These past couple weeks has been a hell of a roller coaster for me. A
very exhausting one. The one good thing about it is that it’s similar
but far, far from as crazy as it was last year around this time. The
first thing is my medication. Last year when the weather started getting
much warmer, the side effects of one of my meds caused my body to get
overheated (more than usual), very fatigued and very low on blood
pressure. It was hell trying to get my psychiatrist to come up with a
dosage that didn’t have such a negative effect on my energy and
motivation, and most importantly to me, the massive vulnerability I was
experiencing at the time. I wrote a few blog posts about this last June
but while I am typing this I don’t really feel like putting links of
those posts in here. Anyway, it isn’t that bad this time around and in
the past couple days I have recovered, but I have been very low on
energy, waking up hours later than I usually do, and feeling like I am
under the influence whenever I simply walk down the street. Thankfully,
it was temporary and I am on a better dosage now than I was on a week
ago. So it’s less of an issue, at least I hope.
The second thing going on is getting ready to move. Move out to a
more rural section of Massachusetts. Somewhere where I would have my own
space, my own floor and an additional bedroom to myself where I am
planning to use to invest in recording and production equipment once my
Social Security benefits accumulate to a reasonable amount. The process
of moving though is the complete opposite of the privacy and
independence I will finally, for the first time in my life, get to have.
My relationship with my parents, especially my dad, is getting
extremely frustrating again. This time it’s over smaller things, many of
which I interpret as problems they have with me that really aren’t
there. Everything from voice tone, to body language, to choice of words
when working together or planning to box things up, brings my anxiety
level up more than ever before. It is not however my imagination though.
And my mom actually sees where I’m coming from (she seems to be coming
around to seeing things from my perspective more often finally) and says
it’s because he is getting much older and is stressed out over moving,
and dissatisfied with his life. I do understand that, completely. And I
feel really bad for him. I just hope to god I don’t turn out feeling the
same way when I reach his age (which I WILL reach). Bottom line, if he
sounds dramatic or defensive when asking me for what is really a very
simple favor, it has more to do with him than me. And I try my best to
accept that. But as usual, my bipolar acts up a lot lately and my
logical side is always in a fight with my more negative side, and in
some cases, my triggered side.
That’s where I come to the third thing which I discovered today in
therapy. The bipolar I just mentioned, is responsible for me getting
triggered by commonly used phrases or words (ie. Adult, Let It Go etc)
whenever I see them used in articles, or in a regular conversation. Two
posts ago I was mentioning how that is an issue when it comes to me
trying to distinguish the meanings of “positivity” when it’s genuine vs
when it’s fake and condescending (forcing people who are depressed to
smile, things like that). This is even less specific than that though.
If I associate a word or phrase used in the past toward me that was in a
traumatic context that haunts me to this day, every time I hear it now I
associate the word with that instead of the separate, broader meaning
that’s implied when it is being used presently. Like, nobody is saying
Adult in articles I’m reading within the context of talking down to
kids, physically holding down kids, telling them they don’t have a
voice, and making it known 24/7 by substituting the word students for
“kids” and teachers for “adults”. That’s just one example. I hate the
word Adult and I hate the word “smile” and I even hate the word
“off-putting”. But I don’t want to keep hating them. Too many
associations with the past whenever I hear words that are gonna keep
being used time and time again with different meanings… is just gonna
keep me in the past instead of using that past to make a better future.
That’s why I’m addressing the issue on here. And that’s why I am
addressing this in my recent therapy sessions. Having two sides of the
brain trying to hog the mic from each other when telling me what to
think is a struggle I don’t deserve to keep for the rest of my life.
Now I am gonna leave you with this:
https://youtu.be/W9DPzB81ngs
This is the second interview about the book my friend wrote and
published about the importance of validation. Check it out and the
Amazon link below as you will most likely relate to a lot of it.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732829209/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539747191&sr=8-1&keywords=%22redefining+positive%22
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