For the past two years I have been working on this web site. The seed was planted in my mind during my first hospital stay. Now we are finally here. I have brought a bunch of blog writings from the past. I hope they can touch a heart or two out there.

As I turn and look back I see so much. Good, bad, and ugly. There are many times that I would have wished I didn't have to go through. There are also times that I would not have missed. What I have discovered is that all this time was needed. See, I could not be here if I had not gone down the road I did.

I would not have discovered myself.

I would not have forgiven myself.

I would not have learned to love myself.

So, was it a long road? You bet. Was it hard? You bet. Was it the only way to here? You bet, and I'm glad I took it.

I had a thought today.  The day started with some real challenges.  One of them is a major trigger for me.  I could feel myself falling down the rabbit hole.  Feeling myself picking up speed.  My immediate thoughts were to get as far from any one as possible, assume a fetal position, and cry the rest of the day.

So I went home, turned off my cell phone assumed the fetal position and cried.  Three hours later, don't worry I did not cry the whole time, I had a decision to make.  Sunday nights at 6 PM, I meet with a group of people from my church.  I was not feeling it today.  I was so tempted to pull the blanket over my head and just stay put.  I thank God that something in me made me get up.

I spent two hours with some of my dearest friends.  I love them, and they love me.  It was a great landing pad for me.

Let's talk about landing pads.  I define a landing pad as a predefined place that I can go when a trigger gets fired.  I am working on defining more of these as I discover more of my triggers.  These places can be a friends house, or a park, or a drive to look at the trees.  It may be a phone call to your mom.  The point is, by setting these things up before hand, you do not have to think about them when you need them.  You just do it.

Landing pads should be soft, kind, loving places that can help you refocus.  When a trigger goes off, the damage comes from all of the automatic thoughts that come from them.  The thoughts are all too often negative.  By having this soft spot to land, you can stop the thoughts and replace them with ones that are good and helpful.

I am planning a post in the near future about triggers, symptoms, and landing pads.  Until then, remember, falling on a bean bag does not hurt like falling on rocks. 

Oh, one more thing.  It works, tonight I sit and type in a good frame of mind that I did not have earlier today.  Thanks guys, I owe this to you. 

Here I am.  Lying in bed, nearly 1:00am and I am wide awake.  Not even the slightest bit sleepy.  While with my therapist today I told him how I was feeling and how most of the hypomania was great.  I am more creative.  I solve problems faster.  My body buzzes with energy.  All of this sounds great until it is 1:00 in the morning and you are still buzzing.

I am very thankful for the fact that I do not full manic episodes.  The difference is basically taking what I have and multiplying by ten. 

According to Web MD: http://www.webmd.com/bipolar-disorder/guide/hypomania-mania-symptoms

Mania or hypomania can be defined by the following symptoms.

    * Excessive happiness, hopefulness, and excitement
    * Sudden changes from being joyful to being irritable, angry, and hostile
    * Restlessness, increased energy, and less need for sleep
    * Rapid talk, talkativeness
    * Distractibility
    * Racing thoughts
    * High sex drive
    * Tendency to make grand and unattainable plans
    * Tendency to show poor judgment, such as deciding to quit a job
    * Inflated self-esteem or grandiosity -- unrealistic beliefs in one's ability, intelligence, and powers; may be delusional
    * Increased reckless behaviors (such as lavish spending sprees, impulsive sexual indiscretions, abuse of alcohol or drugs, or ill-advised business decisions)

Is it not funny that this is one of the only illness' that a symptom is hapiness.  

Hypomania in someone elses words:

Hypomania: At first when I'm high, it's tremendous ... ideas are fast ... like shooting stars you follow until brighter ones appear... . All shyness disappears, the right words and gestures are suddenly there ... uninteresting people, things become intensely interesting. Sensuality is pervasive, the desire to seduce and be seduced is irresistible. Your marrow is infused with unbelievable feelings of ease, power, well-being, omnipotence, euphoria ... you can do anything ... but somewhere this changes.

The change this person speaks of can be either a full blown manic episode or severe depression.  Even I have been living the last three days in a hypomanic state and am reluctant to call the doctor, because it feels so good.  Almost euphoric. But I know there is always a fall, there is always an end to this state.

So I will be calling my P Doc (psychiatrist) to see what we should be doing with my meds. I do not know what to do about tonight.  A friend of mine recommended talk radio.  Unfortunately I did not plan ahead.  Isn't it crazy(and please know I use that term in a self inclusion manner) that my brain is getting some overload of a chemical that we all have and it is telling my body that six hours of sleep is enough for two days.

(My soap box) I am on a mission to get people to realize that this is just another medical condition.  People are afraid to talk about it, they are embarrassed that they have it.  Folks we have to stop looking at the symptoms and start looking at the people.  I think we should be proud of our ailment.  At least we know what is wrong with us.  Most of the world is walking around far more crazy than the people I have met in-patient, and they don't even have a clue that they are.(End soap box)

So now what should I do. hmmm I could keep writing maybe find some educational stuff out there.  This blog is an interesting practice.  I write and write and write and do not if anyone other than my family is reading it.  I guess I don't even know if they are reading it, but I still write.  It is kind of SETI (you know the search for aliens) we send signals out and maybe some day some one will answer.

My computer just told me it is 1:00. Yep, and not a bit sleepy.  This is not great because I have a big project due tomorrow and a lot rides on it.  You have to make some choices of whether to embrace the hypomania to accomplish what you need to then find a good landing pad(I will be blogging about landing pads in the coming days).

My son is coughing his head off in his room.  I have done all I can do as a parent, but it breaks my heart to know I can't fix it.

How many things do we waist time trying to fix that we simply cannot.  Now I am not saying I have waisted time on my son, not at all, I am talking about other stuff. {pause need to go check on him} Okay so maybe sometimes you can fix some things.  He is now laying on his side and the cough is subsiding.  Where was I.....fixing things.  Lets see.....what things do we try and fix that we simply cannot.  There are so many................................

Well that got a little too close.  We can discuss that one on another day.

I think we all have a little dark corner of our heart that we store things away to deal with another day.  I am not sure how healthy that is, but it seams to just be reality.

I have a dear friend, we will call him J.  J and I meet on a weekly basis if not more, and he is one of the guiding beacons in my Christian walk.  I am a born again Christian.  I will not use this platform to preach, but on occasion I will share how faith, love and peace can often only come from one place.  J and I had dinner the other day and he was apologizing about being a certain way.  It was apparent to me that he had been told by many that this behavior was not good.  I explained that this is wisdom. J is a very humble man, he quickly dismissed that.  It made me think.

We are told so often in our lives how we are not doing things right, or the things that make us ...well us are not good because they are different.  Here comes my big encouragement.  Get ready.  We are all who we are supposed to be and we are all exactly where we should be in life.  Period.

Sure we should always strive for excellence, but we need to learn to be okay with okay.  Some of us think big and dream, while others look at little details.  Some of us are great speakers, and others work with their hands.  This world needs people of every kind, of every intelligence.  I cannot imagine myself working at McDonald's.  No offense, it is just not where I am.  Can you imagine if all of the McD's employees quit and got other jobs.  The impact would be enormous.

What does this mean to the mentally ill.  Embrace who you are, love who you are.  Symptoms are symptoms, they do not make who you are.  Look inside, look beyond the disease.  Know that you are exactly where you should be and exactly who you need to be right now.  Heck, I think we all can benefit from that.

Over the coming months I will be writing to educate, to make you laugh(I hope), and to invite you non patients into the mind of one of us ;-).  I will be very transparent.  You will see it all.  You will see that my symptoms are real and some days they cripple me.  I am not setting out to say I have all the answers.  Shoot I don't even think I know all of the questions.  I simply want to open a door, invite you in, and have some talks that were a little too hard before.

Well, my eyes are feeling a little heavy.  So before I get excited about being sleepy and ruin the whole thing by getting excited and wide awake again, I will simply say goodnight.

What a ridiculous question to ask.  Of course it is not possible.  But, somehow or another I find myself pursuing it almost on a daily basis.  It came up today in my therapist's office.  We talked about why, and what good is it.  I really had to look deep to answer these questions.

We discussed golfing.  I know that was some segway.  I told him that golfing is the one area in my life that I don't care about being perfect.  This made us both pause.  See, I don't strive for perfection in golf because that is not what it is about.  I  spend time with some of my dearest friends, usually under a beautiful sky, on a beautiful golf course.  When I make what I do about people not the task at hand, things take on a whole new dimension.

Can this apply to other areas of my life?!?!?  It can.  I started to look at what I  do.  Refocussing on people and helping others and realizing that relationships are truly the things that make life worth living takes an amazing amount of pressure away.

I started to think about my disease.  I get so frustrated, as I have said before, with the not so scientific method of treating mental illness.  I started to realize that I was wanting perfection in this act of med management.  When really it is okay to settle for a little tweak here and a little tweak there.

There is a project that I am working on.  It has given me purpose, it has given me peace.  It has given me permission to just be me.  It will allow me to touch and help other people's lives.  It is why I get up, and what I think of when I sleep. The funny thing is that it is my imperfection, my illness, my disease that will make it all possible.  How funny is that.  I must learn to rest in my imperfection in order to succeed.  For the first time I am at a point where I am thankful for this thing that lives in my mind.  Why?  I have a purpose.  

I am not sure I would call it a great night's sleep, but it was sleep.  And I feel ready for today.

As I am waking up I started to think of the things that we have trouble with in our disorders.

1. Sleep
   
2. Energy
3. Taking meds at the same time
4. Remembering that the symptoms are do not define us
5. Remaining mindful
6. Relationships with others
7. Addictions
8. Self harm
9. Impulsive decisions
10. Managing finances
11. Depression
12. Not being embarrassed
13. Not being ashamed
14. Finding the right doctors
15. Trusting a support team
16. Remembering to take the trash out(ok maybe this is just me)
17. Daily care of our bodies
18. Stresses of work

I could probably come up with  more, but my point here is this.  This is not easy.  Stop trying to be perfect.  Wellness is a journey not a destination.  You are not going to be perfect, and that is ok.  There will be days that just don't work the way you thought they would.

These diseases are just as real as any other medical condition, and you have to allow yourself to dealt with them.  I am not saying that you should give in to the disease and not try to make the best of every day.  I am simply saying, stop being so hard on yourself.

I cannot say this enough.  The symptoms do not define you.  You are still inside there, and you need to believe that you still exist.  Find yourself in there, and remember this is the person you are.  The rest are just symptoms of a disease you are learning to live with.