oh yeah? my doc says I’m not crazy, but you’re a raging bitch

Tags

anxiety, bipolar disorder, goals, life, limits, meds, mental health, mental illness, moods, motivation, sleep, stress, the world is full of fucking idiots, work

The general consensus is that there really isn’t anything wrong with ME. Shrinky-poo actually went so far as to say to me, “so Mama, there really isn’t anything I need to be treating you for right now that I haven’t been treating you for over the last several years.” Which means, I’M FUCKING FINE. And I don’t go back until September.

Her professional opinion is that my anxiety is at an appropriate level and is being appropriately managed with the medications. She approves of the use of the Soma to assist with the muscle aches, and she said that while she wouldn’t have insisted that I start seeing T-Bone again, she doesn’t think it’s a bad idea. Hey, free pass off campus early to visit a cool old dude – I’ll take it.

I also showed her the flower girl pic on my phone and told her about the DBT skills I’ve been using to help supplement the meds and she expressed pride in my ability to do that. And she thought the picture was cool. So yeah, I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing.

SUCK IT!!!

(sorry, I can’t resist)

My day was pretty ridiculous today, and sadly that’s going to be the trend for the next month or so. I didn’t even get enough time between meetings to be considered a lunch break, so I haven’t listened to the CD yet. I’ll try later. I did, however, manage to get myself on the treadmill already tonight.

HOLY HELL, WHEN DID I GET SO OLD AND OUT OF SHAPE???

I walked a whole 15 minutes at 2.5 mph. When I got off, I thought someone had snuck in and replaced my legs with Silly Putty. Damn, that sucked. But at the same time, it felt good. And I will likely sleep better. My intention is to walk every week day evening, either while Josh is in the shower or while he’s at school. I’m going to work back up to longer times, but I know from experience that this will go better if I do it slow. But I did something tonight, and that’s what counts. So YAY.

At any rate, I’m still trying to figure out if it’s best to schedule posts ahead so that y’all get something every day, or wait until the evenings and hope that I have time to give you an update. If you’d like to leave your input on that, I’d love to hear what you think.

mental health organizing tips

Tags

mental health, mental illness, organizational skills for little squirrels, tips

Don’t be confused, my little squirrels, it is Thursday. I thought perhaps I’d combine our typical Thursday “mental health” topic with the “organizing skills” thing that we haven’t done in awhile. Why not?

So, here are some of Mama’s tips for mental folks to stay organized.

Day Planner / Calendar

I keep my calendar in my phone these days, mostly because my work email and calendar are synced to it and I can add personal appointments to my Gmail calendar through the same app, but I did used to use a leather day planner similar to this one. A monthly view wouldn’t have worked for me, but everyone is different. The point is to find a system that you find comfortable and easy to use. If it’s not easy to use, you won’t use it. The idea is to have a way to keep track of appointments and tasks so that you don’t lose track of anything.

These don’t have to be expensive. There are places online where you can download and print templates that can be 3-hole punched and put in a binder. The great thing about that is there are ample opportunities to personalize your system for very little money, and express some of your personality while staying organized.

Keeping Track of Finances / Budget

Knowing where the money is going is important for anyone, often it’s even more important for those of us who have extra medical bills to cover. You can setup a worksheet like this in a word processor, or, if you have a little skill with Microsoft Excel, you can setup a worksheet that includes formulas that add your totals for you and even calculate differences. There are also templates similar to this that you can download blank to print and fill out by hand.

What I really like about doing a budget sheet is that I can easily tell where our money is going, and where I can cut costs. I do ours in Excel, and I know just enough to setup the formulas. Well, I did.

Pill Organizers

This is the organizer that I’ve started using for my morning pills. The spaces are the perfect size for the 3 pills I need in the morning.

My bedtime pills go in a larger version of one of the straight ones, and Josh uses one of these for morning and another for night.

The beauty of using some form of pill organizer is that there is never any confusion about whether or not you took your pills. Anything we NEED to take goes into these. My PRNs are in separate containers because it’s up to me if I take them or not, but I only ever carry as many on me as I’m allowed to have. My brain is just too busted at this point to keep track of too many things.

One of my absolute favorite things about using the pill organizers is that I always know that I’m going to run out of something well in advance. Most of my meds are on perpetual refill and the pharmacy just does that for me and then sends me a text, but filling my pills a week at a time gives me a very clear picture of whether I’m running low on something. This is crucial for Josh because 2 of his meds are controlled substances and can’t be “grace” filled like mine can.

Taking pill organization one step further, I keep all of the bottles of pills in the medicine cabinet in the upstairs bathroom. They’re all in the center section and they’re separated – the top shelf is mine, middle is Josh’s, and the bottom shelf is for vitamins and other pills we don’t take regularly. This makes it easier when we go to fill pills.

Filing System

This is a family thingy pictured here, but it was so pretty I just had to use it. Anyway, the idea is that any paperwork you need to hang on to – bill statements, papers from any of your docs, warranty info for the car or electronics, etc. – needs to be organized and kept in a safe place. If you don’t have a file cabinet or a file drawer in your desk, you can get free-standing file boxes. If you are just starting to get organized like this, take your papers and start making piles of like things. Once you have all of your piles made, you can make folders from there.

Depending on your insurance situation, saving the paperwork you get from the doc’s office and the pharmacy can be crucial. Having a well organized file system makes it easier to find the paperwork you need when you need it.

Those are the 4 biggies for me. What other organizational tips do you think are especially important for us mental folk?