Ravings of a BiPolar Gothic Witch
     Occasional commentary, observations and tidbits as well as other random thoughts

I’ve read a lot of blogs where people talk about being unable to post during times of real mania/depression. It’s just too hard to process and write. I find that in those times I write most passionately, but usually not directly about my feelings. But this last fall, even with my blog, I could not write about some of the things that happened or how I dealt with them. They were too fresh, too hard.

But now I think I can start to do some of that writing. I lost a job (after a whole 1 month) this summer. It was the job that was going to get me through school - perfect. 20 hours a week. And even working that many hours I was practically making what I made at my previous fulltime job. It was no stress - I worked when I was there but was not on call. I had been assured (as much as possible in IT) that it would last at least 6 mos - 1 year. But one month later I got the pink slip. Not totally surprising. The company laid off nearly half of the local office, and they also laid off the guy who hired me as well as HIS boss. I saw the axe that morning, felt it that afternoon. It sucked. But of course, that is why I’m working as a student to get OUT of IT. And why I hate it so much.

But the truth was I lost the job. I have the one I’ve talked about previously but wasn’t getting many hours, and our finances got worse and worse. I tried looking for a job, at first one that would allow me to stay fulltime in school, and then after a while in a panic about paying bills and keeping a roof over our heads, for fulltime. But I couldn’t find one. It just wasn’t happening. I don’t want a career level job that fits my resume because I want to go to school too. No one wanted to work around my schedule even a little. It really sucked. In the month of October, in spite of my efforts I could not pay my rent. My landlord, who had his own bills and was afraid of the whole “no income in sight” thing, became increasingly crazy himself. I contacted agencies for help, and was getting none. The thing is, while my 13 year old could live with his Dad, my 8 year old and I literally have no where to go. I have no family. We would have pure and simply been truly homeless. Add that to the fact that because I lost my school insurance, and it took a while for medicaid to come in, I had had to ration my lamictal, and so had been on a much lower dose for way too long. By October I was recovering from that but not fast enough.

With looming homelessness, and no prospects for help, I did what any bipolar person would likely do. In the space of a week, I succumbed to total despair and depression and was put in the hospital. Of course, when a friend called my landlord (I had actually warned him in a call to him to tell him everyone I had contacted and all I was doing - that his continued pressure was not helping and that I was going to end up in the hospital - he knows I’m bipolar) he actually said “tell her not to worry about this month’s rent” - not that I wouldn’t need to pay it, but that he wasn’t going to kick me out. Since that time he has been very accepting of my catching up. While in the hospital I was able to face some realities, get my shit together, and get some help.

I had help with October and November rent while I could increase my hours at this job, I planned how getting my school loan in another week now will help cover me as well, and figured things out financially. However, it was the sanest I’d ever been facing that situation. When I lived in New Orleans with both husbands, we routinely moved every year, skipping out when we could no longer pay the rent because we had recklessly spent money -we frequently were cut off from utilities. But with my growing recovery I have become an adult and realize what it means to make sure everything is taken care of. That grown up inside my head who had more awareness actually worked against me this time. Although I’ve come through it stronger, with a better financial backbone, and more commitment to being responsible.

During my hospital stay there were some other events, but I’ll post about them later. I’m tired and need to go to bed… and I need to break myself away from this obsession of ghostly light in a dark room as my fingers fly over the keyboard.

goodnight.

Blogging: the new web page. I’m not quite sure when it happened. I spent hours, days, months working on a beautifully designed and well thought out website. When my own domain went down because I had a server crash, I worked hard to move everything to a new site, having to separate the web from the photos from the blog (I used to host my own wordpress blog). If you want to check out the site (I really am still pretty proud of it) click on “My website” over under the pic ——–>

Anyway, some where along the time that I started moving all my blog posts over here (and I have years of them still to put up) and I started exploring the different designs and all the creativity that went into them, I started to feel the same excitement I used to about doing my pages. The cool thing is that this was easier because so many snippets of code and miscellania already exist out there on the web. So in the initial rush I put up TONS of stuff in my side bar.

Somewhere in the first weeks, having found the Bipolar Webring (Bipolar Planet) - also see link to left to explore all the really cool writers who share their thoughts and words and daily moods - and finding that each blog I went to had more blogs all linked, that it has become exponential and I find myself exploring and reading all day. I can do this you see, because as mentioned previously I work at home on the computer, for HOURS at a time. When we aren’t busy taking calls I have this screen staring at me. So I read, and I keep following links and finding stuff I like.

And it dawned on me. The new webpage is the blog. They’ve become places to post pictures, do writing, share your favorites and your links, and pretty much do everything webpages used to do. And it’s true - my web page hardly gets any traffic - and almost all of it directed from here, but my blog increases traffic every day. This is particularly due to the nice folks who have linked to me on their webs - THANK YOU - as well as a couple of sites that register blogs. Yes, I watch my traffic. I see who comes and goes, and who comes back. Yep, I’m watching you… Sorry - I’m a geek, I’m interested, and I like seeing the numbers increase. Call it ego. Call it obsession. But it ain’t gonna stop.

And as if designing, maintaining, and writing on my own was not enough, I am now in the process of setting one up for a good artist friend of mine who has been writing for years, and has finally taken a small step to publishing his work (through my encouragement and setting it up for him). He hates technology so he even sends me his posts and I publish them - but that doesn’t mean he is not one of the best writers out there. Check it out Kokopelli Gazette. Not as complex as mine… yet.

The only thing that worries me is that I realize that my mania in it’s primary form is absolute obsession to something. It has been computers on and off for many years, where I can sit in front of this stupid little screen for hours on end, neglecting house, home, pets, kids, self totally compulsively obsessed with whatever seems to be attractive at the time. It has not helped that I have been in tech for 13 years. And it certainly doesn’t help to have a job where I spent up to 9 hours a day staring at the monitor.

In fact, I made one of those shattering connections that happen every once in a while in a total moment of clarity that really made me both ashamed and scared of my mania and it’s concentration aspect. My daughter, at 15 could completely rebuild a computer from scratch. She, at one time, had a web page dedicated to a band (Blink 182) that came up #5 on Google and was shut down for exceeding bandwidth. Her technical talents are far and wide and she is brilliant. But she hates it. And until recently I never really got it. Why turn your back on something that could make tons of money - especially web design which she has a real talent for. And then that clarity came. She won’t do it because of my illness and how I spent hours on the computer, neglecting my children. They didn’t get the good attention because I was busy on the computer. There was always some justification since I worked as a high paid technical consultant and when I wasn’t actually working, I was training up. And in that field an average work week is 60 hours. So it’s easy to get sucked in. And I spent much of her childhood doing just that. No wonder she wants nothing to do with computers.

So that is the focus of this post - for I have found myself slipping into that mindset lately. Of being sucked in, of being unable to walk away, or spend much time with my 8 year old. I”m always sitting in this damn chair. So my mania must be acting up… And now I need to work on it because I am not doing the same thing to my 8 year old. He needs me - not my arm chair direction.

I feel like writing about a few things today and they are all unrelated, so you get to hear disjointed crazy thoughts but separated neatly into nice little posts… Nice and neat in a compulsive sort of way… sigh

So - South Beach diet update. This was day 5. I feel pretty good about this week. I’ve gotten pretty much past carb and sugar cravings (don’t you DARE touch my sugar free fudgesicles in the freezer) and last night went to dinner with Melissa and the boys and they ate pizza and garlic bread (that would have normally been a real killer - I LOVE garlic bread) and I ate my meatball low carb entree without a cringe. Breakfast has been the hardest part, since mostly it’s eggs and/or meat, coffee, veggie juice and lots of water. I get pretty tired of eggs (like I was done the first day). But I found a neat recipe that is actually quite healthy (veggie quiches with spinach) that is pretty good, made in bulk to freeze and pop in the microwave - great for when i need to get to work at 7 am and roll out of bed at 6:50. Of course that sounds impossible til you know I work from home - just have to get the coffee and sit at the computer. But I’ve done pretty well. I’ve let myself have a couple of treats, mostly to just get them out of the house so they don’t bug me anymore. But I’m doing pretty well. Haven’t stepped on the scale yet. Actually didn’t even weigh myself at the beginning… just know my targetish weight so I’m not stuck on a “how many pounds did I lose thing”.

But I’m most of the way through week 1! Go me!

Sleep has been a topic of discussion on many blogs I’ve been reading lately. Sleep for me does not seem to be the problem as much as just making myself chose to stop what i’m doing and go to bed. My body happily will stay awake and do whatever I’m focused on for as long as I want. I must make myself, no matter how driven and interested I am in some mindless task (lately it has been working on my blog making it “perfect”) just avoiding going to be bed…

However, once in bed, as long as I do not engage my mind in something like the exellent book I am reading (The Fifth Book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time), as long as I have something mindless to concentrate on (stupid sitcoms on tv in the dark) I fall asleep instantly (or at least close to it). Until I learned this secret I would either read until the wee hours, or lie in bed endlessly tossing and turning worrying about all that was happening.

I must say that my life has become much more calm and orderly as I’ve healed from both my failed marriage and my illness. Many times my nightly waking terrors were of money problems. And while I still have some concern, I don’t spend time terrified whether my rent check will bounce, or this or that will not go through, or how we just spent $200 in bank charges because things DID bounce… Life has certainly been financially tough this year. We were so close to homeless that I ended up in the hospital from stress. But that changed a couple of things. It made me that one final step closer to absolutely dedicated to budgeting, and not spending without regard to what bills there are no matter how much I think I need something, The change in my stress level has been remarkable. The healing from my failed marriage (that had actually died several years previous to our separation) has also made things much more calm and organized. There is little yelling, the TV is only on when someone really wants to watch something. Routines are pretty much followed, and things are not constantly in an uproar. All of that makes it less likely that I stay up all night churning things over and over in my head. And for the rare times that I force myself to bed and cannot fall asleep I really love my ambien…

G’night.