New book idea. Wanted some advice mabye. So if this book is something you would be interested in let me know!
Introduction sentence and disclosure notice for the book. Enjoy and take what you will from it.
Title- My Bipolar Diary
Intro
This is my bipolar diary try not to judge but also enjoy.
Disclosure
This diary may not mak a lot of sense to many people but that's kind of, at least part of, the point. Also I have never been one to journal everyday. I journal when I feel like it or when I feel I need to get something out. So these entries are often me at my most emotional, reflective and crazy i mean creative moments.
So to read on I can only give you this advice:
1.read each entry as a seperate, stand alone episode of my life. Manic or low or just in a different mood to 2 seconds ago I will have a completely different perspective and opinion on basically everything. So I basically contradict self all the way through my diary. This also means you don't have to read it in order because each entry although continuing in order that I live do not have much to do with each other.
2.Don't assume what I say and feel in each entry is how I feel or what I want to say about the same topic once my mood changes or once I am no longer in a Bipolar episode.
3.Laugh it's ok I laughed a lot when re-reading this and deciding I had to share it. I am very dramatic, OTT and it can be kind of funny sometimes.
4. Only I can call myself crazy!
5.Enjoy and take what you will from what you read.
Oh dam was that way too much advice?
Ok so that is all I have for you today but if you like this or if I feel like it I will try to post some examples of my bipolar diary entries.
Thanks for reading.
Ps this was last minute post so no song to finish.
Here I am on my couch, at 4.23am exactly, on the 27th February 2020 and I am (maybe) manic. Maybe I have been Bipolar rapid cycling for awhile now... but if I have man have I been holding back. I have been pretending to be "normal" to suit everyone else. I pretend to want to take my medication because they makes me "well." I act how I think everyone else wants me to act (classic CBT unhelpful thought pattern: mind-reading) and pretend to be ok, when I am not. Well No More!
As I sit here I feel full of energy, writing feels easy and sleep seems unimportant. Although I do know I will start to crash soon from lack of sleep but my bed feels like the last place I want to be right now. Ideas are flowing. I know how to go out tomorrow and make people want to know more about me. I also know what to say to make people concerned I am manic. I feel like I have bucket loads of personality and ideas and creativity practically following through my veins.
I feel so alive. So much more me. Maybe my tablets have been limiting me this whole time. I feel like now (that I am manic or getting there) I know more, I understand more and I want to do so
much more.(Anyone thinking of a certain Black Mirror episode right now?)
Anyway, maybe now I am letting my whole brain work at it's fullest, with no limitations put on it, I am free to be just pure 100% ME!! Or pure mania. Either way it feels good. I put so many limits on myself and the way I act and what I say and who I can say it to. It has gone on far too long and it just makes me feel tired and like I am not really living at all. In my last post I said how a lot of people think I am wasting my life ATM but they probably prefer that to full blown mania. But at the end of the day they can't decide if I am living or just existing, only I can. It's like I have full clarity right now. I know only I can make a change in my life and my change is that I am just going to be me. No more pretending to be anything else but myself, whoever I am in that moment!
Ok so that sounds a bit dramatic. Like there is only one of me, right? What do I mean by whoever I am in that moment? Well unfortunately if this is manic Cerys talking she won't be here for long. As I mentioned before I have bipolar rapid cycling so manic me will last about 2 weeks then depressive me will take over for about two week then this may go on until I become stable on medication again (or find another way.) It's way tiring and I wouldn't wish it on anyone! This is making me wonder though if I am admitting to being manic, then I am probably not manic. When I am in a full blown manic episode I would never agree that I am manic and I wouldn't be as aware and knowledgeable about my condition. I wouldn't be writing this post in my living room I would be out in the street, in the pitch black probably recording myself for YouTube (that always goes so well... not!) Hmmm so if I am not manic will I be soon? Will I lose all control of my decisions and start fighting with my family and making myself very vulnerable again? Maybe if I take my tablets and go to bed right now I will be ok. But what if I go to bed and sleep through the whole day. I have so much I want to do when the sun comes up but lately I have been sleeping all night and day because of how depressed I have been feeling. I hate being in two minds about everything.
Before I go on a complete tangent and have a major existential crisis (that can all wait until another post) lets end here with a song. Got to love a bit of Demi Lovato "Sorry Not Sorry." Some sound advice I need to follow in this song. New life rule stop apologising for being who you really are!!
Sorry Not Sorry for the swearing in the video.
Wow two post written, edited and posted in the same 24 hours so the roller-coaster begins. I am in for an interesting ride!
Ok so I haven't blogged in nearly 2 years but I just realised today that I have something I need to say. Like the title says I am getting back into blogging but I am not fighting for my mental fitness anymore. My fight is over. No I am not cured. But I am making a decision to stop fighting with myself and my family for fitness and just live my life instead.
All this time I have been fighting my Bipolar; my mania and my depression and along with it had many, many fights with my family about how I can be well and how I should live. This has all got to stop. We all put so much pressure on ourselves about our work, social and home life. Hell we put pressure on ourselves about how to be happy and exactly how happy we should be. Now more than ever, thanks to social media, we compare ourselves to others and try to be the best at life and being happy. What is the point?
My family and maybe some of my friends think I am wasting my life. ATM I am off work due to stress and struggling to comply with my bipolar medication. I didn't mean to be off sick again (3rd time woops) but here I am. Now I get constant lectures about what I should be doing with my free time and how important my tablets are for my recovery (of course I know this but it's complicated. Maybe a subject for a separate post.) This pressure and judgement has only made me hibernate in my flat more and hate my life and everyone who judges me.
I don't feel like I am wasting my life though because whenever inspiration (which could be mania/ hypo-mania) strikes I go with it and write all my (possibly crazy) ideas, like this one, down in one of my many, many note books, on my phone or my laptop. I want to end the stigma about mental health as it is having a large and very negative effect on my life at them moment and I am sure on the lives of many others.
This particular inspiration came from one of my favorite shows "The 100." TBH it is the last place I expected to get inspiration for a Fighting 4 Fitness blog post but I swear this quote is going to be like my new motto. So I watched it years ago when it first came out and only just started watching it again yesterday. I'm not going to go into to great details about the show, although you should defiantly what it if you like sci-fi and suspense shows, but at the end of the first episode one of the characters, who is part of The 100, is about to Tarzan swing across a lake that has man eating snakes living in it (who wouldn't be scared? Right?) To help him build up the courage to do it one of the other members of The 100 Finn says to him "Hey, it's ok to be afraid, Jasper. The trick is not fighting it." Not fighting it? Hmmm.
Cute cast as well, right?
But people always say fight your fears. We go further than that even: telling people to fight their feeling. Telling everyone to put on a brave face or stop mopping about and do something with your life.
I have always thought of my mental illness as something I have to fight but maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe I should just allow myself to feel how I am feeling and be who I am in a particular moment. I shouldn't be changing myself for others so I don't seem crazy or depressed. I should just be me and live my life for the moment. It is the pressure I put on myself and the fight to be perfect or impress people that stops me from just being myself and enjoying my life how I choice to live it.
I want to explore this more in other posts and may even share a song I have started to write about this topic of ending the fight and just living our lives. But I think this post is long enough. I do however want to end by sharing a song that is related to this idea (if I still remember how to add one in, I'm not great at the tech stuff.) I used to end my blog in this way because I believe music speaks louder than words. I think this is why when I am manic I sing almost none stop all of my favorite and very inspirational songs. The song I want to share is called "Try" by Colbie Caillat it has a great message "you don't have to try so hard."
