When I am by myself I often ponder how I am feeling. I know lonely is something I feel a lot of the time. Though I try to talk to people online during the day to give myself a break from it.
Yet I never truly understand how I am feeling until I interact face to face.
This is the first day I have been alone for a few days and after tomorrow I won’t be alone for 11 days. Hubby will be here, mom’s husband will be here and so will my FIL, so there will be a lot of interaction and I’ll know from the beginning how I will feel. Due to FIL and mom’s hubby I am assuming I am going to be annoyed. They both love to take over the TV and put on nothing but shit. ugh..
I plan on drinking Christmas and New Year’s Eve to help deal with the social annoyance. It’s less painful than trying to bury those feelings for close to two weeks.
Though I am so happy that hubby will be home so long and he will be a good person to measure how I actually feel as opposed to trying to guess and hoping my medication increase is working on the depression. I know if it is then I can start working on trying to find a mood stabilizer to stop the constant mood swings. I’m what you call a rapid cycler which makes me bipolar 1.
Do you know how you are feeling when you are by yourself or do you just go through motions?
I find it quite difficult to know how I’m feeling unless I have another person, a sort of springboard of reactions, around. But I live alone, and my significant other and most of my friends are school teachers so there goes my company for the day. I feel like the change is talking. Talking makes me realize if I am wearing a mask or not, if I am happy, if I might be hypomanic (I am bipolar II), if I am depressed. I lie a lot when I am depressed.
I have found that sobriety has led me to be able to feel my feelings more, but I was an alcoholic (a lot of bipolar people turn to alcohol, I have read). I’m not trying to lecture, just trying to share what helped me.
Good luck with all of your holiday interactions and I hope you enjoy this time of the year.
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I find it helpful to have my husband or other loved one give me feedback about my behavior. My feelings only I experience, but my behavior affects others as well as myself.
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