holidays

Family

At this time of year especially I miss my family. I haven’t seen most of them for close to 16 years. My anxiety has kept me from taking the steps it takes so I can go back to Canada. I have invited them all to come here though. Some even on my dime. Yet I’ve only seen my mom and two youngest sisters.

My in laws are great. I get along well with them but except for my sister in law it just doesn’t feel the same you know?

Going to my nephews birthday celebration tonight, going to surprise them by showing up. I was invited but I usually don’t make it to this sort of thing.  Leaving in 45 mins. I’m a little nervous but I think I’m good.

Holidays and such I tells ya.

Ohh my accomplishments today are getting dressed, brushing my hair, mopping and doing some other small cleaning things and hopefully going out 🙂

 

More Visits With A Slight Reprieve

So Mom’s husband is gone but now my FIL is here until Friday. So that means out of 11 days hubby and I will have 3 alone.. 3 you say? Yes tomorrow we actually will have some time alone. MIL and FIL are going over to SIL for a visit. The rest of the week will be celebrating SIL’s birthday, New Years Eve and also a lot of football.. ugh

My mood is okay, we got an email from the people building our house that we might hear about closing in a week or two. We basically close 45 days after we hear. So I am hoping it is a week opposed to two. Yet it is wonderful that we are getting closer to getting into our home. We walked through it again today as we showed MIL and FIL how it looks with actual walls and such. It gave me a nice warm feeling.

For some reason when the new year and Christmas are around I get paranoid. I worry that there is going to be some holiday catastrophe. I don’t know why. I just have always been that way. This year things have been a little different. I still have that lingering worry in the back of my head but I’ve also been able to enjoy moments.

My mood today is middle of the road, not bad but not good. I’ve been able to joke and smile though so that is a plus. I’m worried the depression is going to come again. I hope it stays away a little longer than it normally does. After all it always stays around longer than most of my other moods, it only seems fair.

Honestly the only thing I really want it time alone with my husband. That isn’t asking for much. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

Merry Xmas

Surprisingly Today has been wonderful. We woke up and had bacon and eggs for breakfast made by MIL and then we relaxed. Hubby and I walked through Schram Park and I took some pictures with my new camera. Did I mention I got a new camera? lol

Dinner was lovely a prime rib and baked potatoes which was absolutely delicious and we played some games. I had a couple glasses of wine but not enough to get drunk. Just enough to be calm.

Today the sun was up and the temperature was 50 degrees. I got some gorgeous sunset pictures, but I’ll post pictures tomorrow when I have some time. Tonight I’m just gonna chill.

So Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope you are celebrating your holidays in the best mood possibly.

So It’s Begun

I woke up this morning and the feeling of overwhelming stress hit me. It’s that holiday feeling. Not that good one but one of panic!

There will be 4 children and 5 adults here later tonight and I am planning on not drinking and just trying to deal with everything. At least I was but as the hours pass and it is getting closer to everyone being here I am thinking about just a couple relaxing bottles of wine to help me relax.. err glasses wow think there was something going on in my brain there.. Like it will take 2 bottles of wine to relax. hahaha.. I’m funny sometimes.

Christmas won’t be that bad because it will be all adults. There is the opening of presents which I am embarrassed by. I never know if I react properly .. lots of stress.

Needless to say it will be tough couple of days, then we mix and repeat new year’s eve. I can make it through it though. I may have anxiety attacks and I may feel like running, but I can do this. It’s something normal family’s do.

Anyhow I hope you have a wonderful Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, see you tomorrow!

When I Am By Myself

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?

Holiday Anxiety

As I’ve said in previous posts I often have a lot of depression and anxiety during the holidays. So far this year has been a little easier than most others. I’m not sure if it is medication or family or learning to accept the way things are.

My mood has pretty good today. Two in a row, that’s certainly something. I am not sure if the medication is working already or I’m just being lucky. I do consider 2 days in a row lucky regardless. I usually have many days in a row of depression then 1-5 days of mania with one or two hypo-manic days.

I love the hypo-manic days as it gives me a chance to catch up on all the stuff I get behind on when I am depressed.

I am really hoping that these holidays are better than they have been in the past and that going forward my meds work to get rid of the depression that is lurking just outside of my vision.

Better Somewhat Today

I think that I am doing better today. I don’t have that evil little ball of rage eating my stomach up.

Last night to take care of it I had a couple margerita’s at dinner, it helped mellow me out. I can see how easy it would be to become an alcholic, I could do it easily. I know that it makes things better for a short time. So I drink a little more than normal during the holidays.

BTW for those saying lighten up. That is not something that comes naturally to me and when someone owes you 5000 dollars and then pushes you around passive agressively while spending money on crap and not making an effort to pay you back at all. I lost my feeling grateful when all that shit went down. I feel how I feel. WE never ever put her out and do all her little hints that we can to make sure she is happy. It gets to be a little much.

Okay maybe that ball is still there but it isn’t raising my blood pressure and making my eye tick anymore which is something.

I can’t wait until we get our own place so I know which feeling are natural and which are bipolar. It’s impossible to tell at the moment. All I know it most days I am depressed or angry. I didn’t want to waste my therapy money on it so now I just vent to hubby and hope for the best.

Hopefully the med increase will help calm me down.

Let It Rain

It’s been raining non stop since yesterday and it’s like a cathartic rain cleaning away my holiday humbugs. My mother in law is decorating the house and burning holiday scented canadles and it is making me look forward to Chritmas instead of dreading it like I always do.

Honestly there is some deep buried thing that makes holidays for us and as soon as I move into my home I will go back to the therapist. Always end up complaining about living here and it solves nothing.

I sent out cards to my family this year which I haven’t done in years. Even to my father who really has nothing to do with my life and my grandparents whom I miss very much.

Do you love or dread the holidays? How does it affect your mental illness? I’d love to hear. that I am not the only one that is affects.image

I Can See

Today we went and got my glasses they were finally done. Things look weird like I am drunk but that will pass after a while.

Today we went out to the house and they are installing drywall which is so awesome. It’s nice to see the house heading towards being finished.

My mood has been up and down today, I have had a lot of anxiety and I don’t feel really well. I hate it when my tummy has issues. It makes the anxiety so much worse.

MIL is in the holiday spirit and is hanging christmas stuff all over the house, it’s really nice. It makes me wish that I didnt have such a hard time with this time of year and could just enjoy it. I’m certainly going to try and have some good times..

Trying is the first step to doing.

When A Kid Can Be a Kid

Today I decided to write on a lighter note. I was thinking about when I was younger before I went all crazy. I thought I would list some of the things I loved to do as a kid. Maybe you would like to think about this yourself, we all have some good memories, even if we are haunted by the bad.

Favorite Games:

The Floor Is Lava!: The funny thing about this is I thought me and my sister had created this game. However it seems to be a game that many kids had created or been taught. Interesting though.

Marbles:  Marbles was so much fun for me because little did I know it covered a couple of my needs, collecting and gambling lol.

Freeze Tag: I loved this game. Actually any game of tag really. The thrill of being chased.

Favorite TV Shows:

Electra Woman and Dina Girl : I actually have a dvd of this and watching it now I realize just how cheesy it was, but still adore it! I remember me and my sister would tuck our t-shirts into our underwear and pretend to be them!

H.R. Pufnstuf : Again I own this still and am not sure what I liked about it, though it still makes me giggle.

Wonder Woman: Sense a theme here? I did and will always love Wonder Woman.  I was a naughty girl who stole a giant comic book about her from the school because the library wouldn’t let me take it out anymore.

Favorite Sport(s):

Gymnastics: This was my favorite thing to do in the world, I did flips and cartwheels all over the place instead of walking, hehe. I did this for 9 years and it kept me happy and focused while I did it.

Track and Field: I’m short, and have always been but that never stopped me from doing long jumps, high jumps and hurdles when I was a kid.

Favorite Season:

Autumn: Has and always will be. I know a lot of kids liked Christmas but I loved Halloween more. (still do!) Plus I loved the smells and the cool rains. The crispness of the air. I never liked being too warm.

Favorite Song(s):

Billy Don’t be a Hero : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cdFuMgMkBM

Da Doo Run Run : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj7nQ14iFwU

Beth : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uABnCLr4Pp0&feature=kp

Favorite Place To Be:

This one is so easy. Outside!! Most kids when I was young, never wanted to be home. We didn’t have computers or Ipads and cell phones. In fact you had to call a landline and we could listen to each others calls without anyone knowing lol. I was outside as long as I was allowed. Even in the cold of winter I loved being out and playing in the snow.

What kind of good memories do you have as a kid?