse illness in the world and people with Bipolar should be avoided because they are a bomb waiting to explode. Both of these scenarios are exaggerations of what having Bipolar really is.

First off…if you had it, you wouldn’t want to have it. You also do not have what some people like to call, “Bipolar Moments” and having someone shrug you off after you openly admit that you suffer with Bipolar Disorder and say something like, “Oh, Bipolar? That’s no biggie!” If they knew, they would NOT be saying that kind of stuff! It’s ignorant and condescending.

I have a few people in my life who like to throw phrases like this around. I have also met a few people who have apparently been dx’d with Bipolar, people I have known my entire life and when I ask which pdoc they see and what kind of meds they are on they always say, “I dunno.” This is because they don’t have bipolar, they haven’t been diagnosed and they want some label that defines them as the people they are. In plain truth, most are just looking for an excuse so they can continue to act like the asses they are. Those of us that suffer with Bipolar Disorder, actually suffer from it. We know about our illnesses, we talk to our doctors’, we learn about the disorder, we learn about the medications, we ask questions and we learn how to cope. We don’t make excuses…..

It’s scary really, because anyone who has lived a Bipolar life would not want to be living it. For most of us, it’s always an uphill battle and the downside of that hill is just as steep and you fall just as fast as you climbed it. It’s not fun, it’s not easy. It does destroy lives, marriages, families, jobs, careers, relationships. It can land you in jail or it can be used against you that you could be institutionalized for the remainder of your life.

As for those of us with Bipolar being time-bombs, that isn’t really the truth either. People who suffer with Bipolar Disorder or some other type of mental illness are more likely to be the victims of a crime then to actually be the one doing the crime. We are not violent and we are not just waiting for someone to push our piss off buttons so we have an excuse to hit you. It just doesn’t work that way……

Speaking only for myself….there have been many times over the past 12 months that someone has pushed me a little too far. Un-medicated me would have lashed out in ways that would have made those people’s heads spin. Medicated me, stable me knows my limits and knows when it’s time to walk away and honestly, that’s how I think most of us with Bipolar are.

In all seriousness though…..Bipolar is a very serious illness. It is not something to be joked about or thrown around by people who think it’s something fun. It’s debilitating and as mentioned above, it can destroy your life. If you think it’s cool to walk around telling people you are Bipolar, then maybe you should start getting involved and actually do something to understand what the illness is really about!

Until next time….

Becca♥

Controlling Anxiety – Part 2

If you missed Part 1 you can catch it Here!

There have been many times I have found myself face to face with a situation I can’t control. One example is what I’m going to be faced with very soon. My anxiety is through the roof over the thought of living with my Dad and my brother. I’m used to living alone, I’m used to not having to worry about stepping on others’ toes, I’m used to allowing my kids to play and be kids, I’m used to independence and being on my own…..

There is not one aspect of this that I can change nor can I control. I have no choice but to face this and face it head on. instinctively I want to run and hide. I don’t want to deal with it. I keep finding ways around it or finding ways that maybe I don’t have to stay with my brother.

(I want to add here it’s not because I don’t love my brother, or he’s mean or my Dad’s mean. It’s just after years of being on my own, coping with an illness as I have, this is going to feel like torture.)

If you go back and re-read what I wrote there….I’ve already set myself up for failure. Telling myself that the entire situation is going to “feel” like something negative sets my anxiety running. Because if I expect it to be a certain way, then most likely it will be and it won’t be because of anything anyone is doing, even if it seems that way at the time.

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Anxiety is brought on by many different triggers, but that anxiety can get worse and deepen if we continue to think negatively about a particular situation. One anxiety thought can lead to a million anxiety thoughts if we allow our thinking process to continue to snowball. It’s up to us to stop the negativity in its tracks!

If we can think about the positives that the situation could provide for us, we have won half the battle. If we replace the negative thoughts with good thoughts, positive thoughts, then another part of that battle has been won. Having a plan in place for when you feel an anxiety attack coming on…..now you’ve won the battle.

What helps me is to keep a journal of the anxiety provoking thought. Below it I write out how that negative thought is a distortion of reality. I also write out possible positive outcomes. Throughout this process….I only do not let my thoughts continually drift to the negatives of the situation. I say to myself, “Nope! I haven’t crossed that bridge yet!” And I keep on journaling. If by the time I’ve written out how I’m feeling about an upcoming situation I still feel anxiety….then I keep journaling. Usually if I re-read what I’ve written about, I can see that my thinking is distorted. That the outcome is not set within the here and now, nor is it a proper perception of the situation at hand.

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Anxiety attacks only come on for me when I find myself in a situation I was unable to prepare for. When I feel one coming on, I have to do A LOT of self-talk. I have to continually work the problem out in my head and try to trick my brain into viewing things in a positive manner. When I feel my breathing starting to get shallow, I take deep breaths, the ones that fill your stomach and your shoulders and then I let them out, sometimes I even sigh a little to release some of the tension. I stretch my neck a little while I’m breathing and start focusing on something positive.

It doesn’t always work and sometimes I find myself having to excuse myself from a situation, lock myself in the bathroom, throw some cold water on my face and breath deeply in private. I used to get embarrassed over this, but not anymore. Because when it comes down to it, if that’s what I need to regroup…..then it’s better for my health to step away, do what makes me feel more comfortable, assess the situation and come up with a plan to go back out and battle it again.

*Medication is not a cure for anxiety. It can make it easier for you to manage and therefore use the coping skills you’ve learned, but it will not take away the anxiety you are feeling. Medication is only part of the battle.*

Until next time…

Becca♥

Embracing Your Illness

When I was first diagnosed back in May of 2011, I ran from my disorder. I saw it as a curse and I cursed God above for plaguing me with such a severe illness. I fought it with all I had. That only made things worse for me and for those around me. I refused to accept that I was indeed Bipolar. This came from my own lack of knowledge, my own ignorance and my own stigma.

Once I began to learn exactly what Bipolar was, I realized I was a rare breed and one that would be even rarer by the internalization of the rage I held inside of me. I have read about a lot of Bipolar’s unleashing their rage when they were symptomatic. These stories are the ones we hear about in the media. We never hear good news about one who is Bipolar and therefore a lot of stigma is surrounded around us. It’s up to us to prove those stories to be wrong. I am one who “typically” does externalize my rage. I beat myself up emotionally instead which leads to depressive thoughts and ultimately depression. It’s a cycle and one that can be broken. Rage does not need to be a factor if we can learn to take a deep cleansing breath, learn our own limitations and learn how to walk away from a situation. Regardless of if we are provoked or not, there is no excuse for the rage we can unleash on others’ around us. There are ways out, you just have to be willing to embrace them.

Which brings me to the point of this blog post.

There is a difference between embracing and conforming…..embracing our illness is our way of accepting our illness. By embracing our illness we are able to openly accept any help that is offered to us. It also means that we seek out treatment options, self-help books, tools and techniques to better manage the illness we have accepted. Embracing gives us the power to define our illness. It provides us with the knowledge necessary to fight the hardest fight we have ever had to go through.

Conforming is to act according to what the illness defines us as being. I’m sure we know all the signs by now. If not, I encourage you to take a quick look at this blog post Symptoms Of Bipolar Disorder.

The truth is….we do not need to conform to those symptoms. We can embrace our illness without conforming to it. We can accept it and then move forward with a plan about how it’s best-managed for you. What works for me, may not work for you. Just because it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean you should stop trying to find what does.

I am by no means saying we will not slip up. We will not relapse and have to begin the fight again. Because we will. But each time we do, we are armed with the tools we are given to manage each episode better. With those tools available to us, it makes the fight easier and easier each time, until one day you wake up and realize that you can have control over this severe disorder. It’s up to you how you chose, to conform or to embrace. I chose to embrace it and I chose to fight it. It’s not a never-ending battle. Stability will come and your chance of relapse is lessened by therapy, medication, eating right, getting enough sleep, medication and using the tools you have been taught or have learned about on your own.

Until next time….

Becca ♥

Weakness vs. Strength

THIS is why I started this blog in the first place. I wanted to reach out to other parents’, share my struggles, my tribulations and my triumphs with others’ that are walking the same broken road as I am…..I wanted to show other parents’ that we don’t have to let our illnesses define us. That we could define our illness if we had enough tools, strength and hope.

The last few days I’ve had a lot of different situations arise that could potentially shatter the hope of reaching out to others. A lot of these situations have rocked me to my core. Some have been very personal, too personal to share even here on my blog. It’s those, the personal ones that have rocked me the most. These situations are the ones that have shown how a blog like mine can look like a display of my life, open for the world to see. It can seem like I’m advertising my business, my private matters, ect…ect…

At the same time, those very things remind me as to why I am doing this in the first place. It is the stigma, the ignorance of such illnesses that I want to advocate against. Below is a quote from my About Me page……it is the soul reason I started this project in the first place. I think here is a good place to remind not just myself, but my readers’ why I am so willing to put my private business on display for the world to see.

“Those of us that scream the loudest are the ones that get the most attention. Although I understand that dealing with a serious mental health issue and shouting it to the world can be scary and even humiliating, but without it, our advocacy  will go un-noticed. We will get no where if we hide behind the rock of shame that society as put in front of us.” 

Would a parent’s child be taken away from them because the parent was ill with a debilitating medical illness? The parent receiving treatment for the illness and still needing to rely on family to help them during a difficult time….would they be stomped with stigma about how they are unable to care for their children? How about if the parent got blamed for having such an illness and having their illness used against them as a means to take a child from their custody? Would any of the “medically” illnesses even be considered as grounds for the child’s home being deemed as unsafe or unhealthy? I think not….

That said, I will continue to march forward and push against any resistance anyone would like to put in front of me. I am as good as a Mom as anyone else. I have well periods and unwell periods just like someone who suffers with an illness that is widely accepted within the communities we live. I will not allow anyone to use my illness against me in any shape or form. If you’d like to…..I am up for that war and I promise you, I will not go down without a fight!

I will continue to blog, I will continue to show not just my weaknesses, but my strengths as well. And for anyone who would like to use my blog, my words as a way to punish me….it is you who is showing ignorance and stigma. Nothing has stopped anyone from being stupid, you will not stop me from being strong! I hope every single one of you who think I am the UNHEALTHY one take a long hard look in the mirror…..we all have weaknesses. Fortunately, I have sought help for mine!

Until next time….

Becca ♥