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.  

Last week a friend committed suicide.  He killed himself.  He cut through arteries in his arm. He went out of the way.  He had tried about 2 months before.  He had been in a MH hospital for a month then released and basically left to it by MH services.    It has hit me harder than I ever thought something like this could. I can’t get visions of him laying there out of my mind. Various visions.  I didn’t see him but I keep getting visions.  It’s almost obsessive.  I’m fighting my inner demons and fighting these feelings. I’m afraid of getting swallowed up.  I heard last Thursday.  He did it on Wednesday evening as far as we know.  Thursday night was a night of nightmares and broken sleep.  Friday onwards has been thoughts rolling around in the recess’ of my mind. The dark places where fear even fears to dwell.  Visions of him in good times. Him smiling.  I hear his voice calling my name out.  I’ve had some mild dark shapes that I’ve been seeing. Not peripheral but brief full glimpses.  Dark shapes and outlines.  On the beach fishing I saw shapes and things.  Mild.  Not nasty but strange and I’ve questioned it.  Last night was a not a late night it was an early morning. My sleep is going out the window. Today was away of Frodo wearing the ring.  Misty reality and drudgery.  Struggling to carry on doing what I was doing at work.  On Facebook obsessing about it.  Obsessing over countless things.  Today is almost gone.  Going beyond what and where I don’t know.  What haunts me is its nearly been me 3 times this year stopped just short of passing out with rope around my neck.  The devastation left behind even for me from him dying is the rue depths of pain. I cannot understand it even though I’ve been there.  I cannot understand it.  I cannot understand it.  It’s hitting hard.  I have to try to promise myself not to leave devastation like is for others.  I cannot ever give in if I feel like that.  Such darkness.  

I woke up the early hours of Saturday morning in agony.  I tried to get up but had to lay down on the floor.  I thought I was going to pass out but didn’t.  I had a pain in my right side just under my ribs and it was nasty.  I managed to get downstairs as I didn’t want to wake anyone but my wife was awake as I’d been tossing and turning in bed before trying to get comfortable.  I laid down on the sofa and finally managed to go back to bed but still in pain.  I either fell asleep or passed out because I came around and then turned the lights out.  Saturday when I woke up I was ok.  Did what I needed to do and even went to work for a few hours.   About 4:30-5am Sunday similar happened but I didn’t try to get up.  I managed to sleep again and when I got up I had a busy day.  I phoned the doctors to get an appointment yesterday morning but couldn’t get one in the end so I got a phone call back and spoke to a GP. She said to go to hospital to get blood tests done and to see her today and that it sounds like gall stones or a bile duct problem.  She also said if the pain comes back to go straight to hospital.  I’ll see what happens today.    

I have had mild dull pain there since yesterday now and my stomach has been rumbling since then too, which normally it doesn’t.  I guess the funny irony of this is that there’s a possibility that I have a potential life threatening health issue and I don’t want it to get that far yet I have attempted to kill myself a few times.  My mum had gall stones which they couldn’t find and it led to acute pancreatitis, something I really don’t want.  

I’m not sure where I’m headed. There are triggers in my life which are beyond my control and I don’t know what I can do about them which is unlike me. All the usual triggers are hitting me too which is normal for the time of the year.  I have no money to speak of right now. The bills are only just covered. It’s close to Christmas. My birthday has just passed, thank fuck because it’s a big trigger in several ways. My laptop has had issues and I’ve not been able to print bills off until yesterday. My mask has been superglued on with another one over the top. I’m behind where I had hoped to be with work and am yet to start some jobs which I had hoped I might have finished. It’s all building up. Everything. I’ve had enough and I’m only just warming up.  My children don’t want much for Christmas but I’m fighting my brain trying to work out how I can do the little they want.  I thought I wasn’t getting a tax bill as last year I’d lost the plot and didn’t make much profit at all but I do now have a tax bill.  I’m tired of living on ‘projected income’.  I’m tired of all the fucking bills.  I’m tired of paying out so much. I’m tired of working so much and having so little in return.  I’m not finding much joy in life. There are the odd little things that I am loving though like taking my son fishing.  Luckily it costs very little. I really treasure that time with him.  He deserves a better father figure than I can be sometimes I guess. I can’t live in the moment as I have to live in future work ahead just to trick my brain into thinking it’ll all be ok. I keep my mouth shut most of the time but inside I’m screaming about things.  I have things eating away at me. My wife doesn’t cope and drinks a few times a week and that’s a huge trigger for me. Often she has no recollection the next day of what she has said the night before.  Often she’s looking for reasons to pick at me or pick me apart and last night was no exception. I took both of our children fishing and it started to go wrong for my son and he got really angry. It was very windy and a rough sea. I messaged my wife while at the beach. It all turned around though.  When we got home she was drunk. She was excited that he had caught a fish but after they were upstairs she blamed me for the fact he had got cross. She brought up about a fishing trip in the summer when he got cross and angry. She told me it was my fault back then and hinted that last night would of been my fault. Funny how others judge a situation when they’re not there. He was cross because he couldn’t cash very far as it was so windy and was cross because he didn’t think he’d catch a fish. He did and it was a size we could bring home.  I know that it’s a huge trigger for me if she’s drunk as I get picked apart and I find her passive aggressive and spoiling for trouble. She never remembers it the next day and often our daughter reminds her of things she said even though she can’t remember herself.  I think she needs to admit that drink is an issue for her. If she opens a bottle of wine it has to get drunk. It’s usually gone in about 1/2 an hour.  She doesn’t realise but she drinks at least 3 nights a week and sometimes as often as 5. Obviously it’s a trigger oversize I wouldn’t be pouring it out here.  It needs to be addressed. It needs to be addressed for several reasons and first and foremost for her health.  She is on antidepressants and you shouldn’t drink on them because alcohol is a deprressant.  A parang,y her doctor says it’s ok to drink a bottle of wine 3+ times a week. Well if he does I ink he’s a shit doctor and a stupid cunt quite honestly. I’ve thought a few times about making an appointment with him and telling him what a twat he is. If he’s gibing others the same advice he is putting people at risk. Twat.  I better go to work and earn a few pennies. Enough fucking moaning. Time to get the sellotape and glue out and go find the third mask.