Actually, in spite of this relentless neausea nausea I am feeling an upswing in mood. I went down at noon to open gifts, then I dragged myself back upstairs. I don’t particuallry particularly want to be alone up here, but I’m bad company, and I also feel cocooned up here, snugged in, just not as vulnerable. And as I write this I realize that my feeling of “Robo-Tripping” is very real. Either it’s the Max-DM, or the Steriods, Steroids or the Anti-Virals, or the Anitibiotics, Antibiotics or the COVID, or the CHRISTMAS or EVERYTHING!!
Really.
But Ruffles (the plain ones) are good. And candadied candied pecans (when are they not?). But I couldn’t put the Resse’s in my mouth (and let’s be honest I ate so many before Xmas) and the idea of spices is not friendly.
And I am not coughing. I have to keepy keep reminding myself that I am NOT COUGHING. That is the mairicle miralce miracle in all this cocoation cocotion concoction.
And in spite of missppelling mispelling misspelling so much I feel that I am stuttering, well, I feel like making a point.
And that point is (I will stop showing you all my spelling mistakes now), that in spite of what are real shortcomings of mine. Or rather, let’s call them challenges, maybe even reconsiderations of “how things were in the past but must be different going forward”….I see that I should lean into my strengths, even if they are not what I WISH they were or STILL WERE, is it were.
The facts are these as I can quickly pluck them from my brain–
- Over the past decade I have learned that
being bipolarliving with bipolar disorder is easier if my life is simpler rather than more complex. - Simple = fewer Complications which means a) planning ahead; b) keeping a schedule; c) keeping aware; and LIMITING STIMULATIONS.
I have learned that all stimulus, whether negative or positive, is a drain on my energy systems. I believe that my body has responded to this overstimulation by pushing me into an almost-constant flight response which I have worked years to overcome, a flight response that likely began when I was twelve years old, sitting up in bed and seeing the living room wall crawling with flames.
I believe that my body was so hyper-stimulated for so many years that its nerves have literally “frayed,” i.e. I am hotwired to feel pain at a lower frequency that most of my peers ever would. And I have felt Shame (so much shame). Guilty. Angry. Afraid. And Very Alone because of all these feelings.
Well, all that stops today. I am done. I will not longer apologize for “having” a migraine or feel the need to explain my knees are artificial or my eyes will be too dry in you open that window. I will not longer beat myself up because the kitchen won’t get cleaned today! or I really should have done that laundry sooner! or on no! I really let that 48th other thing I was supposed to get done slide! Good lord. The last year seems like some idiotic quest for perfection, as though someone is keeping score, as though I’m maybe a little girl again saying mama, lookie me! i’m making bubbles while I wash dishes!! i’m a bar maid serving beer. i probably got the swift hand to the behind for that one.
Okay, all that was a false…something.
You see, friends, that life is suffering.
Bah.
I feel sick but I can still work. And I don’t have to beat myself up because I want a better chair to draw in–I can LEAN INTO THAT SUPERIOR CHAIR. Or that I can’t/won’t be going to the studio very often to work because I will often have issues, health or otherwise, that interfere with that. I wanted to join a studio for opportunities and those are happening. Check. I don’t have to fret about not going to the pool, gym, park, stores, blahblah. I can do my micro-walks up here in my perfect attic hide-a-way which make me feel great. I can swim in my tub. I can dance wherever I am. I can sing. I lift things and carry things. I can order groceries and have them delivered to my house when I need to and that is a miracle in and of itself.
Oh geeze,
All this is by way of saying I’m making lemon cake from the lemons because I don’t like lemonade. And I don’t mean real lemon cake with like lemon slices on it and other sorts of yuck. I mean this–
