My bipolar moods (with severity)

[Changing4Best]

I'm excited because I am going to cooking class tonight. We get to sample what is cooked, of course. It is at the 7th Day Adventist Church, not my Methodist Church, but that is OK. I go because I want to learn about cooking veggies, something I know very little about. I have learned a lot already, but I do know I will have to get a food processor and some other kitchen tools to really be able to do this with style and grace. I like to eat foods that I don't have to cook. I rarely cook in fact. She teaches about stuff you don't have to cook a lot, so this is especially what I love about the course. It is an ongoing thing. I think she just plans to carry it on indefinitely. I am so happy about that at a 10!

 

[Changing4Best]

Cooking class was so much fun. We made these things called "Hay Stacks." You start off with some corn chips. Then you put some brown rice on top of that. Then you add some black beans. Then some corn. And some red bell peppers, and some lettuce and some olives and whatever else you want to add to it. It is kind of like a taco, I think.

Then we made sugar free brownies. You take 21 pitted dates, food process them. Then you add some black beans (with the water), process it some more. Then some vanilla extract, a spotted banana, cocoa powder and some chia seeds and some almond butter and process it all up really well. You have to bake it at 200 F. for 2 hours. Then top with some nuts and serve. It was SOOooooo.... yummy!

We made a squash casserole too.

I really enjoyed myself and I loved the food.

 

[Changing4Best]

Did I mention that I have had a lifelong hobby of collecting rocks and stones? I guess when you are a kid, you see these things more easily, because you are closer to the ground. Anyway, when I was a kid, at the beach I found this rock that was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was smooth, but it had little rocks inside of its bigger self. It was so pretty. The home or base rock was a pink color or kind of even reddish. Then there were darker and lighter spots in it, where you could tell that little things had been embedded into its substance. But they didn't stick out from its surface at all. It was all smooth. It was all opaque. It fit into my pocket really nicely, not too large and not too small. It was one of those kinds of things that you just loved to hold in your hand and look at a lot. I never grew tired of looking at it and holding it and rubbing my fingers over its surface. It made me happy. It was my HAPPY ROCK! I sort of named him "Rocky."

When I went to college, I couldn't take my rock collection with me. It was pretty huge by then. I forgot to take "Rocky" with me. My mother was later clearing out my room and put the rocks outside somewhere. I never had a chance to retrieve any of my favorites including Rocky.

However, I continued to collect rocks and still have some really nice ones these days. I miss Rocky though! Kind of sad thinking about it. SAD at a 3. I wish I still had Rocky! The rest of the rocks from back then I don't remember too much, except that I had a HUGE natural (untumbled) "Herkimer Diamond." It is really a kind of quartz crystal that comes from Herkimer, New York. This thing was a bit larger than the palm of my hand and was heavy too. It was for the most part transparent. It was really awesome! And beautiful....

 

[Changing4Best]

I'm the kind of Bipolar that goes into manics far more often than I fall into depressions. In fact, it is probably 3 to 1 in favor of the manics. So I got lots of exercise today, did a lot of things and got creative to boot. Is being CREATIVE a mood? I never could figure that out. I guess it could be the MOOD you create is also the mood you feel, but not necessarily. So if you paint a sad painting, you could be sad, or you could be creating a sad mood, because the painting is supposed to be about someone's death or something sad like that. Then you might be in a good mood, even though you are creating something blue, because you feel the mood you are creating is being created successfully. This is getting complicated! LOL... so anyway, an artist does not have to be in the mood that he or she is painting, is my point. In other words, I might paint something sad and be happy that I succeeded in doing it really well. So a screen writer could feel he created the mood well, if folks cried during the movie. He'd be happy that he succeeded in creating a sad mood!

Anyway, back to MY MOOD. I am kind of JUBILANT, at a 7 maybe, I guess. Jubilant. I like that word. It has a nice ring to it. I don't think I ever used it before! I wonder where I picked that word up from...?

 

[Nessa7]

I'm not sure about creative. I've gotten into the habit of calling that mood inspired. I use a website to track my moods, and they have you flip through 20 cards with different emotions on them and say on a scale of 0 to 3 how much you felt it that day. I usually do pretty good at inspired.

 

[Changing4Best]

I finally told that bully off! I did it. For once in my life I stuck up for myself and defended myself from his snide nasty comments that he made to me. I got angry back, which is something I was never allowed to do as a child. So I have hardly ever gotten angry in my life. I can probably count on my fingers the number of times in my life that I have ever gotten angry. However, this time I did get angry at an 11!!! I put that bully in his place and made him feel like a cornered animal. I could tell that by the look on his face. Since I have been taking and swallowing his bullying for months, he was shocked and did not know how to respond. He got sarcastic and I got sarcastic right back at him too!

Man, he has been quiet and not bothering me since. YAY!!!

This week I have been in a MANIC with my Bipolar. I think that gave me the courage to do what I did with the bully. If I were depressed, I would not have been able to give "it" right back to him like I did.

What made my week, though, is that a friend of mine who he has been bullying too (and who has also just been taking it and swallowing it), came up to me and THANKED ME for telling him off!!! WOW. He said to me, "You saved me the trouble of having to tell him off myself." He told me that the bully had been calling him a "Queer." among other things. He had, had enough, so he stopped associating with the bully awhile ago. I think I may have mentioned that already, that one person had already moved across the room at the Senior Center to get away from this bully.

I think another person yet, this week, also has moved away from him. Time will tell.

In the meantime, I joined a Forum for Bipolars. It has been very helpful. I will carry on this diary here, however, as writing it has been very therapeutic for me. Thanks to all of you who read, even if you don't reply, I appreciate your time and your prayers, if you pray for me. Or just your warm thoughts, if you think of me....

 

[Changing4Best]

I never thought doing the laundry would be traumatic for me. I am the victim of having been given a life threatening disease called Lyme Disease by ticks, little bugs that bit me many years ago. It went into my heart in 1990 and I nearly died from it, so bugs of ANY kind can trigger me.

Well, I may have mentioned that 3 apartments in our building have recently been treated for bed bug infestations and one of the people living in one of those apartments got so many bites that his legs swelled up. He also got an infection called Impetigo from scratching some of his bites.

So doing the laundry has now become traumatic or triggering for me, because dead bed bugs have been found in our laundry machines here in the building and I found a dead one in a machine at the town's public laundromat last week too. It was dead, but still, I get triggered by this.

I have had 4 recurrences of the Lyme Disease. I know I have had the rash from the bites twice, but the other times it may have just not been treated right when I was bitten and so came back when I was under a lot of stress or when I was sick with something else.

When I get a serious infection, like when I had pleurisy last year (a lung infection), they had to treat it as a Lyme breakout and give me very strong antibiotics for it for 28 days at high doses too.

I am just now recovering from a sinus infection. They had to give me an antibiotic that works against Lyme for that too, just in case. So far, I am recovering well. I think it is about a month now since I had that. I am just now regaining my strength.

BUGS! They drive me crazy, just the thought of them. I'm sorry, but I will use the word traumatized when it comes to BUGS!!! And right now, my laundry is spinning around in a HOT DRYER. The Health Department says to wash all clothes and bedding in hot water and dry it on high heat, so that is what I am doing. Still, I am nervous.... at a 9.

 

[Changing4Best]

Went out to lunch today with my boyfriend. We had a nice time. It was a beautiful day. Nice conversations. Nice folks came in and out, we were eating on the patio. We watched all the cars and people go by so it was interesting to watch everyone as well as carry on a conversation. So I am in a cheerful mood at a 9 or so.

I've got some good conversations going on here on the Forum too, that always makes me feel good, that folks are interested in what I am interested in and wanting to discuss things that I want to discuss.

As to why I was away for a week, let's just say that it was an unplanned "vacation" from the forum, for which I had no clue was coming. I didn't "flame" anyone or anything like that!

 

[Changing4Best]

I am strongly considering leaving the Forum forever. I have, over the past many months experienced more and more negativity here, which is not at all what I originally came here for or what I am looking for here, obviously, now. I even got some from a moderator, which rocked my boat pretty heavily, especially since it was concerning something I did when I was 12 years old.

There have been some good times here and some good people who have treated me well. However, the negative is outweighing the positive now, and causing me some heavy feelings of rejection and not being understood or loved. There may be more folks "liking" me than negative comments and angry blasts, but the weight of that last has become such, that for the positivity to outweigh it, there would have to be a lot more of it than there currently is.

I realize that this may be, because I shifted quickly from a Bipolar MANIC to a DEPRESSIVE and so I am leaving the decision up in the air for a few days, letting my mind really think it over, having a conference with my pastor and of course praying about it, before I make the final decision. The decision will be my own, so I may not be around for a few days, while I make it....

 

[Nessa7]

I have noticed that it seems like people sometimes aren't responding to what you are saying and actually respond to their interpretation of something that you've said in the past or a stereotypical version of you that might not be based entirely on your reality. I'm sure it happens to everyone to some extent, but I have seen it happen to you quite frequently and it isn't as though I'd be paying as much attention to how people respond to you as you are. I would be disappointed if you left, but I can understand why you might want to.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

I think you are a gifted and talented lady. I would miss you.:hug::hug::hug:

 

[Changing4Best]

Thanks. I will be talking with my pastor about my whole ONLINE PROBLEM today. There is a lot to it. It dates back to 1994, actually. It all started the weekend I got my 1st computer and has been an ongoing battle for me since. I don't think I have ever mentioned the whole 9 yards of it here on the forum, but in a nutshell, I was happily married for the most part (except that my husband was addicted to TV and hogged the remote). We married in 1982. On the 1st day I had the computer this man got friendly to me. He seemed nice and I made it clear that I was happily married, or so I thought.

As time went on, he asked me to send him a photo of me. You could not send these online then, so I sent him one in the mail. BIG MISTAKE. He fell madly in love with me, and would not leave me alone. He begged me to come and visit him and I finally did, after I had made it (what I thought) perfectly clear that I was not interested in ANYTHING but friendship.

He wanted to "get a hotel room" when I arrived. I repeated myself that I wanted only to be friends and was not interested in "that." So we went out to eat. He continued to pursue me, as if I could be won. I could not detach. I wanted to. But something held me back. So it went on for years. He would make passes at me and I would refuse and remind him that I was married, then I would ignore him for a month or so, but he would pop up in my email again all "friendly, but not pushy" and I would reply again. Dumb me....

FINALLY with the help of my beloved niece, I did DETACH from him. I blocked his email, (made a filter that sends them to my trash folder automatically) and blocked him on FB. I have not heard from him since.

Yes, one can detach online, it is much easier than in real life.

When one is being harassed in real life, it is not as easy. I have not figured out how to do that yet. I will try.... that is all I can promise.

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone who has replied to this.

I am as yet undecided as to whether or not I will be leaving the forum. I am going to be having a conference with my pastor about it this afternoon. Please pray for me....