I didn’t go to my meds appointment today. I have the ready excuse that we lost power and my alarm didn’t go off, but the truth is Pat woke me up in time. I just couldn’t force myself out of bed. I worked last last night. I got to bed late last night. I needed the sleep. I know I needed the meds appointment too, but at 7:30 in the morning I just didn’t care.

I rescheduled it for the 30th at 9am. Equally early but I also have work that day so that should help drive me out of bed. And I haven’t been working Thursday nights so I can get to be at a decent hour the night before. Though now that I’ve said that I’ll of course be working.

So far this job is going ok. I’m getting faster at it. I’m still not where I’m suppose to be but we’ll see. I’m working hard at getting faster so hopefully my improvement will show. The late nights aren’t bothering me any. I am struggling with getting up on the mornings I have to be up though.

I’ve completely lost my train of thought.

*sigh*

Food, I think that’s where I was going next. I have weeks like this week where I’m eating 3 meals a day out of the home multiple days in a row. And I can’t just not eat. Not when I’m working 12 hours. I don’t want fast food, so that’ not what I’m trying to afford. Pat is giving me a food allowance separate from my spending money allowance. He’s aiming for at least 20$ a week. But 20$ isn’t going to cover 10+ meals. I swear this second job is going to go into just feeding me.

Actually the first job will go to bills. The second job will be going towards extras like toilet paper, diapers, laundry soap, and yes, feeding me. It will also go towards fun stuff like fish for the fish tank, allowances, Christmas and birthdays. The things we don’t need to survive but that make all the long hours worth it. I’m a strong believer that you need to have some fun money. Maybe not much, how much really depends on how much you have. But for too long we had nothing to spend on the fun stuff and we were miserable. I’m looking froward to getting netflix back. And we have a fish we want to replace. And a couple of snails would be nice. I have my photofinishing to pick up from the Westerville store. You know, fun things. We still have a little ways to wait. We are playing catch up now and pay back. Though probably a bunch of our pay back phase will happen with our tax return.

Speaking of pay backs, we did manage to do some nice things for TK’s birthday. We were handed some money and told to spoil him. Not too much, but just enough. We got him a couple of movies we been wanting to add to our collection (comic book and Starwars). We even got him a couple of big kid books he can start trying to read. The one I’ll probably have to read him, but it’s a start. Anyway, I know I expressed some concern over his birthday a few weeks ago, so I figured I’d update there.

We have our bi-yearly welfare update today. Here is where we find out what happens to our food stamps and health insurance. With my second job we are probably losing a chunk of our food stamps and Pat, possibly me as well, is losing his health insurance. Obama’s health reform will get it back to us in 2011, but for now… I hate the loss of food stamps. Paragraphs above I was all excited about the new job allowing for some fun things, and now I’m back to realizing that the new job is going to be in charge of feeding us. Funny how this post is toying with my emotions. We’ll see though.

Oh I should point out that when I lose my insurance they technically, if the pattern holds, give me a year to find new insurance before they yank it. So no, I won’t be without my meds and therapy. Even if I was, concord would not let me go without my needed care. There are agencies in place for that. So the worse that would happen is that I would go without my acid reflux meds. I would be given free samples for my other meds. So while I won’t be able to afford the doctor for other things, my mental health needs would be taken care of.

Pat did something adorable earlier. He was trying to figure out how the new eggs I bought were vegetarian. I was confused how he was confused or I would have answered for him. Finally the exclamation of “Oh! The chickens!” cleared it up for the both of us. It was cute.

Have a wonderful rest of your Thursday everyone. Later!

I feel kinda bad doing two of these only a couple of days apart, but you get what you get I guess.

I’m kinda frustrated in the weight loss department. More accurately, what I’ve said all along about my meds making it impossible, is holding true. I’m changing my eating habits. I use to eat 1-2 good sized meals a day and that was it. I’ve broken it down to 3-4 small meals a day. I think over all the same amount of food, just spread out more. And I’ve been eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. My 4th meal is almost always brussel sprouts, broccoli, something of that nature. My other 2-3 meals are almost always a good solid protein packed sandwich or sushi or something else of that nature. I’ve also severely limited my pop intake. I’m drinking lots of water. Blah blah blah. My weight is holding true. I’m stuck at around 240. Give or take about 5 pounds. It kinda depends on what time of day it is. I’m frustrated with it. Really and truly.

My meds appointment got pushed back a day to Thursday instead of Wednesday. So my “Living Life with BPD” post will be a day late. Not as late as last week’s though. So there is that.

The blog roll is going back up. And I’ll warn now, quite a few good blogs aren’t on it. If yours isn’t included, I’m sorry but I had to cut back. That’s just how it’s going to be.

Thomas has been begging for bunk beds since before he had a little brother. We’ve always told him when his little brother was big enough to sleep in a real bed, we would get one. Apparently we aren’t waiting. Pat and I have promised Thomas that somehow he would have one by Christmas. The thrift store by us has furniture. There is always craig’s list. I’ve seen some online for 300$. Whatever. Somehow we are going to make this happen. It’s the only thing he’s been consistent about since he first learned to talk practically. BUNK BEDS. So bunk beds.

Thomas had his 7th birthday party this past Saturday. It was small, simple, pleasant. A lot of the people we invited couldn’t make it. Some were out of town. One couple had just had a baby and I knew they wouldn’t be up for it. One star guest and her kidletts came down with strep throat. But we had just enough people. I even figured out a way of having kids there without inviting his former class. One of our good friends has 4 boys, add in our 2 boys and it was the perfect amount of kids. I would have been thrilled if the 3 little girls (with strep throat) could have made it. But 6 kids total was a winning number. 9 may have been better, but 6 was enough. Mom made a cake; red velvet was what Thomas requested. We went with an army theme for plates, napkin, and invites. We meant to get balloons but forgot. Shhh, don’t remind Thomas. All in all it was a good day.

I have my standard day dream I fantasize about when I’m laying in bed, and can’t sleep. Last night it turned into an all night dream. I mean all freakin‘ night. I kept waking up and going this is weird and then falling right back asleep and it would continue on. And let me tell you, it turned weird. Really, really weird. Not at all how it’s preplanned in my head. And it didn’t make for the most restful night’s sleep. I woke up this morning after 10 hours feeling like I’d gotten maybe 3. I swear it’s the sleep meds doing it to me. The dreams are always so vivid, so real and so weird. I almost kinda like them when I can feel restful despite them. But I think I’m going to have to switch sleep meds. That and the meds just aren’t quite working how I’d prefer.

I work the weirdest hours this next week. Odd days, odd hours, odd odd odd. I’m going to have a hell of a time keeping track of my schedule and when I’m suppose to be where. I’m so scared I’m going to miss something. Or be late for something. I’m obsessive compulsively early to everything. So the idea of being late or flat out forgetting is terrifying. I need to make myself a little note I can keep at my desk or something of my work hours. I mean they are in my appointment book but I’m afraid that won’t end up being good enough. I’ll just have to check each day the night before. Tomorrow (Monday, so today to you) is 5-6:30 and then 7:15-10:15. I told you, weirdest hours ever.

I have my meds appointment on Wednesday. So the “Living with BPD” post I’ve been sorta planning is going to have to wait another week. I usually post the results of therapy or meds appointments as that week’s post. It’s good I’m pushing it back. I keep meaning to do research for it but I never seem to find the drive. I have the time even. I have plenty of time where I just stare at facebook wondering what to do next. But research bites if you aren’t in the mood. I just need to convince myself it won’t take much research and just get it done.

I like the new job ok. I’ve had a couple of customers I’ve wanted to strangle. But you’ll get that with any job. My main concern is that I’m not fast enough. My main problem there is that I’m OCD about how I bag stuff and it slows me down. The thing is, I have to be at a certain speed by a certain point with week by week goals to help get me there. And I have not met my first week by week goal. So I dunno. Either I let go of the OCD or I don’t meet me goal. At the same time, I get a lot of compliments about how I bag stuff. So maybe I can find other ways to speed it up. I’m hoping for that happy medium. I’d really hate to get fired over something so stupid. I mean of all my mental health issues, OCD getting me fired? LMAO No, really… I’m laughing my ass off.

They don’t know about the BPD. The camera store does but not the new job. Camera store is safe. I’ll come out of the BPD closet if I have to. But you best believe I’ll be protected by the union before I do.

I’m going to end this. It’s late. And I have facebook to stare at while I avoid doing research for my post.

So I’ve always been really bad about waiting until the last minute to refill my meds at the pharmacy. Really bad. This newest addition to my schedule, has just enabled that. A lot. So it wasn’t too surprising that I waited until the absolute last minute to refill my Geodon. As in my current stash was completely gone and I was due to take my next dose.

So I called in a few scripts to my pharmacy Saturday and went to pick them up. When I got there, everything but the Geodon was waiting. With a quick investigation we discovered I was out of refills. With none at home. And bad withdraw with even one missed dose. Working two jobs I can’t miss a day. It’s Saturday. Doctor won’t get the urgent message until Monday. Fuck.

So here is why it pays to have a rockin’ pharmacy.

I was given a 3 day supply of my Geodon to get me through with no valid script, just because.

Needless to say my doctor has already been called, she’ll get the message first thing in the morning. And my prescription will pick up right where the 3 day supply leaves off.

And my pharmacy totally saved my ass.

I dunno, maybe all pharmacies do this.

This is not the intended post I had on my plate next for this topic. This just sorta cropped up. I often discuss the dark, angry, depressive side of my BPD (that sometimes likes to mask as Bipolar. For that matter I may have both Bipolar and BPD. The two overlap in ways so it hard to diagnose. My treatment wouldn’t be any different though.). Here is a note on the flip side.

It seems around 11pm last night, I flipped into a manic. I’m better now. A bit more even. A little tired perhaps.

I can’t even begin to share all the details but here are a few glimpse into what me manic is like.

• I had about 4 Pandora stations created and going named “manic a”, “manic b”, “manic c”, and “manic d”. I was trying to keep it none stop upbeat tempo music. I never could find anything that was fast enough. The other reason I had 4 stations going was because I was getting bored with songs half way through and I was out of skips.
• Starting every hour on the hour between 2 and 5 am I sent out a call over twitter/facebook reading ” Two o’clock and all is well. Is there anybody out there?” I got some interesting responses and talked to a few total strangers. Things really picked up when England woke up for the day. (Please note I have a lot of followers on Twitter and friends on facebook who are total strangers to me. Readers of this blog and friends of friends of friends. I network. Oh and facebook too because of needing neighbors in fishville. Don’t look at me like that.)
• I don’t think poor Jesse will ever be the same after the conversation we had. He doesn’t know what to do with a manic Karen. He barely tolerates me as is. Part of me wants to post that conversation up here in all it’s glory but I’ll refrain. The highlight was shared in an earlier post regarding the computers reading minds. It’s down there somewhere. The other highlight was why I’d be a good hooker. Something to do with money making me horny. Sorry, tmi I know. BTW Jesse is the one that figured out I was manic because it was my first double pay day (which is why hookers entered the conversation). I really hope I don’t have this to look forward to every Friday night.
• I actually had a couple of conversations dealing with hookers. My favorite was whether or not the profession survived the current economy struggles. My bet was, and is, that it’ll survive the end of times. It is one of the oldest professions.
• Actually, pretty much read my twitter stream. You can find it here.
• Body effect wise my mind was racing beyond control. Fast thoughts and lots of them. Fingers struggling to keep up with my mind when I typed. By heart was also racing to keep up. I wish I had thought to stop and take my pulse. Then again, I wasn’t stopping for anything. My palms were sweaty but my body was strangely cooled, where normally I’m over heated.
• Finally at around 6am I got bored and ran out of people to talk to. Blogs, twitter and facebook were all caught up on. Funnies I’d given up on with the new work schedule were even read and I was left with nothing. Nothing to fuel the manic let me calm down. By about 7:30 I crashed into bed and caught a few hours sleep before I had to be up for the day. Even then I was refreshed after just a few hours sleep which isn’t normal. I’m calling that miracle a parting gift from the manic episode.

Manic episodes can be serious. They can lead to some dangerous actions. Drugs, drinking, promiscuous sex. Spending mass amounts of money on a whim that you may not have to spend. People who are manic have been known to jump off buildings thinking they will fly away on the way down. Mania will kill you faster than depression will. It’s very serious and very deadly. It leads to serious risks and serious consequences. There is a reason people with Bipolar are put on a mood stabilizer before they are ever put on an anti depressant. The mood stabilizer is designed to calm down the manic. I myself am on 900mg of the mood stabilizer Trileptal daily. I am very lucky that the worst my manic gets is me being very hyper. Others aren’t so lucky.

My manic dribble of the mouth (fingers? brain?) has driven two friends away. Now I’m back to having no one to talk to. But I’ll always have you, bloggy McBloggerson. Hmm… You need a name. I’ll think on it.