9 Moons Ago

After a year of stressful things, I have come to a point where I need to take great care of myself. It is at a critical point.

For those of you who do not know me or my history, I have Bipolar I Disorder, and was first diagnosed with it right after I turned 21. I will not explain the illness in this entry; it is easy enough to look up online.

I just want to let all my friends know what is going on in my life at the current time, in a brief way.

The past two weeks have seen my mental health going downhill quickly, though I was not fully aware of all that meant. The good friends I have at work could see it in me, and they told me to make sure I took care of myself because they could sense my stress. An extremely supportive new friend of mine, who wishes to remain nameless (I think) but who we shall call “fabulous boy” has been a source of calm and plain old silly fun for me. He has seen that I need to be with my main support system back in the U.S.A. and is helping me get to that point as easily and smoothly as possible. I know he wouldn’t want me to say this, but he is the main one (besides my family) who is helping me get back to being myself and to healing myself. I think we joked earlier that right now he is acting as my “life coach”. I’ll see if he’ll eventually let me refer to his name, so long as I am careful with his privacy online.

So, the quick run-down is that I’ve become hypomanic, which is an intense high right before a manic episode may occur, and it is a phase which sees me talking excitedly and fast, having grand plans, feeling super excited and inspired and almost euphoric, and one sign is that I am writing INCREDIBLY long emails. I am rambling long and really fast and sometimes making so sense. Careless spelling mistakes that I’d normally see.

So.. what will I do now?
Tomorrow morning about 9 am, the CAT team (Critical Assessment Team) will come to the house and talk with me. It is a group of drs and therapists and they will see if I need something like a medication adjustment and a few nights of sleeping aids, to get back to an even keel. This step will be important so that it will help me to avoid growing worse and ending up in the hospital.

My mother and Cameron talked over the phone and decided that this was the best thing. I am SO THANKFUL for it. I’ve been too stressed and excited to sleep much at all this past week.
As for the team, I love that they make a housecall! I love that. I don’t know if they do that anywhere in the U.S. They should!

So, please do not worry, my loved ones. If I can write updates once in a while, I will. Or I will have someone post an update FOR me. I can always privately email and talk on the phone to people and go do fun things.. all of that is helpful to relieve my stress levels. Mostly I need rest right now. What has probably put me in this state is insomnia over 2 weeks from stressful decisions and events that have taken place.

I love you all. And I am grateful for all of you who see that I need help, and take care of me, when I can not see what is going on, 100%, myself.

Now for a quick shower and a nap before they come over. I don’t feel depressed at all..quite hopeful and good, really. So all I need to to be much more balanced and brought down to a less agitated, scattered and jittery state of mind.

Talk to you all very soon!

Oh, and Fabulous Boy: yep..chatting tomorrow will be really good. Looking forward to that!

Kisses and Hugs to all, specially those sweet babies!

xo Amy

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 2nd, 2008 at 1:15 pm and is filed under Bipolar Disorder, Family, Friends, General, Health, Loved Ones. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.