Floradrenaline's Diary

[floradrenaline]

His attitude might sound shitty, but he really has been an excellent therapist and I'll miss him a lot. He understands that I need the distance to really be appropriate and helpful / helped by the therapy process. I had a therapist who was more emotional once and it turned into a mess of bad boundaries and codependency. (And I loved her too, but it was really dysfunctional.) He's capable of being compassionate, he has been incredibly so towards me, but he also knows that I need the hard boundaries and the sense of direction he fosters. If that makes any sense. I'm not sure it does. All I know is that he has been incredibly helpful for me as far as moving on with my life has gone.

I'm in the city, and am going to hustle on the job front tomorrow. I'm nervous, as I really don't have enough money and am sort of screwed if I don't find a job soon. If I can find work quickly, everything will be fine (and I've heard this city is decent as far as finding work.) And oh well, if I don't find work soon enough, moving back with my parents isn't a terrible solution. Embarrassing, but not the end of the world.

[Imissmysun]

I'm glad that his style works for you - for me it would be a wall - I would feel like all the other people in my life that seemed unresponsive and unhearing to my feelings - its hard enough for me to figure out what they are let alone tell someone else what they are - my feelings were just not validated for so incredibly long that havng someone say - yes you are heard - yup thats ok to feel - yes thats a feeling as well - it was like drinking water for the first time and I really needed it and still do because this feeling and knowing I am feeling and being told that my feelings are valid and listened to is still very very new -
I am also glad to hear you made it - finding work will be easy peasy - just apply apply apply - get your resume online to EVERYONE!!! - Apply to things you want that you "think" you are unqualified for - apply to things that you are qualified for and you dont think you "want" - don't know what field you are in but I hear that head hunters are a great way to go to get in the door places as well -

Good Luck!

[floradrenaline]

I hear you. Different styles work for different people. I am so glad you've found someone who validates and supports you. You seem like a lovely person.

I'm mostly applying in entry-level social services positions or in childcare positions. I applied for a few jobs working with individuals with developmental disabilities, and actually even applied at the psych hospital I was admitted to (different unit, though.)How weird would that be. I also applied at an airline because someone told me they get discount tickets, and at a couple McDonalds locations, since that was the most recent place I worked. (I've worked in advocacy and education prior.) I'm going to follow up today with the ones I applied for over the weekend, and follow up on Friday for the ones I applied at today/yesterday.

[Imissmysun]

I loved working in child care I worked in the baby room - LOVED it - I love babies - hey even Mickey D's will get you income and you can keep your hunt going with a steady income - you will hear back soon

I try to be a decent person - I don't always succeed - mostly due to lack of engagement - I check out way too much - I have a lot of kids in my house and while kids are awesome when I am in large groups I get just nervous and overwhelmed and my house is a group of large people every day - its making me deal with this issue very directly - even though I really don't want to

Good Luck Lady!

Keep us posted

[floradrenaline]

The last couple days I've been confronted with several lessons I've learned over the last several months in recovery, regarding living with chronic suicidality. The impulses aren't as bad as they used to be, aren't even half as bad as they used to be, but the last couple weeks have been worse than most of the summer and I'm proud to have learned & applied these skills / lessons successfully, otherwise I'm sure I would've given up and ended up institutionalized somewhere again, again, again. (20+ hospitalizations in 2 years is a lot to start with, I don't need to add more.)

1. Thoughts are just thoughts are just thoughts, and they can't hurt me.
2. Physical conditions impact mental conditions. i.e. use the bathroom, eat something healthy, drink some water, move your body, get some sleep, and I might just feel better.
3. If a circumstance is upsetting me enough to put suicide on the table, it means it's worth addressing right away, no excuses.
4. Just because suicide is on the table doesn't mean I'm in danger. See pt's 2 and 3, I probably just need to address a circumstance or condition.
5. Suicidal thoughts are just thoughts are just thoughts... Like any other thought, just a little scarier.
6. When I start craving the hospital as a "reset" is when I most need to stay in the real world and out out out of the hospital.
7. Sometimes staying alive or out of the hospital means picking the most palatable of several unpalatable suggestions; all is well as long as I'm not moving backwards (i.e. into maladaptive behaviors)

I think I have an unconventional way of looking at suicidal thoughts, but this is just how they function in me - basically as an overzealous alarm system telling me loudly and clearly that something is not right in my world.

On an up note, I have 2 job interviews on Tuesday, and I'm staying the long weekend with my parents on the coast to avoid having my aunt and uncle's big empty house all to myself. Stuff with my sister is touch and go still but my therapist recommended I stay out of it as much as possible, so I'm trying to do so. I actually start seeing my new therapist on Tuesday too, back in the city. Things are happening!

[brownblob]

Good luck on the interviews.
It's awesome you've made progress in dealing your suicidal thoughts. It can be a hard thing to deal with. I hated being in hospitals, so being hospitalized became a good deterrent to attempting suicide. The idea of having to go back made me think twice. I also found just not letting myself dwell on these ideas helped. Suicidal thinking is like quicksand. You just feel yourself getting sucked in until you can't stop it.
Anyway, glad to hear you're dealing with it well and that things are happening.

[floradrenaline]

So, I was offered a job at the place working w/ individuals with disabilities, and assuming I pass all the pre-employment screening (I'll probably find out tomorrow) that should go according to plan. I won't start for 2 weeks, so that's kind of not good -- I don't do really well with long periods of idleness / lack of structure -- but it should be okay. I'm more nervous for my meeting with them tomorrow than is reasonable, I'm sure I'll feel much better afterwards. Anxiety is kind of getting the best of me.

I was in my hometown this morning - now I'm back in the city - and had been feeling sketchy mentally all weekend, so I went in to talk to an on-call counselor at the clinic I used to go to. And I ended up talking for an hour and a half with the program director, who I know very well and who was very involved when I was really sick over the winter. I totally broke down, I cried a little bit, I talked a lot about how I feel like my illness has ruined me and turned me into a bad person and ruined my prospects in life, how even though I'm 22 and apparently really young I feel really old and jaded and broken, how I'm too scared to move forward and too ashamed to step backwards and had been thinking of suicide as a way out of those options. We talked for a long time, mostly not about the safety stuff but mostly about options and how nothing is the end of the world and how I was sick for a while but now I'm recovering and of course that takes time, and at the end she wanted me to call and check in with her in a couple hours to see how safe I was feeling -- which I did, and I had pretty well calmed down by then and was headed out for my 5 hour travel time to the city, so she didn't ship me off to the hospital or anything. She said, at the end of our time, that even when she has had to be a "hard-ass" with me, she's always really liked me, and she thinks that if my job works out, the organization would be lucky to have me. And for some reason, that really meant a lot. I always kind of figured she didn't like me and thought I was kind of manipulative and stuff, and to find out she thinks highly of me actually helped me feel better. That, and the things she said about recovery taking time and being a process and how I had been really sick and stuff helped me reframe things. Tldr; safe in the city, not going to kill myself, going to take things one day at a time, maybe not an awful person, and will find out tomorrow if I more likely actually have a job or not.

I called the counseling office here to see if I could get in to see my therapist sooner than next week but I really can't. Oh well. We'll either have a lot to talk about next week or everything will have mostly blown over and turned into Good Lessons. (I'm hoping for the latter.)

[floradrenaline]

Was feeling kind of off balance and had a lot of things going through my head, so I thought I'd post here to sort some of it out.

Weird story short, I came back from the city. I liked my job, I liked where I was living, I was seeing family, I was making friends, I was exploring... But I was homesick and not taking very good care of myself and when I explained everything to my therapist last week he said I had been "cycling" and anyways I impulsively quit my job and moved back home with my parents in the span of less than a week. I gave really no notice at work, just got in the car and drove the 4 1/2 miles home and then a couple days later made a whirlwind trip (got into the city at 2am and left by 3pm the next day) to pack and cancel my mailbox and leave a check for my roommate. I had all these visions of coming home and practicing meditation and eating vegetables and doing yoga in this zen little idyllic hippie community my parents live in, but I've been back for a couple weeks now and I feel like all I've been doing is drinking (never to get drunk, but 1-2 drinks nearly every day), bitching on Twitter, driving laps around town in various levels of suicidal ideation, and continuing to "cycle". I feel like your stereotypical 22-year-old bipolar kid, living in their parents basement (garage actually), throwing away their disability checks, and not taking care of themselves right. I'm having a rough time convincing myself to take my meds, esp. the Lithium, and I've actually taken my night meds with literal sips of cocktails on more than one occasion. It just seems all very irresponsible and stereotypical and aimless, and I've always had such high goals for myself that this feeling of being uneducated and pointless is really difficult for me. Not having a degree yet is hard, even though I wouldn't have had time to complete my degree with all the winters of illness I've had. But I hate myself for having "just" a high school diploma at 22. I feel like I would rather die than go back to my old McDonalds job without also being in school. The tentative goal is to start school in spring semester and add on work as I get used to the school workload. But I don't know what I want to study. I know I want to work with people, but I have so many fields I'm interested in. And yet, having recently worked in human services, I'm scared my ethics are shitty and I'll end up accidentally hurting someone. I want to be a better person -- less selfish, in particular, and less concerned with covering my own ass over what seems like all else. Being sick has made me into that person -- I was pretty decent before I got sick, but my moral compass got screwed up somehow in the hospital process I think. That aside. I feel like there's nothing I can do to change my life because all changes I've made have basically been made in mania and won't last. I did take my meds tonight and have somewhat resolved that I need to "do better tomorrow" but I'm not 100% sure what that looks like. Writing all this has actually made me less sure.

[Beany Boo]

Congratulations on how you managed all that.

If it's any consolation, uncertainty is the norm, as is self doubt, as is trying to hide both. You might be a hundred percent certain every couple of years for a split second. Then it's back to managing varying levels of uncertainty in the in between.

The pressure on you to get this right seems extreme; which I can relate to. In fact it's a relief to read about how someone else deals with it. Thank you for sharing.

[floradrenaline]

Thank you for posting, and I'm glad my story can give you some relief. <3

I think the only one putting pressure on myself is me, because my parents certainly aren't and my therapist doesn't seem to be and I haven't even seen my prescriber yet after moving back. So I'm sure no one's disappointed in me, though I'm equally sure no one would be stoked to know I've been on and off my meds. (Right now I'm on them because I remembered I can be heavily recommended to take my meds 2x a day at the community clinic again, being monitored, and I do not not not want to do that again.) I'm tired of the pressure; I want to sort my life out and just live it for a while. That's what I wanted to do in the city, but I got too messed up.

It's morning again here. I guess I decide today whether I'm going to be just another fucked up bipolar kid, or if I'm actually going to make stabs at being the person I want to be.