With Understanding Comes Progress

Hey little blog!

Sorry it's been a while again since I last wrote, but have been in a really bad place again. Basically, I've spent the last 3 weeks asleep! I've slept from 10 to 14 hours a day and annoyingly, it was all during the daytime - the time I should have been awake, doing all the 'mummy' jobs I would normally do.

Instead, I got to experience the vicious 'Guilt Cycle' which I hate - I feel bad because I can't do all of the things I want to be doing; like school runs or helping make dinner or lunch. As a result, everything falls onto my mum, and as much as I hate seeing her struggling daily to run the house, her business and look after me, dad and my kids, I physically have no energy or strength to help, no matter how much I want to! It is just the worst feeling ever!
Then my kids, who seem to have a knack of acting up when I'm not doing well, make things all seem 100 times worse! Their behaviour goes from bad to worse, the longer I'm 'out of action', which makes me feel even more guilty and this cycle just keeps repeating again and again 😢

Weirdly though, I woke up last Friday and it was like someone had flicked a switch from 'weak, dizzy sleep-a-holic' to 'alert, raring to go insomniac!' Instead of the 10 to 14 hours of sleep I had been having, I went to getting less that 5 hours!
I now have the energy to do loads of stuff, which is better than the sleep-a-holic, but the down side is that no matter how exhausted my body is, when I try to sleep at night, my brain just won't switch off! This wasn't a gradual thing either, I literally switched from one 'mode' to the other overnight! At least it has proven to me that my diagnosis of bi-polar is definitely right! 😉

One good thing about my current insomnia is that I've had loads of time to think! I've started processing all of the things that have happened since my hyper-manic episode began way back in July! I've found out lots of things about the different 'me's' (manic me, depressed me and peacekeeper me) For instance, manic me loves bright colours like red and green, while depressed me prefers much darker colours like blues and purples! It's been fascinating process learning about 'me, myself and I' 😊

Also, for the first time in the 19 years that I have suffered from mental health issues, I finally understand and accept that I shouldn't beat myself up when I'm not doing good; when I can't do all of the things I want to do because my body has just shut down into 'hibernate' mode!

My mum always tells me that when I'm well and in a good place, I do heaps! Then when I'm not in a good place and my body just refuses to work, it's not a problem - it's ok!
Even after the years of therapy and my mum constantly reassuring me and reminding me to be kinder to myself,  I have only really accepted this fact in the last few days! This acceptance and understanding has been a total game changer for me! I'm beginning to treat myself with kindness and compassion (something I easily manage to do when helping friends in similar situations to me!)
I've accepted that I have no control over how I am going to be from one day to the next; but more importantly, I now know that this doesn't make me a failure! I'm just having a bad time of it and doing the best I can - which is all I can ask of myself.

I'm also trying to be more positive in my thinking and 'inner-monologue.' I'm trying to focus more on the things that I have manage to achieve each day (like doing both of the school runs!) rather than overwhelming myself with all the things I 'should' have done. It's made a massive difference in how I feel! For so long, I have travelled along the negative thoughts 'path'. It's familiar; a path that I have trodden for years and years. somewhere where I feel comfortable, in spite of it being such a bleak, dreary place.

Now I'm branching out in a completely new direction - a positive, optimistic path, that for years I have often started along, but never managed to stick to.  The negative things are so much easier to find, so I always end up back on the familiar, pessimistic-path sooner or later.
Now, I feel stronger and happier with my lot in life! I understand and truly believe that I am worthy of the life I have been dealt - I'm not worthless, or useless, or a burden!

With all of this new insight and understanding about myself and my illness, I am finally embracing this crazy thing called life, and enjoying the journey! No matter what twists, turns and obstacles come along, I am going to face them head on! I may need to take little rests once in a while, and I might take a few wrong turns, but I'm definitely not going to turn around and head back to that old, bleak path I favoured for so long! With understanding, real progress has been achieved! 😊