Oh, hey look, January finally left. I swear I thought it would hang out for another gazillion years. I know some of you have been like where the heck is she? The Invega kicks my butt the first couple of weeks after they increase it. So, I’m well rested at least. I started intermittent fasting and calorie counting last week now that the eat everything urges are gone. Kinda sounds like a lot, right? One is for my binge eating, which is new for me this last year and I’m not a fan. The other is to make sure I don’t eat before I go to bed because that never ends well. So now I’m just hungry all the time. So, approach cautiously, but don’t bring chocolate or I’ll bite you.
Why are
people so weird? Like I know, that sounds judgmental, but I really don’t
understand people. I don’t even want to be me so why do you want to be me? Anyway,
that was a weird experience that I would prefer to skip for the rest of my
life. I really wish people would learn to love themselves because that would
make life a lot less weird. Besides that, I’m not that cool or interesting. I’m
actually pretty boring because all I do is work, be a dork, take my meds, and
sleep a lot. Like I’m a champion napper so if that’s a life goal of yours then cheers. It is not a life goal of mine I was just born a sleepy girl.
My house no
longer looks like a depression cave. I have a few things left to do but
yesterday was really productive. I just wish having depression cave problems
weren’t one of my problems. It genuinely can’t be that hard to keep a clean
space so why can’t I figure out how to do it? That my friends is the million-dollar question and I don’t have an answer for it. I’d love to know how people
just do things without having to talk themselves into things. But alas I wasn’t
given that ability, so I have to get tired of myself before I motivate and that’s
annoying. However, on the plus side, I annoy myself a lot, so it doesn’t take me
that long to focus. So today I will finish cleaning I suppose.
I decided for
the first anniversary of living in this apartment I would redecorate it. Technically
the anniversary is on the 7th of this month but I’m already
planning. Can you believe I’ve lived here for a year? I can’t. It’s wild to me
that I’ve been at my job for two years in a couple of weeks. It took so long
for things to come back together and honestly at times it felt like it never
would. But I am now as medically stable as I’ve probably ever been in my entire
life. My grandma dying was undoubtedly the hardest thing I’d gone through in
life. I wasn’t prepared for my life to implode two months later. I mean we know
my major manic episode was brewing long before she died. But two months later, I hit rock bottom.
I wondered
for a long time if she would have been proud of me and later realized she
absolutely would have. She knew something was wrong with me beyond what other
people knew or admitted. We’d had many conversations about things before her
dementia really got bad. She knew about a lot more things than she probably
ever would have repeated. She loved me beyond words and was always my biggest
cheerleader. So, I think today, knowing what we know now, she’d be very proud
of the person I am today. When she died, she then had access to the answers to
the questions I’d never answer. She then knew what she needed to know in life that
would fill in some of the gaps I kept to myself. And truthfully that’s all I
needed to know to understand that she would have had my back regardless. Not to
say she didn’t have my back when she was alive, she did. There’s a reason I’ve
always called her my angel because that’s what she was, is, and will always be.
She was the light that showed through even the darkest and most complicated of
times. Same with my grandpa, he was and will always be my hero. He never let me
down, not once, and neither did she.
I’ve heard a lot of versions of things not being true and I think a lot of people didn’t realize that my grandma was my best friend and confidant. So, in a lot of ways walking this path without her was extra difficult. She lived a long life and more than deserved her peace in death. She lived to be 98 years old, and most people don’t even get their grandparents in their 20s. I was 41 years old when she passed and for that, I am eternally grateful.
I’d heard a
lot of I’m moody, I get mad a lot, etc. and a chunk of that was situational. Throughout
my life, there was one main source of contention. I am and have always been self-aware
enough to recognize that. I’d given them grace and let them keep things to
themselves though I should have spoken up. My grandma was aware of that, and I
kept every single promise I made to her. Part of that promise was to live my
life on my own terms and I’m doing that. I’d struggled with suicidal depression
since I was 19, diagnosed with bipolar at 24, and though I did well for a long
time. We always knew there would come a time when I would have to face the
beast that was my mental health.
I was terrified
of what a diagnosis of schizophrenia would do to me and how it would affect my
world. Bipolar, suicidal major depression, PTSD, I understood all of those
because I could see them. I could feel those, and I largely understood them,
but the S diagnosis was something I refused to think about. Until that day in
August when the doc said it out loud. Then I realized running from it wasn’t
something I’d ever be able to do again. Today I am sitting here planning on
redecorating my apartment and going to a job I love on Monday morning. Today my
mind is clearer than it’s ever been and for that, I am eternally grateful. I’ve
learned that some diagnoses aren’t the end of the world. She did in death what
she wasn’t able to do in life which led me down the road to answers. She
gave me the peace I’d never found and the strength to walk away from things and
people who hurt me.
This isn’t
the path that I’d ever thought would be mine, but it is mine. It’s been
difficult and to some degree, it’s always going to be. But now I have peace. I’m
going to post this blog; finish cleaning my apartment and then finish planning
my redecorating. Tonight, I will go to bed in a bed I love in an apartment I’m
grateful for. With the knowledge that I’m loved and for once the peace of minimal
hallucinations. Life didn’t end when I was diagnosed. I think in a lot of ways
it finally began again. It’s okay for things to have a different ending than
you planned. Love the people who love you because in the end that could be what
saves you.
~Until next
time, be good to each other.~