As some of you may know, I have been habit tracking consistently since May minus my minor jail stint in August which I was able to recover from. I noticed in my mood tracker portion of the sheet showed that I have been depressed for the majority of September and even for a lot of August now that I mention it… anyways. I have been struggling with motivating myself to get out of bed in the mornings, let alone go to work and be productive once I’m back home again. So this is for you, who may be struggling with your own mental health or know someone who is struggling right now.

Who am I to give any sort of motivation about getting out of a depressive state?

Well if it were me, I wouldn’t be taking no damn advice from a happy person telling me how to live my life, now that’s for damn sure. Happy people or I guess neurotypical folks don’t comprehend the intricacies that us mentally ill folk go through between mood changes, chemical irregularities, medication dependence or lack thereof, and how we are affected simply by changes in our surroundings. Whereas a depressed, or in my case, a bipolar gal such as myself, can be sensitive to these changes and mood swings because I too must face them with grace and discipline and act like neurotypical folks because that is the societal regulation; to act like we are “normal” and act “fine”. To show emotion shows weakness and to show emotional irregularity shows inferiority not only in the workplace, in school, but also in life.

To back track, I have been feeling agitated for the past 30 ish hours. I don’t want to take my anti anxiety meds because I don’t know if and when I will have to take another UA for drug and alcohol counseling and although hydroxyzine is not a benzodiazepine, it is what was found on my person affecting my motor skills in my car accident. So to say I’m afraid to take it even though I need it is an understatement.

I have been taking all my regular medication and it has no avail on my agitation. I also slept approximately 2 whole hours last night between 4-5am and 8-9am. I was too fixated on my budget and how it might be feasible for me to not file for bankruptcy. That’s a story for another post within itself though. My agitation makes me too wired to sleep and all I want is to lay down after a ten hour work day and relax and since I have been home today, I’ve watched some budgeting videos on Youtube, did some AA and scripture readings, look over some documents for my GAP insurance claim, and did some light budgeting for the payments I made on delinquent accounts last night. I need to shower for tomorrow morning still, shave my legs, do my face routine because my newer medication which is supposed to help with my hormone regulation is creating HUGE blemishes on my face that are super painful and it’s not just one or two, there are at least 8 on my face and I can’t pop them either because they are painful and blood filled. I stopped taking that pill (progesterone) because I have only felt more depressed and have this acne super bad and a couple of other embarrassing yet too personal to share online symptoms.

I am hoping these symptoms subside as soon as possible with the stopping of this pill. I feel like I’m going through puberty again with all these adolescent hormonal symptoms and side effects. I feel manic and wide awake, but it’s not a euphoric mania. Rather, it’s an agitated manic state where sleep is enviable and nothing will not irritate me. So being understaffed at work and not getting a lunch until nine hours into my shift yesterday really grinds my gears. Now mind you, my shift Is only ten hours long so I got lunch an hour before I went home; should’ve just asked for my last break and taken that thirty minutes of pay to spite them. Not really, but that’s how I felt in the moment.

Today was better because we had more staff near the latter half of the shift but it’s always like I get stuck doing menial work because I am not a certain type of personality and/or body build. My supervisor was trying to say to me mid shift that she wasn’t trying to pass me by when it came to the admission of a new client, but they had a severe assault history so it made sense to have two strong male big and tall staff members handle the admit than have me do it and get assaulted. I think the premise didn’t bother me as much as she told me that I’m very quiet and not very assertive. I just don’t think she knows me all that well. However, last week I was her first pick when it came to administering someone’s medication who initially refused and we had to go hands on. Granted, that client was a much older and frail female about my height and weighed maybe 120 pounds soaking wet.

I guess I want to be useful and the person who is around my age and my size is already an acting supervisor and is knowledgeable in the paperwork and office procedures. So if there is any chance to do the administrative tasks of an admission or discharge of a client, she is chosen since she already knows how to do the work. And it’s not even that I can’t or don’t know how to do the work, I just haven’t done it on their new system and policies have changed a lot in the five years that I’ve last done that stuff. I just feel stuck in a ways because I have a lot of valuable experience like today I verbally deescalated a suicidal client that was one step away from being on a 1:1 observation meaning one staff is attached to that clients’ hip to make sure they aren’t a danger to self or others.

What struck me was that she said her son doesn’t like his mom taking psychiatric medication because it makes her act “not normal” and I told my client that taking pills is a strength not a weakness. Our brains, mentally ill folk, rely on the chemicals in the pills we take to make our brains function just like how normal folk rely on their brain chemistry to have their brains function properly. Our brains not coming up with enough chemicals to regulate mood and whatnot is not a weakness and relying on medication and asking for help to say we are different is a strength. She also made the comment that it’s fun to be not medicated. I told her I agreed with her statement and I get it because of my own personal dealings with my bipolar disorder; the colors are brighter, the smells are stronger, but being not medicated and having memory black outs and doing bad things is what brought her to the adult inpatient unit to begin with and how taking meds may be boring and dull, but it’s less dangerous and it’s what will get her discharged the fastest.

We must take medication to aid our mental health just like one takes medication to aid with an ailment when we are physically ill. I always wonder what it would be like if I could just stop taking my anti depressant, anti psychotic, and mood stabilizers. I look back fondly with rose colored glasses. However, it’s like they say in AA, “think out that first drink”. What happens after one drink or even three? Seems innocent enough until you drive drunk, kill a kid, go to prison, get pregnant or get someone pregnant, pay a lot of fees and fines, lose the ones you love and so on. Maybe that seems a little excessive but when I drink, I drive. It’s not a far off assumption that I fall asleep at the wheel with another BAC level of 0.03 and there happens to be another car collided into mine.

So in the case of pills, think out that next field day you would have where you no longer feel the affects of the lithium, Abilify, prozac, etc. Who would you sleep with first? Forget protection. Get high. And drunk. You can gamble. Throwing rocks at cop cars sounds like a GREAT idea. Yeah, assault that officer, he pissed you off! Does a cop car ride to jail sound like a field day to you? I didn’t think so.

How do we make our lives worth living and entertaining enough to keep living? I think we all have joys in this world that we don’t know of yet because it is covered in sin. Whether you believe in Jesus or not, this world is filled with sins, vices, and filled with Satan. Satan wants you to lose the good fight for Jesus by participating in what Satan relishes in; addiction, wrong doing, falling away from Him. The past seven years, I have spent my money in fruitless shopping trends, gluttony of food and of material possessions, I have gambled and lost my hard earned funds to the point it brought me into robbing Peter to pay Paul to pay so on and so forth. I drank, I did drugs, and did these vices heed true joy? NO.

I ask you to try to find what brings you joy. Whether it be scripture, reading, writing, blogging, budgeting, music, cooking, baking, video games, hobbies, collecting certain items, applying makeup, learning something new, speaking a different language, volunteering, painting, drawing, crafts, sports, either playing or watching, you name it. Find your something. Dive into it. Whether it be one thing or several things. This thing or things will motivate you to get out of bed in the morning. And it may not be every morning. Sometimes the things that bring you joy, true joy, won’t make you want to get up in the morning. Sometimes nothing will make you feel that sense of purpose and motivate you to wake up.

Should you give up? No. You need to ask for help. Maybe it’s a friend or family member or a co worker that is a text or phone call away. Sometimes you just need your pet to make you smile. Find one reason to get out of bed, even if it is simply for the urge to pee in the morning and you only got up so you didn’t wet the bed. Ask God for help and for Him to bring you joy and hope to motivate you throughout the day. There is always going to be five reasons to pull your covers over your head and if that is the case, create ten reasons to bring yourself and others joy and motivation. For every single comment of negativity, combat that with at least two comments of positivity. It’s not always easy, but hard work is always worthwhile.

Much love.

Dani