Truth.

How long has it been?  A year?  It certainly feels like it, although now I see it's only been a few months.

It's been hard.  Inspired by my favorite writer of all time, The Bloggess, I am going to make this post as down to earth and real as possible.  Admitting my faults and weaknesses.  It is after 2:00 in the morning and I still have no intention of sleeping anytime soon.

I have bipolar disorder.  So, not only do I have anxiety disorder, and well-apparent depression, I also have manic episodes, an addictive personality, and a very impulsive behavior.

I'm not like a lot of biopolar people that you either know or think of when you think of bipolar disorder.  I don't get really "hyper" or talkative.  I was hyper when I was 12 years old... now it's more of "omg  I have 2087 things to do and I'm going to do it all TODAY!! Hooray! I am awesome I can can do anything! I am also going to open my own interior design business even though I have zero qualifications!" and then I stay up until the wee hours of the morning getting distracted with every little thing that I see and never getting anything accomplished.  Or "I need to move.  I don't like <enter state here>.  I want to move to <enter different state here>.  I shall move there tomorrow."  Luckily this last train of thought hasn't happened for 3 years, otherwise I wouldn't still be married to Adam and be in Wisconsin.

A few weeks ago I admitted myself to a hospital for my constant suicidal thoughts.  I thought, and I still think, that this was because of a medication I was taking for my chronic pain, (more on that later) which I no longer take.  My husband was a wreck.  I feel really bad about putting him through so much turmoil and anguish over my emotional/mental state.  I feel like I should be able to control or handle it, although I know in my heart that I cannot.

I've been going to a therapist since I got out of the hospital.  I have seen her twice and I go back every week on Wednesday.  While talking to her, I realized I have two brains: one emotional, one logical.  When I have an episode, whether it be manic, depressive, or anxiety, my logical brain is silenced, or at least muted.  She has been really helpful so far in giving me steps to get my logical brain dominate when that happens.  Yesterday I had a panic attack out of no where at work.  Had I not had the steps to get me back in the right state of mind, I would have probably gone home and been a zombie for the rest of the day and night.  Instead, it took 15-30 minutes to get myself back on track and working again.

That gives me hope.

Also, I started smoking cigarettes again.  Don't try to tell me that it is unhealthy, because I know it is.  I know it is stupid, costly, irresponsible, dumb since I want to get pregnant, and just retarded in the first place.   Considering the circumstances, I think there are a thousand other alternatives that would be worse for me.  It helps with my emotional/mental state at the given time and it helps me cope.  I hope with more therapy and adequate drugs it will not be necessary and I can have the strength to quit.

I just started my first dose of bipolar medication yesterday.  I don't know how long it takes to kick in.  I've had two manic episodes today already.  One at about 11:00 am, which lasted until approximately 3:30 pm, where I worked on a multitude of projects and organizing for our Halloween party in a little over a month.  Of course, I did not finish a single project, but I did make progress and come up with many ideas.  Another one started at about 11:30 tonight where I started working on my Halloween projects again, started a load of laundry, and started MORE Halloween projects.  I tend to like starting projects more than working/finishing existing ones.

What is silly to me is that I had an inkling that I might be bipolar years before I was actually diagnosed, but I didn't know why I thought that.  I have never been great at understanding my emotions.  Now that I have been diagnosed, been educated by my therapist and through research, I understand so many things from my past and it helps me deal with current circumstances.

I have a hard time dealing with my chronic pain.  I have a doctors appointment on Monday with a new Pain Management doctor in my town and I hope he will help me.  I saw a different doctor twice, the doctor that put me on the  medicine that I believe made me have constant/increasing suicidal thoughts, and I have been very disappointed.  It takes a minimum of two days to get a call back from a nurse, and this last week it took four business days (which included a weekend) to get an answer.  I called on Thursday, got an answer back on Tuesday.

I digress, I think I actually have fibromyalgia because I have every symptom.  That on top of my mental disorder, it is really hard to deal with in all aspects of my life.  I am in constant pain no matter what I do or where I am.  In bed I hurt, on couches or chairs I hurt, no matter the time of day I hurt.  I am so frustrated I could scream for hours if my throat could handle the additional pain.

I have no mental health insurance coverage!  Health insurance in Wisconsin sucks!!  I have been trying to get different health insurance but it does not look promising.  I have been seriously contemplating bankruptcy but Adam doesn't want to.  The medical bills are ridiculous.  Poor Adam.  He had no idea what he was getting into when he married me.  Neither did I.  I wish I did so I could've prevented him this stress.

If you have made it this far, I give you mad props and I thank you for letting me rant.  It has been an extremely hard time for me.

For Halloween I have so many ideas, and I would like to share a few of them with you.  All images are from Pinterest, not from me.

I am altering some books. I hope they are awesome.  I have done a few steps on some of them but of course I have not finished one of them yet. 

The living room will have branches which I picked up from Michigan Lake shore

and I will be covering the furniture with white sheets.

And of course my apothecary, which *I hope* will be totally more awesome than last year's.

I I have old scrap wood that I'll be making signs for...

They won't be as bright an cheery like this, but this was my inspiration photo.

And I made some ghosts with Erin:

I am hoping my brain gets back on track so I can get everything I want to get done for this Halloween party! I am so excited!!!!!!!

SO MANY EXCLAMATION MARKS!!

See my Halloween Pinterest board here with SO many awesome (mostly not kid-friendly) ideas!



btw, I hate the word "spooky".  When someone uses that word, to me it means "kid-like" or "lame".  Anyone with me on this?!