how to relax
Last week was weirdly hectic. I found myself running around every evening and not quite being able to figure out how to slow down. Part of it is my insistence on being social while also trying to maintain my work out schedule. Of course, even with that focus, I only exercised a few nights last week--thank goodness for the lunch-time work out classes (which even then I often forgo due to meetings and such). Part of it is feeling the pressure of wedding planning but not quite being able to figure out what I should get done next. Part of it is trying to wrap up my MPA and get those last assignments for my class and pieces of paper to the registrar. Part of it is money pressure and trying to figure out how to live within my means and not seem like a cheap bitch. I always feel so awkward when people treat me to stuff cause I'm not good at being gracious about money and I worry if it means they think I'm stingy which seems worse than cheap.
And a huge part of my brain is preoccupied worrying about being bipolar. II. I've been reading The Bipolar Handbook and it is sort of creeping me out and making me miserable all at once. I'm realizing that my diagnosis is probably accurate--my complex depression symptoms seem more bi than not and I am forcing myself to acknowledge recent hypomanic activity--like when I was OBSESSED about money and budgets and investing. Mind you, the obsession led to some real productivity, the great budget I have now and future plans about money, but it has left me exhausted.
The book also talks about how immune problems, fibromyalgia and weight gain are often intimately connected to the bipolar brain, in addition to the usual sleep, OCD-like obsessiveness and adrenaline problems. Is the body that connected? This scares me too somehow.
Normally, having a catch-all diagnosis to explain ALL my ills would be a good thing. Take a magic pill and be done, right? or, maybe if the problems aren't SO bad, skip the pill and just keep living with the knowledge of why things are broken and learn to cope from there. But I find myself quaking and nervous instead. Where do I draw the lines between personal responsibility and disease? Are the last 5 pounds I put on from slipping into a depression? Are they just from choosing to eat cake? Did I choose cake cause I was depressed? How did cake get so meta? Is this obsession about cake from being bipolar?
And even as I see a simple stimuli lead to an irrational and upsetting thought process, knowing it's bipolar hasn't made it easier to stop the spiral. Now I just wallow double.
Dr. Burgess explains, many, many times in his book, that untreated bipolar disorder worsens with age as the brain DETERIORATES. Yikes. Worse?
So, take meds, right? Well, I felt that way with lamictal as it was a freakin' wonder drug till all my skin started to peel off. Then lithium turned me into a super mellow zombie without the ability to keep a number in my head or understand the don't walk signal. So, now I'm scared. I have this oxycarbazapine sitting in a drawer at home, waiting for me. And, I'm scared of it. All these mood stabilizers seems to slow the brain to sludge.
Things are so very busy right now, I don't feel like I can afford impaired cognitive functions. But, when can I ever afford that? And, as usual, obsessed with the weight issue. I've finally dropped some of the pounds I put on with the lithium and seem to have a comfy clip going--from 162 down to 157. I'm not really ready to regain that weight and stress of trying to take it off before the wedding. It's not just wedding vanity, it's life vanity--I want my clothes to be comfortable, I want to feel fit and healthy, I don't want to be fat, fatigued and flailing on the sofa.
I hate this set of choices. I can't believe they don't have better treatments out there. I do take comfort in something my doctor said the last time I saw him--my illness isn't really that bad. Which is a relief in some ways, but I feel so terrible for people who have it so much worse. Cause even not so bad seems to diminish my quality as a person.
And a huge part of my brain is preoccupied worrying about being bipolar. II. I've been reading The Bipolar Handbook and it is sort of creeping me out and making me miserable all at once. I'm realizing that my diagnosis is probably accurate--my complex depression symptoms seem more bi than not and I am forcing myself to acknowledge recent hypomanic activity--like when I was OBSESSED about money and budgets and investing. Mind you, the obsession led to some real productivity, the great budget I have now and future plans about money, but it has left me exhausted.
The book also talks about how immune problems, fibromyalgia and weight gain are often intimately connected to the bipolar brain, in addition to the usual sleep, OCD-like obsessiveness and adrenaline problems. Is the body that connected? This scares me too somehow.
Normally, having a catch-all diagnosis to explain ALL my ills would be a good thing. Take a magic pill and be done, right? or, maybe if the problems aren't SO bad, skip the pill and just keep living with the knowledge of why things are broken and learn to cope from there. But I find myself quaking and nervous instead. Where do I draw the lines between personal responsibility and disease? Are the last 5 pounds I put on from slipping into a depression? Are they just from choosing to eat cake? Did I choose cake cause I was depressed? How did cake get so meta? Is this obsession about cake from being bipolar?
And even as I see a simple stimuli lead to an irrational and upsetting thought process, knowing it's bipolar hasn't made it easier to stop the spiral. Now I just wallow double.
Dr. Burgess explains, many, many times in his book, that untreated bipolar disorder worsens with age as the brain DETERIORATES. Yikes. Worse?
So, take meds, right? Well, I felt that way with lamictal as it was a freakin' wonder drug till all my skin started to peel off. Then lithium turned me into a super mellow zombie without the ability to keep a number in my head or understand the don't walk signal. So, now I'm scared. I have this oxycarbazapine sitting in a drawer at home, waiting for me. And, I'm scared of it. All these mood stabilizers seems to slow the brain to sludge.
Things are so very busy right now, I don't feel like I can afford impaired cognitive functions. But, when can I ever afford that? And, as usual, obsessed with the weight issue. I've finally dropped some of the pounds I put on with the lithium and seem to have a comfy clip going--from 162 down to 157. I'm not really ready to regain that weight and stress of trying to take it off before the wedding. It's not just wedding vanity, it's life vanity--I want my clothes to be comfortable, I want to feel fit and healthy, I don't want to be fat, fatigued and flailing on the sofa.
I hate this set of choices. I can't believe they don't have better treatments out there. I do take comfort in something my doctor said the last time I saw him--my illness isn't really that bad. Which is a relief in some ways, but I feel so terrible for people who have it so much worse. Cause even not so bad seems to diminish my quality as a person.