The Good Things that Have Happened In the Last Year

My last post covered a lot of the stressful things that happened in the last year. I want to cover all of the progress that I have made in the last year. I started therapy last February with the best therapist ever. (At least I think so.) She helped me decide to work on learning more about bipolar disorder, reducing my symptoms, and getting into a routine. These things helped me immensely. I would have been right back in the psyciatric hospital if I had not worked on those specific things.

What surprised me the most was how much having a routine helped me. I knew that there was some research on how much having a routine could help someone with bipolar disorder, but until you try it you really don't realize what it can do for you. I imagine it would help anyone. Getting decent sleep and good meals at the same time every day can really add a sense of peace to your day. To be fair, I still have some work to do, I stray from my routine, but I keep it together enough for me to manage my day to day life. I wasn't able to cope with the everyday before and this has been a godsend.

I learned something else kind of cool about myself. I am very sensitive during certain times of the year to mood changes and I have a "pattern" per se. At the end of the summer towardds the beginning of the fall I become manic and by the time winter or spring comes around I'm beginning to crash into a depression. This is cool because I can do something about this. I know when it will happen. This year I shared this with my doctor when I began to have symtoms of mania. She put me on a medicine called Abilify. It's commonly used to help patients with schizophrenia, but it also helps curb mania in bipolar disorder. I have been so stable these last few months! At least compared to the last few years. I know that a lot of it is the work that I have done in therapy, but if I wasn't on this medicine I don't think I would have made it through the especially rough times.

I have learned so many things about bipolar disorder and how it is treated. I am hoping that I can share some of these things through this blog. I know that the blog is mainly about my service dog, but I am hoping that I could help someone else who has bipolar disorder too or at least let them know they aren't alone. It's easy to feel alone with this disease.

Speaking of feeling alone. I have a few friends that have mental illnesses and actually one that has bipolar disorder. It has only been in the last year that I feel we've become really close or that I have reconnected with them. They have been really kind to me and have no idea how much they mean to me. I really hope that I can be as much of a support to them as they have been to me. They have really helped with that sense of lonliness that I was talking about.

The last year really wasn't as horrible as I made it sound in my last post. I've done a lot of work to move forward and I want to continue to do so. I can only do that by remembering the good things that have happened, that way I can remember that good things will continue to happen, even in the middle of stormy seas.

It's Been a While

I have not written in this blog in over a year and many, many things have changed. I married my very supportive and loving boyfriend Jordan. I sold my car, it was falling apart anyway. I am again trying to apply for disability for the second time this year. My daschund Princess passed away. That is a new hurt, that only happened last Friday. I'm coping as best I can, but I am very sad about it and it's throwing me through a bad mood episode. My husband lost his job at Walmart and is now working at McDonald's. Aslo my brother and his girlfriend's family moved in the upstairs of our house.

Two-thousand thirteen was a bit crazy.

But, I have come back to the idea of getting a service dog. It has been in the back of my head this whole time and I have really wanted to keep going with it, but my life has been in stasis. Things have been happening around me but even me getting married was a sort of inevitablity that just happened last year. (That doesn't mean that I love my husband any less, we had gotten married mostly because of insurance reasons though.) Being in one place like this can't work forever. I'm making progress in therapy and I've finally found medication that works. I feel like it's time that my actual life progresses. I want to work. If only so that when I go to a social event I can say "Yes, I work at ____________." 

At this point I just feel like I'm begginning to rant. I don't really know where 2014 will take me, but I'm hoping it will take me to a service dog.