My Bipolar Life

Please welcome Christeen, my first guest blogger......... I am Christeen, and Lisa has graciously allowed me to share about borderline personality disorder here on her blog.  To be diagnosed with bpd one has to exhibit 5 of the following symptoms: fear of abandonment, torrid relationships, black and white/all or nothing thinking, impulsive and/or dangerous behaviors, suicidal thoughts,inappropriate anger, intense and highly unstable moods, paranoia, and dissociative symptoms. Of the 9, I have 8.  The hardest part for me about bpd is that even many mental health professionals consider us to be beyond help.  How can we tell ourselves we can manage our symptoms, let alone our loved ones, if even ours psychiatrist tells us we cant? If you have bpd and are seeing a professional that believes you cant get better, please find a new one.  We CAN and DO learn to manage our symptoms. I would like to talk for a moment about how my mental illness affects my personal relat...

Six small words that are nearly impossible for many to learn.  I have learned over time to not let the bipolar define me but rather be a small part of the many things that define me.  Learning this was a turning point in my life.  I think that realizing this was almost as important as the medicines that I take to keep the chemicals in my brain balanced. The thing is, bipolar can be such an ugly disease that rips away a lot of who you are underneath it all.  Bipolar makes you behave selfishly, bipolar makes you act impulsively, bipolar makes you behave rudely,  But what we all need to remember that bipolar doesn't make you selfish, impulsive, and rude.  I know that people have a hard time separating an action from who a person is in general.  I get that because I feel great shame for a lot of my behaviors over the years.  I have figured out, in time, that I have to forgive myself for the bad behavior bipolar creates within me.  I wish that...

I learned something interesting in my journey just this last week.  Bipolar doesn't only affect your mental health but it affects your physical health, as well.  What kind of bullshit is that?  It's not enough that I have to feel like I am literally losing my mind sometimes but I can't feel pain in the same way as my"normal" friends can?  That kind of blows but it clears things up a bit for me.  Let me try and explain.....the chemicals in a bipolar's brain ebb and flow, this we know.  But what I learned was that this ebb and flow causes us to sometimes  feel pain more intensely than it really  is and sometimes less than it really is.  As many of you know, I had my knee replaced on July 1st.  Two weeks after surgery, I was asking if we could talk about me going back to work on light duty ( it was anticipated that I would be out until December) and how soon I could go on the rides at Six Flags with my kids.  No, I could never walk ...

Today is a day that is hard for me whether I am bipolar or not.  My husband lost his uncle two years ago today.  To watch his cousin, Jessie go through that, even from afar was difficult because I love Jessie as if she were my own cousin and with Facebook we have become more and more close over time.  So the interesting thing about my blog is that it just talks about life as I pass through it, as anyone passes through it. Looking back to two years ago, I am going to share my Facebook status from that day.  I had just come home from my sister's wedding in San Diego and it was what should have been a very happy time for us as a family.  It turned sad and heartbreaking quickly. Facebook status 8/11/13: We didn't always plan on driving to  Kensuke  and  Kim 's wedding but a few months ago, I came up with one of my great ideas or as  Dan  calls them my "Lucy ideas". The thing was, and until now only Dan knew this, I felt a very st...

As I write about my journey through bipolar, I rarely speak about my mom.  I do not speak about her because talking about her is sharing things that she may not want shared so I am going to be careful to only talk about it from my feelings and my point of view because I truly can't speak of her feelings. The most important thing in all of this is that I love my mom.  But we are different, very different.  My mom and I hardly agree and I wouldn't say see things as different as black and white but it is more like we see things like fuchsia and lavender.  I see things bright like fuchsia and I need to live life to the fullest and seize the moment.  My mom is more calm like lavender and planning for the future and being prepared for what comes in from every angle.  I could learn to be more like her because my mom has never been unprepared for an emergency.  The thing is, she could probably learn to have a little fun from me, too.  No, I am not sayin...

My bipolar kicks my ass sometimes and today is one of those days.  I am impulsive and do impulsive, dumb things.  And that isn't always the smartest or the greatest thing to do but that is how illness work sometimes.  It does bad things to your body and in my case that part of my body is my brain.  My bipolar doesn't always make me think clearly and act clearly and behave rationally.  The thing with the lack of rationality is that after the fact, I am so embarrassed by my behavior.   Being embarrassed because you know that you have screwed up whether it is big or small can be hard but it becomes unbearable when those you love or trust question the decision or how the decision was made.  My impulsiveness tends to be with money and I always figure it out but to have those who I think love me talk about me behind my back makes me want to hurt myself. I think people need to hear this LOUD and CLEAR, judging a bipolar's impulsive mistakes c...

Wow, I haven't written anything in a long tine.  I have let many opportunities slip away but let me tell you why.  I have mainly intended to use this blog to educate and inform about bipolar and create a journal of sorts for myself..  As each day went by without a post, I felt the post needed to be more meaningful and more special and I then realized that was ridiculous and I can't make my journey through life more meaningful or special and it just is what it is.  So here's what I have been up to...... Life is messy but it sure is sweet.  I had a death in my family, my favorite great aunt passed away recently.  Aunt Ev made the best tuna sandwiches and we used to watch the Young and the Restless together.  She was a great long life and I will miss her. I also finally had my knee replaced.  It had been relatively easy, much more easy that I had prepared myself for or expected.  I am grateful to Dr. Main and his staff for their expertise for ...