Remind Me

Reblog

Reblog if you are always willing to help a follower in need. No matter who it is. Anyone can just message you.

me: walking and out of breath... phone rings

her: are you breathing heavy? did i interrupt something?!

me: no... just walking, and out of breath.

her: Oh that's so great! i love running, it tones up everything, and gets you so firm! we should schedule a time for us to workout together!

me: absolutely not.

her: yay! let's look at - wait - what?

me: absolutely not.

her: i thought you were going to say absolutely yes! why?

me: because you are good at it, and i hate it.

her: oh. then... okay... so...

me: how's work?

(*insert other small talk)

her: so, i should let you get back to your walking! call you later! love you!

...

and thus begins the first invasion of my peaceful journey to not hate running.

I can't stress enough that people need to be aware that there are doctors who are "just okay" at their jobs. Who barely passed their boards and/or had to retake courses and/or had scores so low they even had a hard time matching at the end of med school.

Please seek second opinions. Third, even. Ask the doctors endless questions. Challenge them if something doesn't feel or sound right. Don't stroke their egos by being intimidated by their perceived intelligence.

Peace in fire form.

Rapid cycle

Ever just have one of those days where you simply cannot get your shit together?... Well, duh, look at my audience here. You get it.

My epiphany for today: if you have a zillion hair thingys, and use them, you have a bad haircut... If you are, however, five years old, this is baseline norm. ...this is not counting the 1,800+ plastic hairband ties (separated by color in pill boxes- a mommy mania moment)...

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

3.5.21

here we go again.

mundane.

yesterday was less than mundane. i had an actual panic attack, although at least not earth shattering. this goddam broken brain of mine has ruined so much, and yet it still manages to say loud and clear how much of a failure i am. why can’t it suck at that? instead of not letting me finish a book, or pushing me to do everything all the time and worry about all the possible outcomes.

i asked my therapist why i was so damn tired - (for a variety of reasons i’m sure) and we landed on “it is exhausting to try to control your thoughts and words and actions, and be mindful of what you say and do and think all day, every day”

the epiphany before that was that my body remembers the feelings of fear at a cellular level, so even when i can logic my way out of something the physical part of it is often out of my control. 

other therapy gems: 

manage you expectations

people show you who they are, believe them

i’m sure there are more, but i can’t think of them this morning.

mood swing- don’t feel like writing anymore. gonna go. 

So strange

This High. This has lasted for so much longer than the ones before I’m starting to wonder if it’s really me… Like, is this who I’m going to be? Am I back to being the upbeat and energetic and go go go person I used to be?… Or am I waiting for the other shoe to drop?

I’m not saying I don’t like it- it’s just strange… This waiting. I was waiting for a month, then two. Now it’s been four. And I’m still pretty okay. I mean, my High catches me sometimes - hence the last post about being intoxicated. I hammered that nail in deep. Super unlike me… I’ll do a good buzz on occasion, but word slurring, stumbling up stairs, hangover drunk? It’s been a long while.

So there’s one sign that maybe my High isn’t so good. Or maybe it’s a sign that it IS.

I’m still unable to put away laundry, clean dishes, hair bows or earrings in any sense of a timely manner. I’m still unable to process the fact that my forced speech makes others uncomfortable and look at me like I’m speaking in tongues. I can’t help myself from interrupting others’ conversations… I can hear it, I can feel it, I know I should just shut it— and, yup, there- there it goes. Out of my mouth. I think about things obsessively… People, projects, things I’ve said wrong, things I should have said. The hamster is not merely spinning in its wheel, it’s running an airplane engine. I want to write… I want to get all of this out of my head and down and just be done… And then another thought comes and I need to write more… If I don’t go now, I might not stop tonight.