February 10th marks the fourth anniversary / birthday of this blog, Precarious Aquarius. A lot has happened in the last four years of my short ish life but the message remains the same: you are worthy and you matter and so. does your mental health. I hope y’all recognize that even I still struggle recognizing and internalizing my own message sometimes. I acted in such a downward spiral in my life because I felt I had no purpose, no meaning; that I was a waste of space. So I acted like it and I was well, an asshole.

I have gained a decent following in the last four years and it’s weird to reflect how I started off this blog. I was in a toxic relationship with this guy and it was after I lost my paralegal job due to discrimination due to my bipolar disorder. And it was as simple as that; my boss (the attorney) found out I had bipolar and then he put me on probation and then ridiculed me with his social worker wife til I bawled my eyes out and then he fired me because I “lacked integrity”. I eventually won my unemployment case because that was obviously discrimination. But my at the time boyfriend said I should start my writing career via a blog to tell my story and four years and many relationships and hardships later, here I am, kicking ass and taking names.

If you read my last blog, then you will know that I turned 26 on 02/06/2024. I had a wonderful belly button birthday. I went to breakfast with my boyfriend to one of my favorite local breakfast places, got a free Dutch Bros Rebel at that coffee chain, my coworkers bought two taco party boxes and in the evening when a night shifter came in to work, she gave me another Dutch Bros Rebel. I felt all of the love even my clients were wishing me happy birthday all day long. I spent the night into my birthday at Kyle’s house and he got me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, lavender crocs for work, and a little locket of an envelope with a little note inside. The paper had nothing written on it but he wanted us to do that together. It was very sweet and I feel very spoiled by everyone.

I have been on the struggle bus with my bipolar hypo mania. Today I was depressed and kinda in a shitty mood but that’s because I am now out of my pain medication from my surgery and this is the real part of recovery that I need to talk about because it could help someone reading this. While on Vicodin, which was approved by my treatment center and the courts due to my surgery and it was reasonably prescribed by my doctor, I was super manic and energetic. I would take it after work because my face feels swollen and my inside of my nose stitches are itchy and painful and it would help distract me from the pain.

Now that I don’t have it im going through some withdrawal symptoms because I’ve been sober of all substances for five and a half months with the exception of having five lousy Vicodin when I had my November kidney infection but then I really did need it. This pain is irritating and annoying but what’s more annoying is that I feel like I’m chained to a substance. My best course of action and frankly, only course of action is continued sobriety but it makes me not want to do these surgeries because I hate being in pain and this feeling of being ball and chain to drugs.

I slept a lot today to avoid some of the nausea, vomiting, etc. but I feel like shit because I feel hungover even though I’m not and my face is all congested and ouchy.

I usually don’t learn anything in treatment outpatient classes but I did learn something on Thursday: “what makes trouble, is trouble”. I’m pretty sure this is a phrase backed by scripture because the video we watched in treatment was from a reverend. But to me it kind of clicked. My drinking may have not been so bad as for me to drink a fifth of tequila a day, I wasn’t a maintenance drinker, I didn’t have the withdrawal shakes from alcohol, but my alcohol and drug use caused trouble. I drove fucked up all the time. With no remorse for my actions. The only remorse I had was when I got caught. Because jail sucks and I’m too pretty for jail. And for those reading at home, the “I’m too pretty for jail” bit is straight up sarcasm because in the eyes of the law anyone can go to jail if you do illegal shit.

Anyways, what makes trouble is me drinking and smoking pot. It is trouble and for others that may not make or be trouble and that’s okay because I’m not other people. I know what works for me and I work my program and sobriety to the best of my ability and so be it.

Thats all I got for tonight folks.

Much love,

Dani