Up for the 2nd night in a row

 Once again I'm up early. This time it was 3:11 I woke up. I washed my tattoo, said hi to my husband and tried to go back to sleep. However I just laid there for about an hour until I decided might as well just get up. I remember I had a provider once who said you shouldn't just lay there longer than 20-30 minutes without falling asleep because then you train your body into thinking it's OK to be awake in bed.  Therefore after about 20-30 minutes you should get up and do something. Then when you feel ready lay back down to try to sleep again.  

I think it's a good thing that I am yawning and feel tired still. If I was wide awake and felt like I didn't need sleep that would be more concerning. However it is the second night in a row of less than ideal sleep. I need to keep an eye on this. Last time I only slept for five or six hours a night for an extended period of time I was hypomanic. While in my opinion being hypomanic is a good place to be I just have to be really careful I monitor it so it doesn't turn into full-blown Mania. Hopefully I don't have to worry about any of that and this is just a fluke or a new normal I don't have to worry about.  While I slept less than 6 hours I haven't slept 12 hours either so there is positive there. Also 5 hours is better than 2 hours or nothing at all.  It seems usually between 6 and 10 hours is ideal for me.

Figuring out the ideal amount of time for me to sleep has been a work-in-progress anyway. I tend to feel the best when I sleep about 6 hours. However when that happened consistently I was hypomanic. So should I just live in that state cuz that's where I should be and I feel the best? Or is that a danger zone because it's the stepping stone for Mania? Do I push for more sleep than that so I'm "even" or "normal"? Or is 6 hours really ideal for me and the hypomanic state I was in was not due in part to sleep? Truth is I don't know the answer and don't know if I ever will.  With any luck I'll figure it out sooner than later. It seems if I'm not up in the middle of the night like this,  I sleep way too much.  I have trouble getting up,  don't want to get up,  still feel tired and try to take naps any chance I get or even create time for. Please someone tell me there's a happy medium. 

Just doing more research I found that cherry blossoms symbolize a time of renewal and the fleeting nature of life.  In addition there beauty peaks around two weeks which is about how long I was in the hospital.  There are flowers in my tattoo I didn't know were cherry blossoms until I asked the artist.  Feels like another God sighting.  I feel stable so is it OK to believe that? These are the things I struggle with. 

Another Tattoo

 Yesterday was a tough day. It was tough mainly because I saw a new counselor for the first time. Every time you start with a new counselor or really any new provider they always do an intake. Even though I shared the link to my blog with her she still had to ask me questions. Although it wasn't as bad as others have been in the past, it still brought up enough that I had more on my mind than I wished to. It also made me realize that some things I thought I had already faced and worked through I still have more work to do on. It's a hard reality.

Today was much better. Even though it started out with me waking up at 3:48 not being able to fall back to sleep it actually ended up being a good thing. At first when I got up I thought about writing in my blog. However I didn't really know where to start. I was scheduled to get a tattoo today, but my arm was still sore from the vaccine so I wasn't sure if I was even going to follow through with getting a tattoo today or not.  Anyhow I started researching different flowers meanings in case I decided against a rose. While doing this I stumbled across the oak flower which I'd never heard of.  I discovered it meant strength which led me to oak leaves which hold the same meaning as the flowers. It resulted in me coming up with an entirely new tattoo idea the morning of all by myself.  Anyone who knows me knows I always ask for others opinions rather I listen to them or not. The way this all happened and worked out so well made me think was that a God sighting? Was that evidence of the spirit working in my life?

Once again getting my tattoo was very therapeutic for me. This time he didn't even wrap it up so I have to be careful and wash it a million times, which I like. It's a good distraction. On top of that I get to go back in a couple weeks to get shading and color added and go through the process again. I'm intrigued by this masterpiece to see what it will turn out to be. 

Powerful Message

 This popped up in my news feed today. It was 6 years ago now. I had searched for this post many times, but figured I must've deleted it. Glad I didn't.

I'm usually private, but then I realized well might as well be straight up. No more job to lose or people to infuriate since I usually live across the ocean. As many others in this very cruel world, I have mental health problems. I was in the hospital, (psych ward) for 13 days. My incredible mom flew out on a plane to take care of my son. I still require some extra attention and help which is why we flew back with her. Pryor to my hospitalization, I was under the falisy that my mental problems started when I acquired PTSD, but rather that just compounded my problems. The main things I learned were that the psych ward is a lot like prison, your mind is very powerful, put yourself first, and find something or someone else to believe in when yourself just isn't enough. I built up some anger while I was in there, but I'm choosing to use it to enlighten others and spread awareness on mental health problems. If you feel you have mental health issues go get seen, don't continue to sweep them under the rug, and please stop judging those of us whose wounds are not visible. Say hello to a passers-by, hold a door open for a stranger.  Make someone's life better today.

Good Day

 Yesterday was legitimately a good day. I just took the day in stride, in little parts. My son kept asking Mom can I go to my uncle's later. I just kept telling him I don't know we'll see how the day goes. 

We were able to get more school work done than we have any other day so far this year. We would do one assignment then I'd give him a little break. Then we'd do another one. We got some tasty lunch. We played some wiffle ball. He had school in the afternoon so I got a little alone time with my husband. I took my son to speech. We picked up some dinner. 

I finally took him to his uncles in the evening. I was originally only going to let him stay for like an hour or an hour and a half and then go pick him up so I didn't have to be alone. I would normally come back home and probably lay down. However, instead I chose to listen to some music and then pick up the phone to call a cousin I hadn't spoken to in quite some time. We ended up being on the phone for about an hour and a half. We had a great conversation. It was long overdue. Then I finally picked up my son. Spent a little time with him. Then we went to sleep.

While I didn't do anything over the top or particularly special it was a good/ great day for me. I didn't let depression take over and keep me in bed or down all day. I chose to just do the next thing, go with the flow, take it in stride. If I would have looked at the day as a whole it might have been overwhelming and might not have gone nearly as well. 

I'm writing this to remind myself that while we go through hard times we can still have good days if we just slow down and take things step by step. Every day doesn't have to be a bad day and we can document good, ordinary times as well. 

I have grown to learn not to compare myself to others. A good day for me might just be an ordinary day for somebody else or even a bad day. Everyone's perspective and experiences are different. And that's ok. My house may never be clean, but that doesn't make me a bad wife or mother. I just need to be present and live in the moment and continue to cherish every hug my son gives me because it may not last forever. I'm blessed for the life I have and I need to remember that.

I am going to try to tackle today the same way I did yesterday taking everything one step at a time. I don't know what today will bring but I'm just going to try to live in the moment and be present.

I'll update this blog as I see fit. It may be everyday or it may not be for another six months just don't know. Whatever feels therapeutic for me is what I'll do. I do this to help me, but I share it with all of you in hopes it will potentially help others as well. Please feel free to share the link suicideandptsd.blogspot.com with anyone you want to and you're welcome to email me anytime at suicideandptsd@gmail.com. You can also sign up for email updates to get notifications of when I add new posts.

Take care until next time.

Awake

 It's about four o'clock in the morning. I've been up about two hours now. I fell asleep just fine with my son last night, but I guess I never turned the light off. Therefore when I woke up at two the light was shining in my eyes. I really didn't feel like getting up just to turn it off so I tried ignoring it and falling back asleep. I fell asleep for a couple of minutes I think, but then woke right back up and I've been up ever since.

The thing that initially prevented me from falling back asleep was replaying my initial visit to the hospital when I was diagnosed with the ectopic pregnancy. That led to thinking of all my recent visits to the hospital. Which of course led to do I want another baby. I thought long and hard about having another child for several years through my days in Hawaii and Maryland even, but I was not in a good headspace and I was hesitant giving my past experiences with being so sick with my son, the 36-hour labor, the delivery, the postpartum psychosis, his autism and speech challenges. Do I really want to potentially go through all of that all over again? Sometimes my answer is definitely not! However, there are times especially going through this ectopic that I want another child more than ever. So all that played through my head preventing me from falling back asleep.

At four o'clock I finally decided forget it, I'm getting up. When I came downstairs I started trying to problem solve on how my son and I are going to get all his school work done this week. I took a few hours for self-care yesterday getting my tattoos which unfortunately put us further behind, but it was necessary.

I know I'm far from the only one who's ever woken up in the middle of the night and had trouble sleeping. However, it seems as if most people just get overtired. I have to really monitor my sleep because a few sleepless nights can lead to hypomania where I don't feel like I need sleep at all. This then can lead to full-blown Mania where I haven't slept for weeks and I end up in the hospital again. I'm nowhere near there, just a little tired, but it's always a concern of what it could potentially turn into. I'm actually really lucky and impressed with myself that sleep troubles haven't been a consistent thing given my current situation.

Yesterday was a good day. I got two new tattoos. Not exactly the two I had thought I was going to get, but two I'm happy with. The first one was what I originally had the appointment for. The second one I had planned on he wanted to take more time to draw up so we had a consultation about that one and I got a different one yesterday. It was more of an impulse decision. I usually don't make those, I tend to think long and hard about things. But it felt good to just do it. I put it on the back of my neck so if I'm not crazy about it I don't have to see it. Everyone else sees it and I'm okay with that or I'll just cover it up with my hair. In addition, while picking up some paper work, I got to see my favorite nurse yesterday for a few minutes where we were just laughing and it wasn't so serious. It was nice to share those moments in a different light.

Well it was 4:40 a.m. when I finished writing this. Now it's 5:09 as I'm wrapping up putting this online. I don't know why but typing it up isn't nearly as therapeutic for me as writing it on good old-fashioned paper. Hopefully writing this out will help me to get back to sleep. I guess I better try to lay back down before my son wakes up in about an hour.

Ectopic Pregnancy

 Today has been a hard day. I've been dealing with an ectopic pregnancy for nearly four months now. Before you go saying congrats go look up the word. It's basically where it's a pregnancy, but the baby is growing somewhere outside of the uterus. Many people call this a tubal pregnancy because it is often in the tubes. However, they could not show me where the baby was growing. They could only show me where it wasn't growing. If the baby continues to grow outside of the uterus it becomes life-threatening for the mother (me). Therefore, I had to terminate the pregnancy by receiving medication.

Initially the medication worked. Between days four and 7 my HCG (pregnancy hormone) had dropped by nearly 30%, almost double what they were looking for. I was off to a good start in their eyes. Then, I had to go into the lab every week after that to make sure my HCG was going down. This took a toll on me emotionally for multiple reasons. Seeing all the pregnant women and newborn babies was hard, sitting there forever was hard, not being able to try again for another baby is hard. It's all just hard. I feel like I've overcome quite a bit in life, I've been resilient, but this is still hard. Sure I can tap into my toolbox of things I've learned along my journey, but it is still hard. I know I will get through it, but it's still hard. And on top of everything there's still no end in sight. This could go on for another four plus months. Nobody knows.

I'm trying to remain optimistic that this will hurry up and get over, but I feel like that will hurt too. I'm trying to remain optimistic that we will be able to try again sooner than later, we'll still want another child by then, and the pregnancy will be normal without complications. I keep having to quiet the voices in my head that make me think otherwise or question what if scenarios. The nurse told me today I hope we can look back on this in another year and you'll be pregnant with the baby in the right spot or you'll already have given birth to a healthy baby and we'll just look back at this time as a speed bump in the road. I'm going to hold on to that and keep telling myself that and pray to God she's right.

I'm so tempted to smoke again. I haven't smoked for quite some time, but I'm really having to fight off the urge to do it. If I do give in to the temptation I need to look at it as a healing mechanism, not a failure. Just a way for me to cope and push through. I'll quit again like I've done every other time. I know I will.

The main outlet I've found over the past couple months is ink therapy. I've gotten four new tattoos so far and at least one more tomorrow, possibly more. There are so many things I am not allowed to or not supposed to do with this ectopic, but no one told me I couldn't get a tattoo. They have been very therapeutic for me. You get a tattoo it hurts/ is irritating, you watch yourself bleed, it sometimes scabs, it heals, you nurture it by washing it and keeping lotion on it. It heals into something beautiful. You're still hurting when it's healed, but it's a great distraction.

In addition, I've reached out to people. I reached out to multiple people via text and I've asked a couple of people to meet up. It's hard for me to ask people to get together, but I know it's necessary. So in that regard I'm actually doing better at taking care of myself now than before the ectopic. I see the pastor most weeks and go to church when I can.

Finally I'm hoping writing this blog is therapeutic. I've been pretty scatterbrained today, can't focus on much and I've had a lot on my mind. I'm hoping by getting it out on paper I can focus on other things and move forward.

Daily Check-in/ Mood scale

 

    Since I have bipolar disorder this is a scale I made in order for me to be able to distinguish where I

might be in terms of mania and depression at any given moment.  One is the most depressed I've ever

been, ten is the most manic I've ever been, five is stable. Therefore, three is moderate depression and

eight is likely hypo-mania (not quite manic, but higher than stable.)  It is a good guide for me to be able

to check in with myself and know if I'm approaching a danger zone.  I am able to share this with my

providers, family and friends for them to be able to easily identify where I'm at as well, especially if I

don't recognize these symptoms in myself.  It is easy to be in denial.

    While you may not have bipolar disorder, a scale of this type could be created for whatever condition

you or a loved one may have.  For instance, you could make a scale of your anxiety levels or simply just

depression levels as well.  If this looks overwhelming, it doesn't have to be this detailed.  The scale I

originally created with my counselor when I wasn't in a stable place was much simpler and less

detailed.  It is attached below.