I feel compelled to write again. It’s been a while and as usual when reasonably level I don’t seem to.  

Here I am again writing a blog post but it’s not because I’m unwell again, although I had a few wobbles for a week when missing medication.  I am level. I am in recovery. It can happen. It has happened and it is happening.  I’ve been level for a couple of months or so now and having psychotherapy is really helping.  I’m able to see further with life again and I’m really doing things, I’m always busy but I’m doing things towards my future. I’m not pressuring myself in fact I’m kind of ‘flowing’ with life and I’m not fighting anymore.  I know I will get unwell again and I’m not fighting that either. I accept it.  I accept that I will get unwell.  I accept that I will scare myself. That I will worry. That I will not know what really is truth or fiction and paranoia. Fighting hard has been a strength and a downfall.  I accept all of it now.  I accept that I have a condition that is amazing and scarily shit at times.  I accept that others cannot feel what I feel.  I’ll not fight so hard, if at all, but yet I’ll never give up or give in.  Recovery is real and possible. Acceptance is a huge key to it.      

So many things are happening for me.  I’m growing a lot more veg this year and market gardening seems to be a natural progression.  If it doesn’t happen then I’ll still keep growing more veg.  I’m starting off with sharing some with family and friends who we rent a field off. If I have excess then I will sell it from a stall outside our house and give some away to other friends too.  I’ve already built a small stand.  My building business is busy, as always, but my mind is in a far better place and I’m pricing work far more sensibly and realistically and am again charging more and not cutting myself down with horrible internal negative chatter.  

 Having come on here tonight I’m touched to see that I now have about 2215 subscribers to this blog. I’m amazed. I started it as a diary. I know some friends occasionally read it and I told a few others but I never thought I would get subscribers.  I figured if by writing what I go through can help maybe one or two others then it would be worth being as brutally honest as I can be.  If you are reading this and have related to what I write, sympathised or it has helped you then you have also helped me. Writing this has given me help. It’s given me hope and it’s also scared the shit out of me when reading back at times.  

Recovery is real, it might not last forever, but it’s real. Take whatever help is offered and ask for more.  Accept all of it and accept all of yourself.  Much love.  

I’m level.  I’ve been level for a short while now. A few weeks.  I could really get used to this.  I’ve had some quickening of thought lately but only brief.  I am finding therapy is really good and along with good circadian rhythms and reading some interesting books it’s all helping.  I’m finally facing the future and making plans for it.  I’m finally facing the financial mess that has come about and sorting it out fully bit by bit.  It’s all starting to look much better.  I’m off all mental health groups on Facebook and I restrict my use of it now too.  I can see triggers much more clearly now too so am avoiding most of them and am getting stronger.  I need to get even better at cutting out or taking myself away from any triggers as and when I need to.  It’s the way forwards.  I have much less contact with some good friends on Facebook at the minute but I’m needing to do this to find myself and get and keep myself well.  When well enough I can slowly get back in touch but only after I’m fully grounded again.  I’ve accepted that I will get unwell again and if and when it happens then it will happen.  Fighting it hasn’t always been a good move for me as I fight too hard and make myself even more unwell.  The better I feel the more I can see that I have, at times, been manipulated and abused.  With this growing strength I will learn to cut these people and things out much sooner and hopefully not even get involved with them.  

I’m a bit tired today. The tiredness has made my mind wander slightly but I’m trying to relax about it rather than get caught up in it again. I’ve noticed imdasjing in and out of Facebook today. I am still sticking to my ‘no Facebook before 8am’ rule however. Being conscious that I’m in and out is good. As soon as I’ve realised that I’m on there I come straight off and am not commenting very much.

  I’m now making videos of fishing and food growing which I’m putting on YouTube. I think that’s quite good, productive and positive. It’s given me some focus but it’s also a slight record of what I’m doing with plants and growing food as well as Fynn and I fishing. All good.  

Keeping relaxed yet focused is hard today but I’ll be ok. 

I feel that I’m at my most well since the tail end of 2011 and I’m starting see light at the end of the tunnel.  I’ve accepted that I will invariably get unwell again. Fighting it makes it worse. Acceptance is the only way forwards.

  I had my third session with the psychologist yesterday. It’s good so far. It’s brought up some anger among other things. It’s so very strange how we perceive ourselves and what we believe we are or what is part of us. We can change. It is possible. I’ve been questioning my thinking and thought patterns and it’s helped immensely. It’s helping me to stop thinking certain ways and also to work out why I think in those ways. It’s made me realise how unwell I’ve been and also how I didn’t want to let go of that unwellness. It’s addictive yet very destructive. I honestly thought I needed it. I really don’t. I’m setting myself targets and goals. I’m stopping myself just blowing money on foolish things and on ‘I want’ items. I’m becoming myself again. Acceptance is the way forwards coupled with avoiding people or situations that could or do trigger me. It’s my responsibility to help myself and to keep myself as well as I can. As I’ve said I know I will get unwell again but I have to realise that help is available and it’s ok to ask and accept it. I’m stronger than I think I am yet weaker in other ways.  I guess I’m starting to feel grounded again, which can only be a good thing.  

I often fear writing things like this as I often think I will ‘jinx’ myself but I’ll do it anyway.  

I feel some sense of normality has returned even if it’s fleeting. Early last week I was out of it as I had ranout of meds for a few days. Back on and things are feeling reasonably level. I’m working on lots at the minute. One thing is stopping myself going on Facebook much.  I’ve now also had my second session of therapy with the psychologist. She’s quite good but her memory is t great so I’m having to remind her of things unless it’s one of her ‘tricks’ to see if I’m lying or story telling. Anyway she will only get the straight story from me.  So far so good. If I feel it’s not working with her, it is so far, I’ll tell her and ask for a different one. 

I’ve been off my tits lately. I’ve been getting caught up in others issues yet again and it’s made me unwell. I have to focus on keeping myself well and watching out even more for different new triggers. More Vigo Alice needed.  Others will do as they’re doing.  

Paranoia has been through the roof and overthinking was way out there even though I’d not taken it fully on board. I know I get unwell this time of the year. This year I’ve been conscious of it but maybe too much so. Time to reacess again. Time to relax into it. Time to let go.  

In other news I have started sowing seeds for the growing season, not that it ever ends, ahead. I’ve been watching lots of videos of how others do things on YouTube. It’s all good for fresh ideas. I have some things I’d like to try so all good.   Time to get on with life and time to just deal with episodes when they occur. 

it’s all going wrong.   I’m getting unwell again and I’ve tried to avoid it yet again.   I’m off Facebook and I don’t even feel I can write about what’s going on in here.  I can’t talk to my wife as she is part of the problem now.  I can’t carry on like this for much longer.  

I’ve not eaten this morning. My anxiety is running high. I have no money in my business again. I’m tired of the ever repeating cycle and tired of my ‘theoretical balance’ if I got paid from a few. Theoretical doesn’t pay the bills. I couldn’t eat as anxiety made me just about throw up. I couldn’t eat as there’s only enough for the kids. So I had s strong coffee again to stave off hunger.

  I’m breaking. Again. Endless circles. I fear this will be huge again or it’ll blow over. My dreams are very vivid. My sleep has been thrown and I feel the pressures building. I’ve seen one way out that’s not viable. Instead I have to stay and fight again. Each time I looses little more of myself. Each time I’m weakened. Chinks in my armour will eventually yield. Pushing and fighting knowing I won’t win is disheartening. 

I’m getting huge paranoia. I’m fighting my thoughts as they’re fast and eating away at me. I’m not sure the Internet is a safe place. I’m not sure blogging is safe. I think I need to be careful.  I’m being pushed and manipulated. They think I don’t know though. I do. It’s been their plan all along but I was onfo it before they did.  I’m watching and listening.  I know their plan and I have a back up plan.  

What can I say other than 2016 was one of the hardest years of my life other than possibly 2012. Maybe both are on a similar level for different reasons.  It started with me having lost my mind and scared I couldn’t get it back.  I felt like a backseat passenger in a car headed for a cliff with no driver and a seatbelt firmly locked with no chance of stopping it happening.  From there on it didn’t get much better. Early hours of the second, at least I think it was the second, of January I disconnected from what at the time could only loosely be termed as reality, walked up my garden and stuck my kids rope swing around my neck and tried to choke/hang myself. I’d previously researched how Robin Williams had killed himself and it sounded a good way to go not that I was even intending to do it only minutes before going up there. It was just a case of being so disconnected and so far out there.  I saw my GP and I then got sent for an emergency psychiatric assessment and properly diagnosed as having bipolar 1 after seeing the cpn and getting referred to the psychiatrist in Februaury. Before seeing the mental Health team at the hospital I went into ultra fast cycling with countless mood changes per day.  I didn’t tell many but a week after the first time up the garden I went up there again trying to work out what had happened and did it again.  The last time I reached that point was September while in a nasty mixed episode.   As the year progressed I saw the psychiatrist in February as mentioned and started some meds. Then I got unwell in May with pneumonia and had a blip in moods again partly down to the pneumonia. Summer was a head fuck mostly then late August I started ultra rapid cycling again which then switched to a mixed episode. I still carried on at work regardless as I desperately clung to some form of routine no matter how mentally unwell I was.  It lasted longer than I expected and I ended up back in the MH system after having been discharged in the July. The mixed episode went from late August right through to mid October. Each day I expected it to stop but it lessened a bit for a few days before hitting hard again.  From then onwards I found out a friend had tried to kill himself and ended up in a MH hospital for a month only to get discharged and not get much outside care. A few weeks after that in early December he tried and succeeded this time. His funeral was on Friday 30th Decmeber. I ended 2016 pretty bloody level all things considered and have managed to rest well over the Christmas holiday time.  I’m looking forwards to this year now and finally feel like I’m starting to recover from full mania from November 2015 into the January of 2016.  I think I can finally see a way forwards.  My friend killing himself has been a huge wake up call for me and also has really fucked with my head. I can’t get it into my head that he did it let alone that I tried 3 times last year.  His method was far more horrific than mine was.  Maybe that’s what I can’t understand because he must of suffered for a short while.  So here’s to recovery and fingers crossed for the end of this year because I see a pattern of every other year from November onwards I slip into hypomania and then full mania. Luckily last year was a year with only some hypomania two arms the end.  I guess the more I know myself fully and know bipolar better the more I keep track of myself.