I Promise I Will Try...

Coming down...

I hate this feeling... I've said before "these mess are not helping me come down, they are not bringing me down... The are pushing and pulling and forcing me down"... I can totally understand why people with Bipolar Disorder go off their meds. These things suck. I'm still on the Lamictal and the Respirdal, ended the Seroquel and Klonopin. So only two meds now. I hate them both. The side effects are horrid. Blurry vision, stuffy nose, no sleep- or poor sleep... no appetite then only wanting to eat sugar or have coffee, weight gain, mind fuzzies... I can't read, can't comprehend, cant retain any information, no attention span... How much of these are side effects or just the disorder I'm honestly not sure. I just don't like feeling this way. I honestly think I feel worse coming down than i do in my High. I like my Up. I like the productive feeling. I get it, I might not actually BE productive, but maybe if you give me back my high I can figure out how to reign that in. Just let me feel better again. This apathetic place is just sad and too "normal" for me to handle. My friend said yesterday "oh so you poor thing, you have to be normal like the rest of us now" -- I don't WANT to be NORMAL. I want ME back... The me that was social and exciting and happy. That wasn't irritated and grouchy and negative thinking. How many times have I said to myself "I don't care" or "whatever" in my mind? Too many. But I DO care, and I want to care... I couldn't even get online to get on here to write because I didn't feel creative enough to produce... Hate that too. The creativity is like gone. Where did I go? And I blame the meds. Yes, yes I do. I will faithfully and blindly take them, but I hate them. I hear everyone say they will balance out, that I will find a balanced place on them... Prove it. Cause I just went from High to Low, no middle. ...

Peace in fire form.

Bliss in a cup- a Greek coffee frappe. <3 Love.

I hope my daughter someday appreciates this rainbow in her closet, and doesn’t loathe me for it…

Back again- Confession

I'm in therapy. We talked about my past.... Did anyone notice me being "different". Maybe. But then I got thinking, there was a lot of mania in my life. Overachiever extraordinaire. Gifted. Accelerated college program in high school. Honor rolls in college. And then I remember some super stupid decisions. A one night stand at the beach. A one night stand with a rich mans son. While in a long term relationship I had an affair with my almost fiances' best friend, and them with him and his wife. I moved from east coast to west cost, and back again to New York, then to virginia. I remember never sleeping- parties and going out and meeting people. And them I met my husband and somehow he changed me... Or possibly, I had just come down off a two year High. My family said " he's good for you, he settles you down". And now, I lay here on the couch ... Alone. Because he had to "rescue" a friend... By taking her out for drinks, to distract her from her ex boyfriend being found unconscious, a pill bottle beside him, after she broke up with him. And my husband to the rescue. Did I mention she's a stripper he met at a club?... My bad. Missing piece. And yet, I let him go bc I don't want to start a fight- I'm High, and I say a lot of stupid things right now. I'm mad mostly bc he went to her so fast. Moments after her text, he's got a coat and his keys and he's gone. But I ask for him to say to me "honey, your doing a great job fighting this, your trying so head, I'm proud of you"... But instead I get " you need to get it together. We need to have a good year"... Awesome. I totally lost it- in text form of course bc I can't fun front him. And nine days later we still haven't talked about it. And with his rescue mission, now I don't want to. To top it off, we get to take my daughter to the hospital. Bc of my inpatient stint she has stopped going to the bathroom TMI. So now, she has the belly of an Ethiopian solid as a rock and a fever of101.3. I'm tired and wired... I want off this roller coaster. I took my first full dose of my med- back on after an insurance mishap that lasted two months. I'm praying I can be strong enough to let it kick in... Distraction tactics engaged. Maybe more writing later. Not sure when my husband will be home, you know, after going to the rescue of his stripper best friend. Sleep on that. Not.

The Prequel

"Welcome to my sweet upside down world."

In 2013 I wrote my first blog piece. I had (have?) zero followers, I rarely posted — at one point it was 2 years between, and yet I still held on to this need to write. "Someone, somewhere wants to hear my story."

Today I’m sitting on my front porch, it’s an unusually warm October day, contemplating things that two decades ago I never thought would be in my brain — Why is my wife upset with me? When do we have to leave for our trans son’s LGBTQ group meeting? Are we taking the dog with us? What will this drive look like next week after the 2024 election?

I'm writing again, today, because aforementioned Wife (THE bestest wife everrrrr) has asked me to take time to focus on my writing - for the first time ever. My goal - share my life. Lots of people - when I share my story/ies - find it interesting. I often think it's quite ... normal? Is that the word? Maybe. If nothing else I feel like I can keep the attention of most people when I share. We shall see. I'm not sure what order makes the most sense, but I have lots of stories to tell, and I am confident they will make their way here.

Shall we?

-Yes, let's.

First blog post - May 14th, 2013:

There is a saying in yoga practice when doing inversion asanas (upside down poses):  inversions help you to see your world upside down in practice so you know how to deal better with upside down moments in life.

Let’s just say that I’ve been doing a lot of inversions lately.

Hello, I am the self-titled Bipolar Baker… And welcome to my sweet upside down word.

I was only recently diagnosed, as of May 9th, 2013… Not even a week now.  And yet, it feels like I have lived with this disease all my life.  I’m already comfortable with its company.  My official diagnosis is Bipolar I, rapid cycling, with mixed mania, and Anxiety Disorder.  Sounds like fun, right?  Actually, it is quite fun… 

When I’m in my mania, I am a hoot!  I am the social butterfly, the Carrie In The City, the best friend you just met.  I am super over productive: writing a 1,450 word paper for school in three hours — in APA format, with citations and five references, without an outline. I am the baker baking forty-eight  cupcakes from scratch, with homemade raspberry soufflé icing, individually wrapped in lace and prepped for the bridal shower that is less than ten hours away, which I then co-host with flair (constantly having to remind myself, of course, that I am NOT the center of attention for the next two hours).  I am the organizer of clothes into rainbow rows, by type, from left to right, separated by specific hangers into three sections — pants, tops, and dresses/skirts, even coordinating my underthings in their drawers by color.

Color rules my world most days.  I get caught up in feeling the deep, cellular green of the late spring leaves inside my head.  I watch the wispy feather white clouds drift in slow motion across the infinite Carolina blue sky.  I study the amber and coal and hematite hairs on my dog’s coat as he lays beside me, head on my thigh.  I see colors as moods, and as auras.  It is my gift and my burden as an empath, only adding to the complexity of my mind.  In my mania I see starbursts of yellow and honey gold following little children, chasing their worries away…  

Luckily, the downs don’t stay as long.  “The Crash” I have named it. The free fall after the mania.  It is quick and steady: a ride down the steep side of the roller coaster, G-forces pulling at my heart, then a quick upturn to baseline, stomach churning, to wait for another incline, steady again climbing up up up.  On grey days baking and my yoga pull me up.  I have never found baking difficult, which is how I know it is my “out” when I have crashed.  It is the one sweet thing where I can lose my mind, both figuratively and literally.  My yoga practice I revel in: morning yoga to invigorate, day yoga to stay motivated, evening yoga to be thoughtful, and night yoga to burn off the stored energy from the day.    Usually the night yoga involves the inversions — head stands, bridge pose, arm stands, wheel pose…  Feet high above my heart to remind me: be grounded in the air, let that which is real rise above your wounded heart, and let your heart rise above your head. 

Again, this is simply the walkway, the entry to my world.  I hope you can join me for a few trips, or maybe just one spin...  Either way, I hope it's a sweet ride.

#Bipolar #anxiety #mania #rapid cycle #writer #wlw #lgbtq

I'm not on tumblr as much but I love to write... Lemme know :)):

Did ya find one? ...

Anyone wanna be my penpal? I’ll send you a ton of letters and shit.

I don’t think we’re allowed to say “hindsight is 20/20″ anymore. This bitch did NOT give us clarity or vision, she smacked us upside the head with chaos and left us crying in the shower. Maybe if we learn some shit we can say Hindsight is 20/21.

two years...

my last post was January 2016... okay, so more than 2 years. A hell of a lot has happened, and changed, and stayed the same. Reading old posts. odd. 

remind me

to follow the book lead

to write as i took my pictures, for a timeline

to find my bio book notes...