wow. almost a year since the last post here?!
normally, i'd offer an apology and list the reasons for not keeping up. but i'm not going to. because i finally realize that i don't HAVE to. self-care and all... which is a very foreign and incredibly uncomfortable concept to me. i'm working on that...!
my number one reason for not blogging... baby number 5! he arrived at the end of february, after a slightly complicated pregnancy and a family-centered cesarean, healthy and sassy. the biggers love their newest little, our sweet mister river.
finally, a good c-section experience. this was the good.
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the bad and the ugly run together. still struggling with so many things, but i HAVE started counseling and medication and have a diagnosis: bipolar 2. that's not the entire thing, and i've only just started therapy, so that's what we've discovered so far. people who know me, know how much i hate meds, hospitals, clinics, etc... but until there's an oil for that (hah!), it's what's best.
ya know, i used to look forward to being a grown-up, so i could just be done with all the turmoil that hallmarks the teen years. well, i'm a grown-up now, but all that hot mess is still there. and it just gets worse.
i'm being totally transparent here, because i think it helps me stay honest with myself. not because i'm delusional (i'm not!) but because it's so easy to push stuff off instead of accept, try to understand and then begin the process of dealing with it. and because there are kindred souls out there who understand this path, and need to know that there IS someone else who struggles, too.
mental illness isn't fun. it's also got such an awful stigma that nobody talks about it. it's not all hallucinations and asylums and losing all touch with reality; it's everyday people with everyday lives, doing everyday things, only we struggle a little harder to manage. it's living every day with the hope that you'll find yourself in the path of a speeding bus. it's hating yourself so much that you can't stanf to look at yourself in the mirror, or accept that when someone says "i love you", they actually mean it. it's counting calories in vs calrories out and hating the numbers. it's structuring your life around those numbers because that's what feels safe. it's the harm you do to yourself when you don't live up to your own expectations for yourself (yes, even and especially the ultra-rigid ones), the kind that males you live in long sleeves and nothing above the knee. it's the failure to go one single day without reliving the past, either traumatic experiences or mistakes you made in kindergarten, or if it's a really bad day... both. it's the deadening depression, or the hypomania you can't control, or the dual cycle of dealing with both at the same time. it's the anxiety and fear that are so loud you can't ignore them.
so yeah... i'm sure this internal mess strikes a chord on some level with pretty much everyone. if it's just a season of life for you, i'm sorry. it's hard! and if it's because you're wired that way, i'm sorry, it's hard. i refuse to trivialize it if it's only temporary because i know how it feels to have your struggles shrugged off. one of the worst things that can be said to someone with a mental illness is, "think positive!". while it's a very useful bit of advice.... a person with depression can't "snap out of it" by changing her/his mindset. and someone in the middle of a hypomanic cycle is not happy by choice and can't just "settle down"; in fact, "happy" may not even be a thing. my cycles tend to be am aggravated and irritable energy. bipolar is not mood swings that can be turned around by changing our way of thinking- the ups and downs are something we have NO control over. suicidal thoughts aren't self-pity or "tantrums", because normal brains run the other way from threat of death.
so... i'm not crazy or defective. i have bipolar disorder and it's not who i am, it's what i have. in all honesty, i'm still having a hard time coming to terms with this... i mean, i accept that i have it. but it's changed my life, yet it's invisible so it feels like i'm alone with it. it's not terminal, but there's no cure. life goes on around me as if nothing changed, yet for me.... everything has changed.
on a positive note, i've been trying to channel my energy into creating things. i have to "do". i got this fun app on my phone for graphic design and have been playing with it a bit. maybe it's the hypomania speaking, but i've been tossing around the idea of selling some of the designs, specifically ones with mental health awareness in mind. if i run with it, a part of any proceeds will go to project semicolon, a nonprofit support organization based out of green bay. i wish i could say that i plan to attend one of the founder's motivational speaking events, but i can't. she lost her battle with depression this spring.... but her legacy is the foundation. she chose a semicolon because in granmar, a semicolon represents where a sentence could be ended but the writer chose not to. a simple punctuation mark that carries so much weight.
welp, i've gone on long enough--- i have a very small someone next to me, reminding me that he can't get his own bottle yet! so off i go, to nourish the miniature man-cub. maybe i'll share some designs later. before next year, though, i promise. 🤣
