1st Thoughts

Finally, instead of thinking about things (and thinking and thinking and thinking) I've decided to do something I don't always do. I'm going to follow through on these thoughts.  I'm going to implement a process where I think about something, decide if it is really something I should give more attention to or if it's just filler. If it deserves more attention, I'll write it down (here hopefully) or in the case of filler I'll cross it off and not give it another thought.  If I write it down I'm going to start the process to do it.  My main goal is to finish the process and have a result - closure.  Closure is something I love.  Another goal is to not clutter my thoughts with lots of things that really don't need to be done, those fleeting busy work type things.

Blogging is one of my recent thoughts. Documenting my mood swings.  That one is actually on the advice of my Psychiatrist.  I have Bipolar disorder and keeping track of where my mood is at and what's going on in my life that leads me to where I'm at with my mood is useful....at least that's what I've been told.

A bit about how my Bipolar disorder affects me.  I usually refer to my highs and lows as "times when I have a lot of energy and times when I feel drained".  To me, that explains how I am and how I have been for a very long time.  I have periods where I feel very motivated, full of ideas, able to multitask, very social, and very busy. This is how it starts. It just starts one day.  I wake up and feel motivated and focus on things that seem like they need to be done whether it's organizing my attic, purging our toy room, filling the holes in my childrens' schedules, rearranging furniture, planting flowers, or reading through all my cookbooks and cooking magazines in order to plan a week's worth of evening meals, etc etc etc.  Often, I start one project get distracted then begin another project then another and before I know it, it's time to pick the kids up from school (or on the weekends feed them lunch or dinner or take them to a birthday party or movie I've promised them we'd see) so I HAVE to stop but I don't want to but I know it's not possible to just not pick them up from school so I leave and start the other 1/2 of my day which involves school pick-ups, activity drop-offs & pick-ups, dinner, homework, bath time, then bed time.  It all sounds so simple and well organized but sadly, I'm not as structured as I should be so it always seems like I'm barely getting those things done "on time" and definitely not as well as I should be so I make a mental note that one day, I'm going to get a more structured and organized process for "the other 1/2 of my day" which then goes on my to-do list as another project.

I may only spend one day like this or I may spend a week or two like this and during that time, I'm very busy. I don't have time to do all the things that really need to be done because I am so focused on the other things I am doing so I procrastinate on the other stuff because it just doesn't fit in with the sense of urgency I have for these other projects. When I'm busy, it's like I don't have an off switch.  I literally can't stop what I'm doing.  I will try (once I realize that I'm kind of in an "overly energized" mode) but it is really hard to slow down once I start. I have trouble sleeping because I'm thinking or doing then the less sleep I get the less sleep I need (technically that's not the case but that's how my body interprets it).  Fortunately, I am now aware that sleep is key to me living a somewhat balanced life. If I don't get a grip on the amount of sleep I get then that "overly energized" feeling becomes a Hypomanic episode or even worse a Manic episode. I think I've only had a handful of full blown manic episodes over the course of the past 20 years.  I've had more Hypomanic episodes than I can count.  I experience the overly energized episodes on a regular basis even though I'm on medication. Sometimes, the energized me slows down on my own with a  manageable and short lived crash and burn (thank you Lamictal) and sometimes I don't.  Either way, I'm left feeling very drained and unmotivated and once I see the full extent of everything I've been ignoring I feel overwhelmed by the need to catch up (which is hard to do when you're doing well just to get out of bed and function) and feel bad about myself that I let things go and that leads to feeling depressed and unworthy of all the wonderful things I have in my life so I pull away from everything and recover and get back to a balanced me but then one day, I'll wake up and decide I am feeling like I want to get some things accomplished and the cycle begins all over again.

I know I'm experiencing a Hypomanic episode when suddenly I realize that my brain is very cluttered with ideas and thoughts and plans.  I go from feeling very organized (my calendar looks absolutely amazing when I'm in an overly energized phase) and having it all together and keeping track of everything to suddenly feeling like I can't think and there's just too much.  I forget things like appointments and commitments (even with reminders). I don't know what to do when I wake up, I don't know where to start. I just feel very very cluttered and frustrated and frozen. I feel like if I can just have some time to myself without any commitments or responsibilities then I'll be able to breathe and function but in the real world (or at least in mine) that can't happen so instead, I just shut down and it lasts awhile.

For me, I want to function just short of feeling overly energized.  I like feeling motivated and I like the sense of accomplishment when I actually am able to cross things off my list.  I like it when I feel engaged with my children and feel as though I'm enriching their lives as their mother and not relying solely on outside activities or TV programs or Video Games to keep them busy and distracted while I am either too busy or too tired to  do mom things. I am constantly trying to balance too much in my life with too little in my life.  This is a fine line for me.  I know I don't tolerate stress well yet I don't want to just eliminate all stress from my life either because that to me isn't functioning. I just have to make sure that while I am doing things and making commitments that I don't over commit or over do.  I have to make an effort to not compare myself with other people who have a higher threshold for stress.

Quite a long post for my 1st Thoughts. I still have much more to say so I will start another post for that one.