Familiar feelings

I realised this week that I have now had 6 first days at 6 different higher education facilities in the last 14 years. No wonder the creeping sense of deja vu was resting on my shoulder for much of this week. So, what do I think of my new course? Well... Let's see, there are people in my Creative Writing class who confess to not having any fondness for reading or writing which I find alarming but my tutor just took in her stride. My Philosophy tutor is young, cool and slightly good looking and boy, doesn't he know it! He spent most of the class trash talking Deakin, the university experience and philosophy as a subject so I'll be interested to see where he takes us. My Film Studies lecturer clearly has stand-up comedy aspirations but seems to be a decent fellow and my Film Studies tutor told me it's basically impossible to fail the class, so that's reassuring.

This week has also seen my triumphant return to the MTC Box Office following an absence of nearly 4 years. It's all much as I remember it although the staff are all different and I can't work out where I fit in the pecking order just now. I feel like I had such a busy week but since work only made up a small part of that I will only be receiving a depressingly small amount in my pay cheque next week. Already the sinking feelings that accompany poverty are settling in the pit of my stomach.

It occurs to me that I have once again withdrawn from all social interactions. I haven't checked Facebook to find out if any events are happening and I haven't reached out to any of my friends to catch up. It's hard. I feel so tired at the moment and my timetable seems so intractable. Plus I'm broke! But spending all my time curled up in bed with my laptop is not a path to wellness.

I shall endeavour to venture out of my cocoon at least once next week in what will hopefully be a more settled week as I settle into my new routine. Hopefully my new routine will soon also incorporate visits to the gym at Deakin but right now the whole no time + no money = impossible life equation is making that difficult. Still, something to aspire to, one must have goals, even if they are trivially small.

I feel like all my current life goals are very modest. Stay well enough to keep out of hospital, start exercising again, pass semester 1 of a Bachelor of Arts. I wish I had at least one impossible dream or lofty ambition. Perhaps it just means I'm grounded and living in the real world for once. I'm sure I'll find a way to be happy here.

Transition times

It's laughable sometimes what I write in my blog.

Like in the last post when I was all 'rah rah, gonna sleep well, do yoga and be organised' and then proceeded to partake in the most exhausting, disorganised, yoga-free weeks I've had in a long time.

Sleep has been a real issue these past few weeks. Being particularly busy on top of feeling mildly depressed and highly anxious has left me exhausted. I got into a terrible habit of getting home from work around 6.30pm and going straight to bed, waking up around 11.30pm, starved and wired, browsing the internet for pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch for a few hours and then finally going back to sleep between 2.00-3.00am. Not good.

Because I was sleeping through all the useful hours of the evening it meant that I didn't organise myself well for moving house, I didn't make it to yoga and I'm woefully underprepared for starting uni.

But I did move house. That happened and now I'm living in a sea of unpacked boxes and bags. It does not aid with my sense of my life being disorganised. I must say it is nice to come home and be greeted by hugs from my nephew Max and dinner being made by my brother Nick, so I think it has overall been a step in a positive direction.

Uni orientation was this week although I only made it to one day as work asked me to stay on an additional week and I'm not really in a position to be refusing money right now. I have bought all of my text books and looked up all my assigned reading and quite frankly I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. The sheer volume of reading is immense. I was a few paragraphs in to Plato's Symposium when my wandering mind remembered that I urgently needed to update my blog. Tiredness doesnt help with this distractedness and I just hope that the first few weeks of classes aren't marred by this.

There is a small slice of good news and that is that I have been offered a job in the MTC Box Office. Hopefully this means I'll have enough income (along with whatever measly amount the government sees fit to proffer) to keep me in lithium and chicken nuggets for my uni days. It does mean I'm going to be busy though, already my next two weeks have jam packed schedules.

I'm not going to be so foolish as to discuss my plans for coolly breezing through these next few weeks of transition. That would just be bullshit and I do want to keep this a BS free zone. My psychiatrist summed it up for me when I saw him the other night, he said, "But hey, look at you surviving all this crap." And he's right. I am surviving. If I can make it through these transition times it shows how far along I've come.

Upheaval

This is turning out to be quite a time of upheaval and change for me. I was thinking to myself just the other day how well I was handling it all. Well, that was a nice day. I should have known it was never going to last.

I think when all the change seemed very abstract and theoretical to me I could cope with it just fine but now that I've had some concrete lumps of inevitable fact dumped in my lap I'm freaking out just a little. So, what's changed?

Well, I confirmed the date I'm moving out of my current sublet and in with my brother and my nephew. Suddenly the thought of moving across to the other side of town seems scary and I'm panicking because I haven't used up all 10 of the yoga classes I paid for. In the few moments of rationality I'm afforded I recognise that there is nothing to stop me travelling back to this side of town to take a yoga class because really it's not that far and let's face it, I'm soon likely to have more free time on my hands.

I don't think I've itirated this at all in my blog yet but I'm going to be without work as of next Friday. My department is being folded into another department for the time being and so my services will no longer be required. I'd managed to push my impending unemployment to the back of my mind but now that it's steadily approaching I'm hitting panic mode. I had a job interview today which I think I tanked (group interview - revealed my weakness for not suffering fools) and I have another one on Thursday but there is still a distinct possibility that I might have no income in less than two weeks.

What I do know I'll be doing in two weeks is attending orientation at Deakin University where I've been accepted to study a Bachelor of Arts. I've been saying I wanted to go back to study for months but now that it's really happening I'm filled with feelings of dread and inadequacy. What happens if I'm not smart enough? What if everyone there hates me? What if the poverty I'll have to endure while studying drives me back to the brink?

I'm getting stress headaches just thinking about all of this. There have even been times this week when I've been so preoccupied that I've forgotten to eat. Me! Forget to eat!

What I need to do is practice some acceptance and commitment therapy and recognise that the panicky thoughts are not helping me. Then I need to commit to taking actions and thinking thoughts that are helpful and in line with my goals and values. In practical terms this means staying organised so that I don't get overwhelmed by any of the upcoming events, taking care of myself so getting good rest, eating well and regularly and attending yoga and lastly, reaching out to those around me to let them know this is likely to be a rough time and I might need help.

So there you are, you're forewarned, rough seas ahead. But hopefully once I've gone through this transition time it will all be smooth sailing.

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

I'm totally shit. There's no real excuse. Yes, I have been incredibly busy but neglecting my blog like this is still inexcusable. I totally understand if you've all stopped reading.

A lot has happened. So much that I'm going to explain it all in dot points to get through it all.

• I was staying with my parents because I wasn't coping too well with life
• I was asked to move in to a share house in Princes Hill
• I ummed and aahed about whether I was emotionally prepared for such a change
• I decided I was and moved
• Work got incredibly busy and stressful
• My mood went up, down, backwards and sideways
• I'm tired all the time but feeling fairly stable now
• I'm still surrounded by a sea of unpacked boxes
• I was so tired when I get home last night that I got into bed and ordered a pizza
• I ate an entire pizza in bed last night

There, now that wasn't too hard to do now, was it?

I'm about to go and house sit for my sister for a week so the fun isn't stopping yet. I'm hopeful that my body will soon start adjusting to the pace of work and I'll have more energy to blog in the coming weeks.

Once again, I am sorry for the inconsistent blogging. I'll try to do better for next time.

My shitty week

I'm having kind of a shitty week. Let's see, where to start? How about my shoulder? Yeah, my shoulder is in pain for some unknown reason, possibly the result of too much filing which I've been doing at my job, which is another thing that has been kind of shitty. Usually I like my job a lot but this week has just been a whole load of meh with some blah piled on top. I'm working reduced hours, some days only 3 hours, and when the work itself is shitty then getting the energy up to go in for those 3 hours is pretty challenging.

Since I started with a body part perhaps I'll continue and tell you about my jaw, which is also in pain. I was so proud and boastful running around being like, 'look at me, I'm side effect free' and then I've gone and developed a side effect. It's not specifically just my jaw, but all my muscles are tensing up as a side effect to the Saphris. It's most noticeable in my jaw though because it's currently permanently clenched and so it aches and my teeth ache and chewing my food has become an ordeal. Now if only this would noticeably put me off my food I might lose some weight and start feeling better about my body, which is another thing that has made me feel shitty this week. No big changes here, still just lugging around all the lithium weight and feeling like a blimp.

I wonder if I'd lose the weight if I went off my medication? I've been wondering about being off my medication ever since my psychologist asked me what I thought I'd be like off my medication. I've been having a few issues with this psychologist and I don't think this has been helped by such portent questions as this. I think I'm going to stop seeing this psychologist but then I have to go through the hassle of finding a new one or try going it alone for a while, I don't know, it's all just a weight on my mind right now. What I do know is that I don't need to wonder what I'd be like off medication right now because the agreed upon course of action decided upon by myself in consultation with some very well trained health professionals is that I'm going to take my damned medication.

And that is medication that from tomorrow is going to start costing me a pretty penny more as Centrelink have decided since I'm working all of about 15 hours a week now I no longer qualify for Sickness Allowance and they've cut off my health care card. And what really irks me is that I'm really not earning very much money. Certainly not enough to have saved anywhere near enough money to move out on my own despite leading an austere existence at present. And what I'd really like more than anything right now is to have a place of my own. I miss having that haven and I am losing hope that it will ever be mine once again.

So that's a brief summation of the things going on in my shitty life this shitty week. However, I'm not feeling depressed, despite there being numerous things I could feel depressed about. I'm not suicidal, not even a jot, so even if my life is shitty at present I still fully intend to keep living it. And finally, this week will pass. It may be replaced with one much worse but it may be replaced with one much better. (Please be one much better.)

Returning to work

I feel guilty calling in to say I won't be at work. Even though I ended up in the Emergency Department this week, I feel like because this illness has happened on the tail end of my sick leave for bipolar disorder, somehow it's illegitimate.

Something makes me feel like there is a decision that I make to take time off work when I'm sick with bipolar disorder, which is simply not the case. When i get sick, everything falls out of my hands. I guess because my illness is so caught up in my own psyche and thought processes, it feels like I should have more control than I actually do and I perceive that others must believe this.

I know it must be hard to understand the pain, the exhaustion and the danger of mental illness if you have never experienced it firsthand. This also makes it difficult to explain to someone why I needed to so urgently take time off and for such an extended period of time. If you were to perceive mental illness as merely mood swings, this would seem unnecessary and indulgent. I can assure you though, there was nothing indulgent about my stay in hospital.

I don't think any of my uneasy feelings are being aided by the fact that there is one distinct aspect of returning to work that I'm really not looking forward to; answering the question of where I've been. I'm hoping it won't come up. We're a pretty transient workforce so people do come and go a bit. But if anyone does ask, I'm then stuck with the dilemma of either lying or telling a half-truth or telling the whole truth and dealing with the reaction to that. Most people are inoffensive in their responses but almost everyone seems really uncomfortable when I tell them, and this doesn't wear off immediately. I wonder if people who reveal they have diabetes are given wide berths and sympathetic looks like I've received.

Anyway, back at work tomorrow. One positive note I can concentrate on is that working = getting paid, something much needed after my long, finance-depleting period of illness. Returning to work also marks a return to some sort of normality; I'll no longer feel like I'm wasting water when I shower in the morning, I do in fact need to shower before going to work as opposed to other recent days of being housebound.

So, concentrating on those positives I will boldly make my way to work tomorrow and face whatever challenges lie ahead. Wish me luck.