Before beginning to read, please be aware that this blog has hard topics to talk about, such as manic-depression (bipolar disorder) and other mental illnesses, death, others. This list may be added on at a later time. Thank you!

Hello, this is the first blog post on the website. All of my blog posts are going to be in this area, because I’d like for them to be chronologically. This is a follow-up on my about page, and I’m going to go into more depth about my life so we can try to relate, and maybe we’ll be in the same issues.

For starters, this will mainly be centering around living with bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder and dropping the stereotypes about people being scary, toxic, and aggressive if they have it. Usually, people are going around saying how their partner or friend has bipolar disorder and are saying they were constantly moody, always so sensitive and started arguments, etc, or they’ll say their worst relationship was with someone with BPD.

Well, I have those. Yes, it’s crazy and hard to deal with while being unmedicated. It’s absolutely a mess some days. Sometimes I wonder how my partner feels about it, and even before we got together, I tried to warn him that it’s horrible to work with and that he should wait until I’m medicated.

Along with having those, with school and work being constant, I’m always doing some kind of work from 7am to 9pm, whether that be work or school. So you could probably imagine, having those illnesses without meds and always being tired does not mix well. It’s definitely a rollercoaster.

I’m also in an amazing relationship currently and have only a best friend of now thirteen years, so my time is always occupied. When do I take care of myself? The two seem to understand I don’t have time to take care of my own needs and gives me time, but it’s like I can’t do it myself. They’re helping me do it most of the time, whatever it may be I need help, and that may be eating, cleaning my room, getting out and getting some sun, etc.

In this blog, you and I are going to attempt to find good ways to get people such as ourselves back to being mentally stable and happy, so things actually get done. We’re also gonna go over ways to try to have stable relationships, even being unmedicated (which is hard on a lot of days).

first things to know…

Before we jump right into how to cope and handle this, let’s first go over what it is to get a general idea.

By definition of the Mayo Clinic, bipolar disorder is a disorder centering around severe highs and lows that last days, weeks, or months, as well as sharp and severe mood swings.

The highs are kind of like a heightened sense of “positive” emotions, such as being very happy, very hyper, very chaotic, but could also mean a said person can get angry easily, they’re more sensitive and could blow up over little things, or just get irritated easily in general.

The lows are like severe episodes of depression, and they can be so low that the person may have suicidal thoughts/actions, self-destructive behavior, etc. These people can also be sensitive, but in a negative way, feeling hopeless, lost, confused, or negative about any situation, and probably will have multiple breakdowns.

There’s also a middle, called mania. It’s more leaning to the highs, but also has the behavior of the lows. People in mania will seem to “blackout” and have extremely severe mood swings, as well as self-destructive behavior, not feeling real, and being delusional. They’ll be highly irritated and seem like they’re on the brink of an argument.

The other side being manic is just the hyper part, which includes talking fast, being overactive, feeling full of new ideas or feeling self-centered or self-important, easily distracted, etc. It’s just a whole shell of being over-exaggerated and hyper.

In my case, I have the highs and lows, yes, but they’re much more sharp, abrupt, and fast. In a span of a day, on a bad day at that, I could swing up and down two or three times that day, and be numb when I’m lingering in the middle.

growing up…

As a kid, I grew up in a sort of strict household with not a lot of stuff to grow up with aside from what my grandma gave me. I was sort of in a way forced to grow up fast. Taught manners over going outside and staying out a little passed dark, instead of helping my dad at the campsite, staying home because my mom’s allergies were bad and “I needed supervision”, don’t dye my hair unnatural colors because its unprofessional and people will think I have bad parents.

I turned eighteen over the weekend. It was the best birthday I could try to make it, I was with my boyfriend and he took me out, we were having fun– until my mom told me to be home by eight. That didn’t make sense, as I usually am allowed to stay out until ten. Keep that in mind, because it’s one of the dominoes for later.

All my life, I was told no to dying my hair, only on special occasions and only blonde– but not bright blonde– red– but not a dark or too bright of red– and orange– but not an unnatural orange. No highlights, no under colors, no mixing of colors, cheap, and professional. Which was hard to come around. Always being told no. Always staying home. Always having to stay within viewing range.

Always no, always at arms reach.

I don’t blame my mom, no, and I understand what she came from, because my brothers were devils as kids, running out in the streets playing chicken, staying out at people’s houses that they didn’t know, sneaking around private property, etc.

And as stated, I turned eighteen over the weekend.

So two days after my birthday, I was at Walmart just picking up random things to satisfy binge buying since I hadn’t ordered anything yet, with my boyfriend, and we were in the hair dye section. And mania set in. All at once, I got jittery and hyper-anxious, having a billion thoughts a second and shaking.

I remember saying, “I want to dye my hair.”

And he said, “Do it, you’re eighteen.”

And I just sat in front of the red hair dye, thinking “her threats are empty, she can’t do anything about it, she isn’t gonna force me to wash my hair until it’s out, or cut it off.” So I grabbed the box dye. For the first time in my life, I did something without my mom’s approval and without talking to her first. Just holding it made me more happy and anxious at the same time, this could go really good or really bad. Even on the drive home, I was squeezing my boyfriend’s hand and saying “I’m a big girl, I can do what I want” or “I’m an adult she can’t control me anymore.”

Now I get it, it probably sounds weird that I got hyper and went into an episode over hair dye, but this was so, new to me. It kind of gave me a sense of freedom like I’m supposed to have at eighteen after having every bit of my life controlled with barely any say. Follow this religion, you can’t have these apps, you have to pick these classes, you have to stay home, you can’t go to anyone else’s house, only she can come over, I will make your days plans, you have to be home before dark.

Being told no so much built up to this moment, and I knew my dad would support me. So I hid it, got it into the house, and waited. I waited until my dad was asleep so he could use the bathroom anytime he needed. He was up drinking because my birthday party was that day, so it was a long wait up until two in the morning. And then I did it. I started dying my hair.

I did it fast, given my mom had just recently went to bed too, and she could get up at any minute and need to use the bathroom. I did it thoroughly, I did it quickly and quietly, and half washed it out so then it could really set in. As I went to bed, however, I realized that I can’t hide an entire head of freshly colored hair. I would see her after school. It was almost four in the morning by the time I was finally situated in bed after leaving a long note for my mom about the fact that I dyed my hair by myself for the first time with box dye of a brand I didn’t know… at two in the morning.

When I woke up for school the next day, I realized the color I got was too dark of a red. Like, an unnatural dark. If I had any chance of being told that it’s fine I dyed it, it was slowly going away. I hoped it’d lighten up by the time I washed it again, so I took pictures and sent them to my mom to see when she got up and left for school.

It took awhile for her to answer. I remember waiting until noon for her to answer me, and even then she left me on opened for almost an hour. It was a long, anxious wait. She didn’t like the fact that it was so dark, and was frustrated with me, but let me keep the dye, and even add highlights if i wanted to. It was a scary moment seeing her text, but it was relieving. I’m an adult and she’s letting me have some freedom. It was liberating.

first attempt at coping…

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been having episode after episode. Literally. It feels like every hour that passes I’m in a different mood. The worst day being a day at the beginning of this week where I was lingering in the middle until my second hour class. Then, I started a breakdown, that eventually led me to buy $300 worth of stuff to attempt to make myself feel better. Guess what? It didn’t work, as usual. And that led me into a full on crying breakdown for two hours straight. And after that? I got overly hyper until I got home. And ate. A lot.

How did I cope? I don’t think I ever did. I mean, I took advantage of my hyper and cleaned my room. I stayed home and relaxed, I called off work. I opened up the windows and the curtains and sat in the sun playing on my switch that I got from the binge buying, and I think that’s the closest I got to coping.

What could I have done? Or if you ever experience this– and I hope you never do because it’s made my life so miserable– what can you do to try to get yourself back to “normal,” and in the middle?

We already know that we shouldn’t feed into the loneliness of a depressive episode; we instead should do things like getting some sun, relaxing, having someone you trust come over to help you (and that person should also be educated on how your case is and what you need), or maybe investing in a pet that can come to you and help you realize you are wanted. And, in a darker sense, give you a reason to live.

As for the manic episodes, I’ve never honestly learned how to cope with it. I just guess my way along. It’s rough sometimes. My partner tries to take my phone to stop me from binge buying, or saying something I regret, but I don’t feel safe without my phone, and that gives me anxiety. And I’ve only ever had the binge buying, hyper and self destructive kind. I’ve never had the blackout rage, or blackout suicidal/self destructive ones. I don’t honestly know how I’ll handle that one, but I could imagine that I won’t have much of an option to help myself or not.

For the most part, during the episodes I have, I just try to have people around me who I trust to make decisions for me and help me realize I don’t need to be doing that. This entire disorder, in my opinion, revolves around having someone, at least one, that you trust entirely. And I hate saying that knowing someone out there doesn’t have someone.

A good way for the outside, trust people to tell what’s going on in our heads, like seeing if we’re in an episode or not is to look at our eyes. I just recently learned about that one. When we’re manic, our eyes may seem more open, active, less blinking, etc. Depressive episodes are directly opposite. The hoods of our eyes are more closed, slow, like a relaxed squinting. The episodes with not thinking anything is real is more like looking around constantly, blinking constantly, just being over-aware.

This disorder is the most miserable one I’ve ever been diagnosed with. I hate myself for not treating my clinical depression sooner so it didn’t develop into this, much worse thing. It has caused so many good relationships to just crumble and be cut off without wanting them to.

intervention

We’re going to take a break from our regular hard talks to kind of talk about the fun things, and there will be more interventions like this when topics get too serious and hard to handle.

From TikTok, there was a video going around and hitting almost everyone’s for you page. I want to talk about the couch guy from my perspective! Now, the whole video itself seems really innocent, it took me a few times of just looking closer. It starts off with the girlfriend, walking through the door to surprise her boyfriend that she has made a surprise visit! Super cute in my opinion, and when the camera finally gets to the boyfriend, he was on a couch with three girls, very close. There’s two other guys in the room, in the room in front of the one the boyfriend was in. The three girls and him were playing a game on a Nintendo Switch.

The boyfriend pauses the game, leans forward in what seems to be disbelief, suddenly has his phone and sets down both the controller and the phone, gets up and slowly hugs her while the others awkwardly laugh and smile. The video ends after that.

There’s a lot to pick apart here. Like a ton. He was shoulder to shoulder with other girls, but he was on the far left and the three were on the right of him. The girl closest to him had his phone. That we will pull apart more soon. Boyfriend also had one of the girl’s black hair ties on his wrist. He has short hair, barely enough for a tiny ponytail on the top of his head. And the way he slowly got up, his friends looking at each other with a panicked kind of look. All of it is just suspicious– and most of everyone who saw it agreed.

Of course, people immediately dug more into it. She had her Instagram open from her TikTok page. They went from her page, to find him in her bio. Tracking back, someone looked into if boyfriend has ever liked any of her posts. He did not. They then went to his page, found the other girls, and found out that he likes their posts. Very bad. Very bad situation already.

Now, back to the video, the girl next to him was leaning that way towards him with her legs. That’s girl code for I’m listening, interested, etc. and if she was turned away, she wouldn’t be interested. At the start of this, she had his phone. When he awkwardly leaned forward, he crossed his arms and leaned them on his knees, letting his hand go under his arm, the girl immediately giving him the phone, and acts like he already had it.

You can also tell the mood was immediately killed as soon as she walked in. Something was going to happen. He was wearing her hair tie!! Three girls, three guys!! Never liked his own girl’s posts!! Sneaky phone pass!!

Despite all of this evidence, the girlfriend never believed people. Her boyfriend didn’t say anything about it for weeks, and when he did, he only said to mind our business, and to touch grass. She later posted the same clip, but a closer on him putting down the controller, with the caption “when your boyfriend pauses the game for you” with multiple heart and love emojis. Later, an account opened up called “couchguyslawyer.”

I’m sorry, but he’s cheating.

this year’s madrigal…

Every year our school’s choir hosts something called our madrigal. Its a medieval gathering, where royalty and our wenches all come together to celebrate the beginning of Christmas, feast, sing songs and just enjoy ourselves.

For two of the three years I could’ve done madrigal, I was one of the wenches, trying desperately to get into the higher level choir, but due to what classes I needed and when I could have them, I couldn’t. Until this year. This year, I finally made it into our mixed choir, and from there have been able to get small solos that I’ve been wanting to get for years, and get places I’ve been wanting to forever.

We already had our opening night, that was yesterday (November 18th) and it was a very, very good opening night. Everything went according to plan, we didn’t have to come up with anything on the spot, we were all in our spots, no delays, no mistakes other than one big one and really, really tiny ones that nobody noticed. But. There was one thing we were banned from that we did anyway as a last resort to keep the energy going in the crowd.

After intermission, when were waiting for our director to come out and speak again, we were running out of merry conversation ideas. The audience was going into silence, waiting for us to do something. So the jesters got up. The director said specifically for us not to do this, because we might hit one of the many mics in the air. But to be fair, we did a bunch of things she was nervous for us to do, and turned out fine.

Sorry for continuing to delay what happened, but I feel like there needs to be more background. I promise it’s next. Anyway, we have a song called “A Little White Hen”, and we have to have a stuffed chicken for it. So, the jesters picked it up, gathered the head wench, and played monkey in the middle.

Yes, that isn’t so bad, but think about how much could go wrong. We had mics everywhere, and they were obviously on and they were inches from it. They’re very sensitive mics as well. And yes. They did hit the mics. Violently. It didn’t do as much as we thought it would, but it was still swinging fiercely back and forth.

The other time our director was worried was when there’s a scene where the king gets “kicked” out of his chair, and falls over onto the floor. He’s just supposed to fall on the floor, only him. Problem is, he likes to take the chair with him. And did take it with him, by the way.

We have one more night to throw it all together, and this is my final year doing it. I can’t wait to look like a baby in front of over one-hundred people.

the holiday season!

It’s finally the holiday season, and very unfortunately for me and my bank account, it’s time to buy the people I care about presents. Which isn’t a lot of people, but ALSO very unfortunately for me, I had a lot of money, because my paycheck was eighty-nine hours. AND very unfortunately for me, my love language is gift giving, and for some reason those gifts have to be expensive. Large. More than $100, or with a lot in the package.

I’d just like to emphasize I said I had a lot of money. Had. Because as soon as I got my paycheck, I emptied all my carts– Amazon ($480), Shein ($20), some small town gaming shop ($100), and earlier, another $500 on Amazon. Needless to say, I dropped more than a grand on Christmas this year.

I mean, why not right? I don’t have the biggest bills yet, I had everything paid, I’m set!

I think it’s very worth it. My boyfriend got a Nintendo Switch, a gift set of his favorite show, controller grips for the switch, new LED lights, new masks that might actually fit him; my mom got a brand new tablet (because frankly, I don’t think her tablet from 2010 can run her three games anymore, or anything at all) and this new music thing she’s fixated on; my cat got a heated cat house, she’s very, very prone to being cold and her cold tremors, so she needs all the warmth she can get this winter; and I just got two new stuffed animals of Pokemon I’ve been fixated on (yes, it’s mimikyu and raichu), new LEDs, controller grips, and a VERY good deal on 208 really old DS games I used to play as a kid.

Yeah. That’s why it’s so expensive. Also paid for the fastest shipping, because I want instant gratification, and buying in real life isn’t it. I do plan on saving most of all my paychecks after this one, however! I should be satisfied for a very long time.

Lucky for me though, my spot me on Chime, my bank, saved me a lot. Always very grateful for that.

The Loop by Ben Oliver Review

Over the last month or so, I’ve been reading a book on top of the other one I was working on for an English assignment called The Loop. It’s a soon to be trilogy, and it’s about a 16 year old boy named Luka Kane who gets thrown in a prison called the Loop. But instead of this being a traditional dark, dim cell block, its a soundproof, white room, with all white designs. A technology advancement named Happy has taken over every function of the world, and controls the rainfall, the heat, when the sun rises and falls, etc.

When they first arrive in the Loop, a pan-optic camera is inserted in their heads, and an explosive device that circles the arteries in their hearts for if they ever try to escape. Every six months, they’re experimented on. Replacing organs with robotic pieces and seeing how well they work for the rich people to then get them implanted to be the perfect human. Then the day goes. They wake up at 7am. Nothing is allowed in the rooms, but the new Warden of the building sneaks them stuff in, such as Luka getting books. Happy delivers them breakfast of their choice, a couple of hours later they get to go outside. They have a small area of cement to run around and keep sane with, and if their voices are loud enough, they can yell over the walls to talk to the people in the cells next to them. After that, they’re ushered back into their cells for the rest of the night. The rain comes at 12am and only goes for a couple of minutes. And then it repeats. Until the rain doesn’t come again, and Happy seems to be messing up.

Usually, when i read books, nothing ever gets me that hooked to see the next one. I’ve only had a small handful of them do that. There’s The Hunger Games series, the Divergent series, the And I Darken series (also called the Conquerors Saga via a quick Google search to try to find the name) and the Percy Jackson books, but this one definitely gets added to the list. The next morning after I finished The Loop, I immediately ran to go order the next book, The Block. That came quickly, and I finished it quickly. It had me hooked, and I wish that was an exaggeration. I finished both of the books within two separate weeks. The third one comes out in a couple of months, and I swear that one will be finished within another week.

Needless to say, this is going on my list of favorite books I’ve ever read. The project we centered this book around was dominant and counter narratives, lenses, etc. So the entire time I’ve been reading this book, the same question was running through my head over and over again. How much are people willing to sacrifice to save others? That is such a HUGE theme throughout the entire book, I wish I was lying.

This, without a doubt, is the book I’m going to recommend repeatedly if someone wanted something like The Hunger Games or The Maze Runner. And I’m also going to tell them get to page forty, because that’s where it gets good.

Ending the year…

Over the course of this entire year, I vowed to myself that I was going to become better mentally. When the pandemic started and my mental health declined, I got into bad relationships, etc, I didn’t do anything to help it but move onto the next friend group and push it out of my mind. I never did any self care, I never took a moment for myself.

Once I got with my current boyfriend and he emphasized that it’s okay to take me time and take care of myself, I vowed to myself. This will be the year.

And boy, was it a rough year.

The endless manic spending episodes, the endless rock bottom pits I was in, the endless irritation, the endless binge eating episodes, the endless starving from eating disorders, everything. This had to be my roughest but most productive year. Looking back, the guilt from my earlier episodes back when I first started high school, the stress of being a senior, the stress of not knowing what I’m doing after school, the stress of an upcoming promotion, the stress of ending one of my coping mechanisms since I’m graduating, it was all so much.

Was it worth it? Yes, I think it was. It built me as a person to think fast and smart. Find new ways to handle this stress, find new hobbies, save my money for big things, always take a step back, think of every word you say. It built me more than I can ever acknowledge.

This blog that my teacher had us make at the beginning of our senior year really influenced us. In my opinion, it gave us all outlets that we all needed after the pandemic. My classmates have such creative possibilities and I’m so glad to see them all express it. It lets me express what I want to, and have the resources to do so.

That being said,

In three days, I will have all the requirements to graduate. I have passed all the tests I need, I’ve filled all the forms I need to, I will be set to graduate after thirteen years.

It’s been lovely writing for you, reader. It’s been fun, but this is unfortunately my last post. I wish you well and hope you live the best life you can. Good luck in life.