A few months ago, one of my friends asked me, "So does it bother you when people use the term 'bipolar' casually?" I asked him what he meant, and he said, "Well, like when Katy Perry sings 'Got a case of a love bipolar', does that bother you?" Well, at the time I said no, but now I'm rethinking my answer.
Lately I've been noticing a lot of people loosely throwing around the term "bipolar". I had a neighbor call someone he didn't like bipolar. I had a banker tell me "everyone's bipolar". I was searching for blogs by bipolar people and came up with a whole bunch of blogs casually mentioning the word "bipolar" without having a clue what it meant. And, the one that made me feel the worst; I found a blog by an actual bipolar guy who's symptoms are managed by low dosages of two medicines. (I take high dosages of 3 medicines and my symptoms still aren't managed.)
The one that made me the most angry, though, was the banker telling me everyone's bipolar. I have had horrible experiences in my life of people saying that everyone has the same problems I have. Usually this consists of someone saying, "I have experienced what you're going through, and it's not that bad." In high school some of my classmates took this a step further and said, "I'm handling the same problems just fine, you need to try harder." If you want to crush my heart, tell me I'm just not trying hard enough. I hate it when someone says that everyone has my problems because it makes me feel like I shouldn't be struggling because everyone else is fine.
The fact is that I have some very real problems that I'm really struggling with. I'm sure some people truly understand and I know some people have it worse that I do, but that doesn't mean everyone gets it. You know what? As much as it bugs me to have people misuse "bipolar", I would let everyone misuse it every day if it meant I felt like someone actually understood me and what it means for me to be bipolar.
Monday, June 14, 2010
My first FULL week... brings struggles
Last week was my first full week of PH, and I faced some struggles. I mentioned in the beginning that I have a "quitting complex" where I will be very excited about something new in the beginning, but I soon lose motivation and quit. Well, the appropriate amount of time has passed and I've tried to quit PH. I sent an email to my psychiatrist to ask for advice, and it summed things up nicely:
"I have been going to Partial Hospitalization for a couple of weeks now- 5 days so far. I am having some feelings that are typical for me. I was really excited about going when I first started, but the last few days I've decided I don't like it and that I'm not sure if I want to continue participating. There are a lot of things I like about it, and I can't come up with a very good reason for why I want to quit, I just know my brain is telling me loud and clear that I don't have the energy for it and that it's not going to help me anyway.
I don't know what to do. I've already called in sick once and left early once. I have no motivation to go. I've tried going even when I didn't want to but I hated being there and that was the day I left early. My brain says I want to quit but my heart doesn't want to lose the hope I've put in going. What should I do?
Also, lately I've had absolutely no energy. I'm not sleeping more, I just feel so depressed and void of energy."
I think that the most important part of this is that my heart doesn't want to lose the hope I've put in going. After much sleepy deliberation, I called in sick again today, but I had a huge internal struggle because I desperately wanted to go, I just couldn't find the energy. (The good news is that my lack of energy is likely to respond to medication. As of yesterday, I have some new med changes, and I feel hopeful about them.)
I hope that Wednesday I will write a new post about how I went and had a great day.
"I have been going to Partial Hospitalization for a couple of weeks now- 5 days so far. I am having some feelings that are typical for me. I was really excited about going when I first started, but the last few days I've decided I don't like it and that I'm not sure if I want to continue participating. There are a lot of things I like about it, and I can't come up with a very good reason for why I want to quit, I just know my brain is telling me loud and clear that I don't have the energy for it and that it's not going to help me anyway.
I don't know what to do. I've already called in sick once and left early once. I have no motivation to go. I've tried going even when I didn't want to but I hated being there and that was the day I left early. My brain says I want to quit but my heart doesn't want to lose the hope I've put in going. What should I do?
Also, lately I've had absolutely no energy. I'm not sleeping more, I just feel so depressed and void of energy."
I think that the most important part of this is that my heart doesn't want to lose the hope I've put in going. After much sleepy deliberation, I called in sick again today, but I had a huge internal struggle because I desperately wanted to go, I just couldn't find the energy. (The good news is that my lack of energy is likely to respond to medication. As of yesterday, I have some new med changes, and I feel hopeful about them.)
I hope that Wednesday I will write a new post about how I went and had a great day.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Day Three
Well, my third day of PH went pretty well. We begin every day by coming up with a daily goal, then sharing it with the group. When I got there, I felt like I had already accomplished a major goal just by showing up, but I managed to decide that my goal would be to take cold medicine. I have a cold, and I'm extremely stubborn about adding anything to my (already high) number of nine pills a day. My husband gets extremely frustrated because I'm a big complainer, but I won't listen when he tells me that medicine will help. Unfortunately, despite the goal I forgot to take more medicine when I got home. Oh well.
While I was sharing my goal, I told the group about something else. I went to see my psychiatrist on Tuesday, and although I was sure of the opposite, she said I am actually doing better. She's really proud of me for seeking out PH and following through with it for awhile now. When I shared this with the group, everyone nodded and smiled like they were proud of me, too!
It was the last day for two of the patients, and we did "Dove Chocolate Therapy". It's not as fancy or official as it sounds, but it's way delicious! The leader passed around a bowl of Dove chocolates. We all saved our wrapper as we enjoyed the chocolate, then we went around and read the quotes from the wrappers to the departing patients. The funny part is that many times the quote is best for the person who opened it! That was true for me. My wrapper said, "Celebrate the small victories in your life." I said that this is really hard for me because I'm such a black and white thinker. To me, black is failure and white is the big successes. The small victories fall in the gray, and I just overlook them. Someone piped up and told me that they remember me saying on the first day that I quit a lot, and they thought it was a huge victory that I had been going to PH for two weeks. I thought it was so sweet that the person not only remembered what I said on my first day, but wanted to give me positive feedback!
At the end of the day I was feeling confused, and I shared it with the group. I was confused because Wednesday I was so resistant to being there that I called in sick. Later on Wednesday, I really missed PH and regretted not being there. But by Friday when I was there again, I was feeling depressed and unhappy about being there. Another patient told me that a lot of people aren't so sure about it in the beginning, but you move past that and learn to appreciate PH. That sounds hopeful to me!
While I was sharing my goal, I told the group about something else. I went to see my psychiatrist on Tuesday, and although I was sure of the opposite, she said I am actually doing better. She's really proud of me for seeking out PH and following through with it for awhile now. When I shared this with the group, everyone nodded and smiled like they were proud of me, too!
It was the last day for two of the patients, and we did "Dove Chocolate Therapy". It's not as fancy or official as it sounds, but it's way delicious! The leader passed around a bowl of Dove chocolates. We all saved our wrapper as we enjoyed the chocolate, then we went around and read the quotes from the wrappers to the departing patients. The funny part is that many times the quote is best for the person who opened it! That was true for me. My wrapper said, "Celebrate the small victories in your life." I said that this is really hard for me because I'm such a black and white thinker. To me, black is failure and white is the big successes. The small victories fall in the gray, and I just overlook them. Someone piped up and told me that they remember me saying on the first day that I quit a lot, and they thought it was a huge victory that I had been going to PH for two weeks. I thought it was so sweet that the person not only remembered what I said on my first day, but wanted to give me positive feedback!
At the end of the day I was feeling confused, and I shared it with the group. I was confused because Wednesday I was so resistant to being there that I called in sick. Later on Wednesday, I really missed PH and regretted not being there. But by Friday when I was there again, I was feeling depressed and unhappy about being there. Another patient told me that a lot of people aren't so sure about it in the beginning, but you move past that and learn to appreciate PH. That sounds hopeful to me!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
I'm never doing THAT again!
Yesterday was the first day back at PH after the holiday weekend, and I didn't go. Do you want to know what happened? Ok.
I was snoozing along with my alarm, and I just couldn't seem to wake up. I hadn't gotten to sleep in for a few days, and I was worn out. As I was trying to wake up, all I could think about was how I wasn't going to be able to handle the walk home in the afternoon. So I called and told them I had a headache. I really do get bad headaches, but I didn't have one yesterday.
I immediately felt guilty, though I was too tired to feel the effects fully. What I did feel was guilt that my husband had already gotten up and showered so he'd be ready to take me, and no longer needing to do that, he had over an hour to wait before he needed to go to work. So I stole sleep from someone I love.
Hours later, when I finally woke up for good, I started to feel worse and worse. The thing is, I really like PH. Since I've started going, I've felt less lonely and bored. I've had something to do. Not being there made me realize how much I want to be there.
So the lesson learned is that I need to not worry about making it through the day and just think about how much I'm going to miss if I don't go. I really hope I remember that, because I don't want to make the same mistake again.
I was snoozing along with my alarm, and I just couldn't seem to wake up. I hadn't gotten to sleep in for a few days, and I was worn out. As I was trying to wake up, all I could think about was how I wasn't going to be able to handle the walk home in the afternoon. So I called and told them I had a headache. I really do get bad headaches, but I didn't have one yesterday.
I immediately felt guilty, though I was too tired to feel the effects fully. What I did feel was guilt that my husband had already gotten up and showered so he'd be ready to take me, and no longer needing to do that, he had over an hour to wait before he needed to go to work. So I stole sleep from someone I love.
Hours later, when I finally woke up for good, I started to feel worse and worse. The thing is, I really like PH. Since I've started going, I've felt less lonely and bored. I've had something to do. Not being there made me realize how much I want to be there.
So the lesson learned is that I need to not worry about making it through the day and just think about how much I'm going to miss if I don't go. I really hope I remember that, because I don't want to make the same mistake again.
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