Not like hunger-games type survival... or scaling mountains survival. No supplemental oxygen required.
It’s more like practical life skills for camping in the woods. Common sense type stuff. But for Depression. Last night cried a bunch while trying to get to sleep and the tears dropped into my ears. This is morning I thought I’d have an hour or so to steel myself to face the day with people... but then realized I had a meeting and needed to pull myself together in 4 minutes. Which started up a miserable crying jag. These are not the survival skills. These are the things that I have to navigate in my Depression camping trip. (Gotta remember to tie the food up in a tree so the bears don’t get at it. Or you.) survival skills:
I am not a danger to myself or others. I am just successfully navigating the whitewaters of the Downs. Because I am not alone. I got people. I have the best people. They have skills. I am no fool trying to summit Everest alone. Not alone. And nowhere near Everest. This is is a bonus of not being manic while Depressed. I can plan some things. I can think of strategies. Or at the very least think of people who might have strategies. Took the FB app off my phone, but I do check in sometimes and see posts on my posts from F/friends who support me from afar. Telling people I am not doing well is infinitely better than trying to hide all symptoms and pretending to be fine. It would be so much harder to get help or feel supported if I hid. Here are some things I would have missed A supportive note from a friend written on a turquoise sticky-note. Another friend mentioned how much she appreciated how open I am about all this crap. (Because if no one talks about mental health crap, we don’t realize how normal it is to have mental health crap that you need to deal with at some time or another.) I asked my director if she could mention to me that I am not a rubbish teacher. She knows why. She’s been near my shoes. (Also had her chew out my obnoxious 4th period students who have taxed my end-of-day reserves.) I don’t want to be alone right now but only because I know that hiding under the covers by myself in a dark room is not a great way to kick Depression’s bony ass. Otherwise the warm dark cave sounds like a great plan. Until I am eaten by bears. I talked to the acquaintance who told me they could never date someone with bipolar... (see previous posts). We have stuff in common. They seem like a nice enough person. And even when I am Depressed I can have many non-horrible moments of regular humanness and casual conversation. I figure this is part of my slow education of a person who doesn’t know much about mental health crap—especially bipolar. I figure if this person (through a series of harmless interactions bit by bit) can see that I am a fully functioning human in most ways for enough of the time... their ignorance might gradually fade. Writing this makes me feel better. I’m Sad but my brain feels more connected. Maybe this is a side-effect of the lifting of brain fog. That first the fog lifts. And then the mood slowly rises as well. Slow is good. Manic is the opposite of slow and not the desired goal of medicating for the Depression. meds 200 mg lamotrigine 150 mg bupropion (remembering in morning now) I have a band concert on Saturday. It is in Hinkley. Hinkley er veldig langt herfra. I’ll invite people to closer ones. Comments are closed.
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |