Tag: Bipolar life

9 November 2021 Living

by saymber, posted in Art and Poetry, Bipolar life, Money, Politics and Government, Spirituality and Religion, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Hello. How are you today? I’m writing a little bit earlier. It’s raining out and I’m grateful but not looking forward to going out in it. I opened the back door to let Link out and he was like “no way!”

So yesterday’s therapy session yielded some nuggets of truth. One was I have an issue with control and the other being patient enough to see what God has planned for me. My therapist shared a powerful quote/message with me, “May be God doesn’t show us his entire plan for us because we’d try to get there by ourselves.” When I was having my episodes with full life reviews using objects in the house to symbolize people, places, things I just didn’t rest. They were like pieces on an elaborate game board. There was always one more move. The message from my therapist is so true. The game of each life is so intricate that in the flesh we just can’t handle it all at once. I wasn’t sleeping. I didn’t want to eat much. I wasn’t spending quality time with my husband or my pets.

I’m so glad the episodes have stopped but my wanting to control everything hasn’t! The control issue goes back to my childhood. My extreme expression of wanting control was my becoming anorexic and bulemic. The bulemia lasted in to my 30’s! I hold on too tight to life. The challenge for me at this phase of life is to let Gods more. I’m not in charge of everything!

After I got home I walked to Rockin M Salon to get a haircut. It was good to see Trina again. she had recently moved from in town to a hobby farm in Emmett. Apparently Middleton has some of the highest taxes in the state. It would have been nice to know that before I moved here! In the past few months she’s lost like 10 clients. That’s significant! I hope I don’t get any surprises at tax time !

“Little child let me take the reigns. Trust me to guide you and alleviate your pains. There are to many pieces for you to hold. I know you are afraid to get old. Let my presence soothe your fears. Let me wipe your tears. I am here. There is nothing to fear. “

8 November 2021 Freezing

by saymber, posted in Art and Poetry, Bipolar life, Health, history, Home, Mental Health, Nature, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Good day to you in your where and when! How are you? Im doing ok. Woke up to freezing temperatures this morning. I had to go out and put the styrofoam thingy on my outside water spigot. The hose I have out there is frozen stiff. Boy am I not ready for this! Nature doesn’t really care though lol!

I had a long dream last night. It was about people preparing to evacuate, some at the last minute, from a planned nuclear bomb detonation. Why would I dream about such a thing?! I guess between stuff I watched and something that happened in my past my mind made a movie.

When I was living in Alvarado I was always afraid the place was going to blow up. The place was surrounded by gas lines. One time I even made my ex round up the animals and go to my friends house because I had a vision the place was going to blow up. Of course it didn’t but I was convinced it was going to. A year or so later I was walking home from the store and noticed there was a gas leak and reported it. I wonder if I had ignored it if something bad would have happened. I’m not a fan of natural gas! It burns clean but is dirty as hell to get it. It takes between 4 to 10 million gallons of water to frack a gas well. Once that water is used you can’t reuse it for drinking water.

My Crystal and orgonite collection

I want to take a moment to thank you readers for coming to visit me here! It means a lot to me that you take time out of your busy lives for me.

“ Change of seasons round and round they spin. One winter frosts and another summer begins. In the midst of it all I stand quite still. This glowing blue ember doing what it will. So resilient and strong…so patient as we attempt to right every wrong. Everywhere are eyes above and below….watching and waiting. Soon there will be snow.”

7 November 2021 Observer

by saymber, posted in Bipolar life, drawing, Mental Health, Spirituality and Religion, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Hello. How are you? Did you “fall back?” It’s that time of year again where we get the hour we lost in the spring back. Even though it’s just an hour I still feel it!

Do you ever feel like your just an observer of your life not a participant? I am kind of feeling that way today. I’m having trouble being comfortable in my own skin.

Sometimes life feels heavy

I tried watching online church services today and just couldn’t stay focused. God will reach me somehow!

4 November 2021 Paralyzed

by saymber, posted in Bipolar life, dreams, Mental Health, Spirituality and Religion, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Hi. How are you? It’s still kind of dark as I write to you. I had something happen to me last night that was pretty scary. I had a bad dream and was in between being awake and asleep when I felt like I couldn’t move! My eyes were open and I was thinking because I couldn’t speak. “ Please don’t do this!” My feet were kicking trying to get free but my upper body was paralyzed. It lasted for a couple of minutes. It felt like someone was in the room with me besides Link but I couldn’t see anyone. Link didn’t bark but just ended up getting out of bed because my feet’s frantic movement scared him.

“For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways” psalm 91:11

I can remember begging to see and talk to my guardian Angel. I was in my living room in Texas about 5 of so years ago now. I had tears in my eyes and I begged to see him. I had asked before that day what his name was and I heard the name Deegan which means “black haired one.” What happened the next four years was like a dress rehearsal for dying. People who have had near death experiences talk about having full life reviews. I was having that kind of experience over and over. Trying to riddle out using objects in my house, my entire life. It destroyed my entire life as I knew it. That combined with my refusing to take medication and go to the hospital. I just couldn’t stop thinking or talking. In the spirit realm they don’t get tired…. there was always just one more thing. I couldn’t rest.

Was what I went through just psychosis or did my Angel show me why we could never meet in the mortal coil?

What I went through always ended with me screaming and yelling at a POW flag I had bought. It symbolized 9/11 and war. I felt so much rage! That event in our shared history hurt me so much!

There is an in between world and I have been in it. I felt during my last episode that I was a living ghost vessel. Spirits seemed to use me both positive and negative. Some days all I did was yell. Others was just crying. Others was just hearing voices when I spoke that were not mine. One day an energy that identified as the singer Chris Cornell “took me to get groceries and we bought flowers.” I was driving the car but in my minds eye he was driving. When I checked out I could hear his voice not mine. It was like all these energies of living and dead were “on top” of mine. They kept keeping me down because all I would do is cry. This all happened after my husband left me.

Two of the most exhausting energies that came through were a Hitler and what I call “The Joker.” I was either yelling all the time in a tone like Hitler or finding absolutely every side to any issue you could think of. I was even doing that side tongue lick Heath Ledger did for his potrayal of the Joker. I would go in my bedroom closet and just go on and on! One energy was with me the longest and that was Jesus. He claimed to have been with me since my psychic explosion on 2 November 2002. I was speaking some kind of language I vaguely understood. My husband would get so frustrated with me talking to the tv in “gibberish.”

The reason I’m sharing all this is to give some insight into what I went through after asking to see my guardian. Not all of mental illness is just mental illness. What I went through is like my guardian got relieved of their post! I became like a plaything for the spirit world, the in between. Because I didn’t have a grounded faith I was fair game!

If I can impress upon you anything about what I’ve shared here believe in something and stick to it! What’s happened to me is my concept of God is EVERYTHING! So everything that happens to us good and bad, positive and negative is all of God. It’s easier to comprehend Jesus, Buddha, Allah and Shiva as individual representations of God than to believe in a God that is ALL things. Jesus is merciful and kind whereas his father isn’t always . I am currently working on my faith . I don’t want what happened to me in 2015 on to happen again.

22 October 2021 Drum Circle

by saymber, posted in Bipolar life, Home, Mental Health, Writing and blogging

Hello from Middleton Idaho! How are you doing today? I’m feeling pretty good. I got the grocery shopping done early and that was interesting. It looks like our Ridleys is doing some changes. All the greetings cards were removed and also the section of the store where you scoop your own stuff was dismantled. I found everything I was looking for minus jugs of drinking water – there was only one left! Today is an overcast day. They say it’s going to rain and I hope it does. My car is filthy!!

Have you ever played a drum?

So I did something special today. I ordered a drum to replace the one I broke. It’s a Djembe drum: https://youtu.be/aLeede5z1vQ – this is a video about how these drums are made. It’s not an expensive drum. I’ll see how it sounds. It should be here Sunday – it was in stock. I have this reoccurring thought of getting people together to play music or even just a drum circle. These thoughts stem from some fond memories I have of a Christmas solstice gathering I had many years ago with my “tribe.” A part of me knows what we had was once in a lifetime but who knows! I took a step today towards trying to manifest a reality I want to live in. You can’t have a drum circle without a drum! I want a circle of friends again and I’m hoping it can happen. I’ll be sure to take a picture of the drum when I get it.

So who were these friends I had that meant so much to me? Who was my “tribe?”They were not the kind of people you would meet here in Idaho. It was a surprise to meet them in Texas which is also a conservative state! One did acupuncture out of her home, another was a hospice nurse, one was a massage therapist, one was a co-founder of a place called The Earth School and one was a teacher of Philosophenoma. There was also a woman who taught the energy modality Quantum Touch . I found this group through the acupuncturist. I’ll never forget the day we met – her smile! She did an acupuncture treatment on both my husband and I. It was the first time either of us had experienced that! From that day a friendship was born but sadly we are no longer in touch . My friendships with these people were a casualty of my being bipolar – the stuff I talked about in my blog yesterday. We lived in Texas for 12 years and for the last 4 or 5 I was in and out of the hospital for mania. It was for this group of friends I had bought my original drum.

As cutting edge as my friends were, they couldn’t handle my manic episodes. During one of my episodes I was convinced Alvarado, where I was living, was going to blow up. I made my husband pack up our animals and go over to the acupuncturists home. She really didn’t know what to do. I think she felt sorry for my husband. Like I said stuff like this kept happening! I lost my husband and most of my friends because of this condition. I can’t blame them for leaving me.

So now I am mostly alone. A dog without a pack. The friends I have now are mostly virtual. Part of me is afraid to reach out again. If I get close to people will I go manic again? One of my triggers is spiritual stuff. I was trying to get certified in the energy healing modality called Quantum Touch. I attended a couple classes and a lot of strange experiences came out of that – strangely wonderful. I actually helped people! But it was fleeting. I needed the second class to get certified and just wasn’t willing to fly to another state to get the class done. The experiences I had kind of went to my head. May be it’s good I didn’t get certified- especially if it was going to trigger me .

God has a place for me. May be this drum will be a fresh start. I know I’ve run a bit long today. Thank you for your time.

21 October 2021 Labels

by saymber, posted in Bipolar life, Health, Mental Health, Spirituality and Religion, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Hello! How are you today? It’s another crisp fall day. Many of the trees in our neighborhood have lost their leaves. A few have resisted and are vibrant shades of red and gold yet. My sidekick Link is here beside me. I’m so grateful for him.

Labels. I have them.

I am 53 years old and have been a product of the mental health system since about 1991. My primary diagnosis, the primary label is that I’m bipolar. If you are unfamiliar with that term it’s basically having high highs and low lows and the battle is to keep things in the middle or balanced. The primary medication I take is lithium. I’ve tried a lot of other drugs but they didn’t work. The other part of my particular label is anxiety and I take zyprexa for that.

This condition has really fucked my life up.

Something that happens to a bipolar person is what’s called episodes. We can get manic or really high and there really isn’t any reasoning with us. For me I got it in my head that I didn’t want to be on medication anymore. The past couple of years I was manic (high) and refused to take medication and be admitted to a hospital. There was a terrible price to be paid for that- my family was torn apart. I ended up losing my husband, one of my dogs and my house. Something similar happened to my first marriage.

So the common theme of my episodes was the spirit world. This last time I thought I was channeling spirits. People like me are vulnerable to these sorts of things. I wonder if my faith had been stronger if that sort of thing would of happened . There are energy forces at work in all directions. I felt like I was a play thing of these energies. I would get extremely angry. For about two months I was channeling a Joker like energy. It was exhausting because such an energy could see every side to an argument – it just went on and on! During one of my earliest episodes I thought I was Jesus! I guess that sort of thing is common with people like me .

I have been medically retired from the Air Force since 16 Sept 2002. I have not had a job since then. I have done volunteer work but it almost always ended up in a manic situation.

I’m sharing this part of myself to may be help someone else who is either like me or has someone like this in their life and they don’t know what to do.

https://youtu.be/snI9ggCp5xE – Bipolar wars channel on you tube

19 October 2021 Comfort Zone

by saymber, posted in animals, Bipolar life, Health, Home, Mental Health, Writing and blogging

Hello to you. How’s your day been? My day has been long. I am happy though. Mr. Link was willing to take an afternoon stroll with me without much resistance. My knees didn’t ache either!

So today I got a call from my doctors office to reschedule my appointment. The kicker is he won’t do it via telehealth so I have to go in to the office! So that means I have to drive there.

Those of you that know me know I don’t like to drive. Driving in Middleton where I live is no big deal but once you have to venture out to Nampa and Caldwell things get stinky! So I have been forced out of my comfort zone with this. It’s good for me even if I don’t like it!

Why don’t I like to drive? Part of it is the accident I had this past Christmas and part of it is well before that. My husband used to do all the driving to my appointments and stuff. I got really used to that. When he left me last January my whole world turned upside down . I started having panic attacks when I had to drive places. Sometimes I had to be talking to a family member on the phone just to get to the grocery store. Things have gotten a lot better since I moved here but I still have a long ways to go! There is a lot of baggage wrapped up in what some think is the simple act of driving.

Part of leaving my comfort zone with driving is leaving my Link at home by himself. For some reason it’s stuck in my head “what if I don’t make it home?” I have had a problem with leaving animals home alone for as long as I’ve had pets which is most of my adult life. Cats were by far the easiest! They are so much more self sufficient. You can’t leave a dog alone for more than a day before you are going to come home to a mess! Worrying about Link does sometimes keep me from doing things.

Do you have a comfort zone? Is there a line inside of you that you don’t like to cross? For me it’s oftentimes a visceral thing. There are physical feelings involved. For example I will get hyper aware and feel like my eyes are separated from my body. I will have like an out of body feeling! What’s frustrating is I don’t feel like I have control over it. Someone will suggest something that is out of my comfort zone and that feeling will come. It didn’t used to be like this for me!

If anything here resonates I would love to hear from you !

18 October 2021 Return?

by saymber, posted in Bipolar life, history, In the News, Mental Health, Spirituality and Religion, trust, Writing and blogging

Hello again. I hope you don’t mind a late afternoon visit. I’m feeling lonely and can use the company. Today has been long like most of my days this past year. To be honest it feels like I’m waiting for someone to return to me. My whole life is suspended in time waiting and it’s stupid. He’s never going to take me back. He sealed the deal with divorce papers. I don’t know why I can’t accept it.

My plight feels like waiting for Jesus Christ to return. How long has it been since he left? Like 2,000 years? I keep asking myself why would he want to return? What is time to a God?! I would think it would be even harder now than even just a couple of years ago. This is a skeptical world we live in. Wouldn’t anyone proclaiming to be Jesus be criticized ? Be considered crazy? I ran across a video on YouTube today of a man in Australia that says he’s Jesus. He’s being looked at as a cult leader: https://youtu.be/xbFtxEYTJG4

“A face within a face. A body within a body. So many eyes. I see you. I hear you. I want to touch your heart. Through pages bound countless ways I live and breathe again. My voice echoes in the churches, temples, open fields and synagogues. Countless voices of one spirit there am I. You will not know me when I come but I will be here.”

It’s starting to get dark and it’s only 7:30! I don’t do that well this time of year here. Well anyhew hope this finds you well. I’ll be talking to you tomorrow.

17 October 2021

by saymber, posted in Art and Poetry, Bipolar life, drawing, Leading Life by Example, Spirituality and Religion, Writing and blogging

Hello there! How are you? I’m doing ok. This morning I’m writing to you from my little loveseat. Link is keeping my feet warm! It’s chilly in the house but not enough to kick the heater on.

So in a little while I’m going over to my Aunt and Uncles to make hot and spicy pepper jam. They haven’t done this for a couple of years. My cousins and their kids will there. I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

I felt like chalking for a few minutes last night

What am I grateful for today? ALOT! I’m so grateful to have a God of my understanding that reminds me to pull out my gratitude list when I’m getting ready to start complaining. I was going to do that this morning! Sometimes it’s ok to complain but I have to be careful that complaining isn’t all I do. I have to remember that when I complain I give my personal power away to what I’m complaining about. What I focus on gains power.

16 October 2021 Doors

by saymber, posted in Art and Poetry, Bipolar life, drawing, Home, Leading Life by Example, Mental Health, Spirituality and Religion, Veteran Affairs, Writing and blogging

Hello there. It’s Saturday as I write to you. It’s looking like it’s going to be a beautiful fall day. I like watching the wind play with the leaves .

There is a simple but powerful prayer my Aunt and I came up with a long time ago; “May the doors that need to open, open. May the doors that need to shut, shut. Amen.” I am finding I am having trouble shutting doors that need to be shut lately. As I’ve mentioned before I’m a softy. I don’t like to hurt other peoples feelings even if it means my own feelings get hurt.

Sometimes even shut doors aren’t completely closed

The door that is stuck partway open right now is Idaho. It’s been over a year since my cousin and his wife brought me here and I still feel like a newcomer. I just haven’t found a way to fit in yet. This is a similar problem I have faced most of my life. It’s always been hard for me to fit in. I have always felt like an outsider.

When I was in the military it was a very transitory lifestyle. As soon as you got comfortable some place it was time to move. It really messed with my head. Leaving Texas after living there 12 years was hard; but I don’t feel like I had much of a choice though. I couldn’t stay there. So here I am in Idaho a place I never expected to live!

I guess I have to reach for my gratitude list. For whatever reason I’m at this place in my life and I need to be grateful for a soft landing for a very hard fall. Looking at the rest of the world today it could be so much worse for me. There is a place for me I just haven’t found the right door yet.