vine/shuffle/jumping jack/hook

Dear Internet,
When I came up with ThePlan, part of the mind/body connection was to get in shape. I’ve been in shape on and off for years, but after being laid up for nearly 18 months from my surgery a few years ago, the in shape part has thrown me ever so far for a loop.
Doing ThePlan has been a massive struggle. I’ve started out strong, fall back, start out strong again, and fallen back again. I’ve made huge mistakes and have claimed some small victories, but it’s been hard to really gauge how I’m doing. I know the bipolar is a mess, even with the drugs it’s been so sporadic, I’ve often wondered if my best bet is to put myself into a psychiatric hospital. But then I’m not really sure what it will do for me outside of what I’m doing now, which is drugs and talk therapy. I am so desperate to have some kind of stability to get me moving forward that I’m willing to do just about anything to grab at it.
I do not want to be at the head space I was late in 2014. Never ever.
So many people are upset/angry/disappointed in me right now, that normally I would find myself begging for forgiveness. With some of them, I have. But the most important thing is to get my head and body into some semblance of stability so I don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again.
Which is why I was at a 6AM kickboxing class this morning.
I have been walking the track at the local Y every morning this week, and meditating, even on the days when I felt like I could barely get out of bed. Yesterday morning was particularly bad as I felt like even doing my 8 laps around the inside track was going to do me in. Even having heart raising pop music to make it fun, wasn’t doing it for me. When I got home, my brain was on such fire, I planted my hands on the kitchen sink, huffing cold air via the open window to calm me down.
And like a switch, it’s off again and I start to feel better. I’m sure the Klonopin helped.
The issue with me is that for most of the time, I present as high functioning (as well as a medical curiosity). I’ve been able to accomplish a lot in my life that most bipolars cannot: I’ve finished school, not once but thrice. I’ve had long term relationships. I’ve held down jobs. I’m not on drugs and I’m not promiscuous (two massive bipolar traits).
But it’s a struggle. It’s all a struggle to do these things and stay on the golden path. I’m not sure where I get the strength to push myself forward, but it’s there and it’s real. I’ve grown up with having little or no support for this disease and the only person I could count on is myself. Even those who are close to me, who have given me support and understanding, can only do so much.
I have to continue to save myself. No one else can do this for me. At times, I’ve been wholly naive to think they could, but they can’t. I’m going to go forward and I’m going to fuck up again. But I have to recognize, really recognize, that I am human and I’m bound to make mistakes. The goal, then, is to catch myself during these mistakes and right them before they get out of hand.
Throw in my other conditions (borderline personality disorder, anxiety, ADHD), and I’ve got a delightful cocktail of fire happening in my brain.
TSTBEH recently finished my book and found it weird and insightful. Weird because he was there during that year in San Francisco, my love, and insightful because he was able to judge me then versus me now. Then I was careless, an asshole, out of control, and financially unstable. I’ve made extraordinary strides not to be that person and he did comment on that. I’m much more able discern when the crazy is coming and how to do some kind of self-care, even when it feels like I’ve fallen off the wagon. But there are a lot of patterns still being repeated, that I’m continually self-sabotaging my own happiness by believing that external things will make me happy (which, to be fair, I’ve discovered they actually do not). That I don’t allow myself to take pleasure in the small things or accomplishments (woo! I have three degrees! Who’d see that coming?).
I can do a lot of things.
Some have called this site nothing but navel gazing, which to be honest, it is. This site is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it is my own form of talk therapy and a curse because it has all of memories from it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Most of all, it’s a crucial reminder of my own humanity.
I’m not asking anyone for forgiveness. I’m not asking anyone to stand by me, but what I am asking is that you understand. You understand that for me, daily existence is a struggle. That for what some of you seem like simple tasks, for me are sometimes monumental journeys.
But I can taste the joy. I’ve seen it and I’ve felt it, the closest I’ve come in a very long time, if ever. Working towards that joy, no matter what methods I use, is my new drug.
I hope to be addicted for a very long time.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2003, 2001, 1999