Tag: selfcare

Current Mental Health – November 2019

Posted on by Barb
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Photo by Matt Flores on Unsplash

My mental wellness seems to have ended, when we entered Daylight Savings Time and the dark. I’m still on the same medications so the lethargy; the moodiness; and the general, all-around feeling of heaviness must be caused by the weather. I’ve started using my light box. Only 30 minutes each morning for now; I want to avoid a repeat of my past hypomanic episode. I’m not sure if it’s helping. Yet. But I do feel a little better than I did earlier this month.

Another thing that was/is going on is my lack of attention to personal hygiene. It’s become difficult to shower and get dressed, once again. Sometimes I wear makeup (mascara and lipstick) to ensure that I wash my face that night. It works, mostly. Anyway, getting off my routine isn’t helping with my mood, which is, admittedly, better now.

As for my shoulder, I’m getting an MRI on Tuesday. Hopefully that will give the doctor, my husband, and me some answers. The pain has grown worse, to the point where it’s painful almost all of the time, not just when it’s in motion. The pain wakes me up at night, and I can’t take anything but Tylenol because I’m on lithium. My husband thinks I’ll get a shot (of cortisone or something like it) in my shoulder and not surgery. I don’t want to have surgery, either, but I need this pain to go away. It’s making me miserable.

Now, instead of waking up at 3 or 4am for the day, I wake up at like, 9:30 or 10am. Then I get into the mindset of being “behind,” so why bother taking a shower? It doesn’t make sense, but that’s what goes through my head.

I’m managing to keep up my activities like a crochet class, a knitting class, and volunteering. I’m continuing going to therapy regularly. I’m keeping my plans. So, really things aren’t that bad. Let’s just see what next month brings.

How did your month go? Did you celebrate Thanksgiving?

Current Mental Health – September 2019

Posted on by Barb
Photo by VisualHunt

This post is a week late. Oops.

My mental health has actually been good this past month! I’ve been really active, doing more stuff like volunteering once a week, and physical therapy (for my right shoulder) twice a week.

Sometimes I didn’t follow through on my weekend plans, usually dinner and/or a movie. Part of that is because it’s been gray and rainy. But also because a part of me just wants to stay indoors and not leave my house. I don’t think I’m depressed, and I resolve to keep all of my plans this month.

In fact, we went to a nearby apple festival this past Saturday. I’d been looking forward to it because a candy shop I frequent was selling their caramel apples there, which they only make this time of year. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the reality was bad. It was so crowded, with people shuffling in different directions all at once. I was afraid we’d get separated (we also brought our dog), or that Rudy would get into a scrap with another dog (he didn’t). We stayed maybe 15 minutes, just enough time to find the candy booth and buy some caramel apples. Thankfully, the candy booth was near an entrance so we were able to leave the crowd quickly. We may have left early, but at least we showed up — and survived — so that’s pretty good.

My sleep has improved, I’m now only waking up once a night, like around 4ish. I then move to the sofa and I’m out again til about 7 or 8am.

The shakes haven’t been resolved, but I emailed my psychiatrist today. He said he will put me on a very low dose of Klonopin to — if not make them stop, then at least continue to minimize them. I’ll still be taking propranolol for that, too. I’ll let you know if it works next month.

Do you avoid crowded events/areas? Let me know in the comments!

Working on Us, Week 6

Posted on by Barb
Hands Over Face
Photo from Pixabay

On her blog, Beckie of Beckie’s Mental Mess has introduced a set of prompts that touches on mental illness. Each week she offers up 2 prompts for bloggers to use in a nonfiction, fiction, or poetry piece. You can respond to either prompt, or both. For more information, click here. The rules are below. This week, I am responding to Prompt 1.

 

Rules:

  • Write your own post and create a pingback to the original post here.
  • There are no right or wrong answers.  Write in any format you see fit.  (Answer’s, fiction, non-fiction, poetry, poem, short prose…anything).
  • You can do one or all prompts.
  • You have from July 10th. through to July 17th to submit your entries.
  • Please reblog the original post in order to spread more awareness.
  • If you the blogger have a suggestion/question you want to ask in the future weeks, please submit them in the comment section of this post.
  • Let’s see if we can get some men involved in this weeks prompts, your feelings a validated here too!
  • Plus, as an added bonus, whoever responds to the following prompts will automatically be reblogged to promote your blog site!

~ 💚 ~

Week #6 Prompts: 

Prompt #1 Questions:

1. There are so many varieties of depression out there, such as Bipolar Depression, and (SAD) Seasonal Affective Disorder.  What type of depression do you suffer from, or have? I’ve suffered from bipolar depression for half of my adult life, as well as from seasonal changes (SAD).

2. What do you do to fight your depression? (Meaning, therapy, medications, meditation, ECT). Medication and therapy, inpatient hospitalizations, partial hospitalizations, and finally ECT, which I no longer undergo. And to be honest, I don’t know if I would choose that treatment option in the future.

3. Does anything help you, and if so… What? ECT has helped in the past, but it isn’t a permanent solution. More recently, my psychiatrist switched my mood stabilizer from Tegretol to lithium, which has lessened my depressive symptoms. It’s working.

Self-Care: Chiropractic Care

Posted on by Barb
Spine
Photo credit: wu_135 on VisualHunt / CC BY

My lower (and sometimes upper) back is killing me. It has been since sometime last year or maybe last autumn. I can’t remember.

At first I attributed this to sleeping on the couch which I did almost every night because of my insomnia. Then I thought it was because of the bed.

For weeks now (that I remember), I’ve been waking up in bed in a huge amount of pain. Sometimes the pain even wakes me up. I finally decided to take care of myself and saw a chiropractor. I’d seen one in the past, but then she moved away and I never looked for another chiropractor.

So last Saturday, after my new chiropractor checked out my spine by having me do range-of-motion-type (I think that’s what it’s called) stuff like squatting and walking, it seems that my back is seriously fucked up. He went through all the different stuff that isn’t as it should be (he was very informative; unfortunately, my poor cognition doesn’t allow me to remember much). I have mild scoliosis (a curve in the spine) and my core needs work. *groan* When he said that, all I could think of was having to do a bunch of lower abs exercise. Yuck!

After having gone to physical therapy where they give you different (stretching) exercises as “homework,” how could I have thought that I wouldn’t get homework from the chiropractor? Especially one who is also a physical therapist! Luckily, it’s only one exercise and it’s not v-sits. (Yet.) I’m to lie on my back with my legs in the air like a baby, and practice breathing from my diaphragm. Not as easy as it sounds, but doable.

Have you ever been treated by a chiropractor? What are your thoughts?

2 Ways of Living

Posted on by Barb

Sand FootprintsHow to live seems to be a huge thing now, like “living intentionally” and “living your best life.” I first heard of the former sometime last year, and I just don’t understand what it means. My therapist explained it to me, but I still don’t get the concept.

People say things like, “set an intention (for the day/week/month/year).” What does that mean? According to Wikipedia, it’s living a life “based on an individual or group’s conscious attempts to live according to their values and beliefs.” Does that mean intending to do something specific that day, that aligns with your beliefs? How do you choose what the intention will be? Do you have to be accountable to somebody, or just yourself? Do you need a bullet journal? I don’t know. (By the way, that is not a dig on bullet journals.)

Then there’s “living your best life.” The first time I heard this was during my first hospitalization last year. There was a goals group in the morning, and one patient set a goal every day to “live his best life.” Basically, I think it means to live up to your potential. Personally, I thought he said this every day to make sure he had a goal to share during group. After all, the more you participate willingly, the sooner you’ll be discharged.

I guess I learned how to live my best life while writing this post by reading up on it a bit, but that doesn’t mean I’m doing it. As for my intentional life? That still needs work.

Do you live intentionally and/or your best life?