What a wonderful week it has been, having Abby from Life @ The Poles here. It has been a real treat for me.  Not only did she take time away from her day to create a new post for us everyday this week, she did it while her In-Laws have been in town.  Abby rocks!

Let’s look at what she has for us today.

My bad days
can happen at a moment’s notice,
and be gone almost as quickly.
More often than not
I get a stretch of bad days
and it’s those times I have to prepare for.
I try and watch for signs
that a rough patch is on the way,
and having even a little bit of warning
helps.
(This is where the whole
writing daily thing comes in handy.
I know better now
what to look for
because of the writing
than I did before,
so it’s easier to catch them.)
One of the most basic things I do
is plan out
the major meals for the week
ahead of time,
and have all the supplies
in the house
at the start of the week.
I try and keep
a regular as possible
weekly schedule,

as far as when I go shopping and such,
so that if something unexpected happens
(and it often does)
at least I know
what we’re having for dinner.
Even if it’s just the kids and my husband
eating hot dogs
when I’m too depressed to cook or eat.
Which happens more often
than I like to think about.
Other things I do
to help make life smoother
on those rough days
are smaller,
but still important.
I try and keep my mp3 player charged
in case I just need to tune out the world
and unwind.
I try and keep
at least one thing in the house
I know I can grab to eat quickly
that I will eat
no matter what else I won’t eat.
(I go through phases
of not eating certain things
or only eating certain things,
or not eating until dizzy
and feeling ill.
It’s not good for me,
so I try and prepare ahead of time
for those little quirks of mine.)
Sometimes
that might be homemade guacamole (http://lifeatthepoles.com/2010/06/eat-it-with-a-spoon-guacamole/ )
and other times
it may very well be Slim Jims.
Other things are not so much
to make hard days easier
so much as make hard days
harder to have.
I keep my yoga mat
weights
and favorite workout DVD’s
in plain sight at all times,
so there is no forgetting
to get in my workout that day.
I feel better when I do,
at least most days,
and I know
that I’ll ‘forget’
if I don’t have a consistent reminder.
I keep a knitting project near by,
because it’s harder to kill people
if you have needles in your hands.
My medications
are in the same spot
every single day,
and where I will see them
every single day.
There isn’t much
that makes for a harder than usual day
than forgetting my meds that morning.
I also set alarms on the cell phone.
Which might not seem
like something that helps make for a better day
but when you have a tendency
to lose track of time
easily and often
having an alarm go off
shortly before you need to head out
to go pick up the kids from school
or when you need to wake up
(just in case
you turn off the other alarm in your sleep)
helps things go much more smoothly.
Besides that,
being late for picking up
or dropping off
my kiddos
really and truly bothers me
and can throw my mood off
for a good chunk of the day.
So being on time for those
helps prevent
a possible crummy day.

Really,
all of the things I do
to deal with the ups and downs
of my particular flavor of disorder
are pretty basic.
However,
I’ve found
that on the worst days
it’s the basic things
that are the hardest to do,
and when I can’t manage them,
I feel worse about myself
on top of being depressed.
So instead of feeling as if I’ve failed
to even get the basic things done,
I take steps on the easier days
to make the harder days
easier.
It all evens out in the end,
and more importantly,
knowing that I am doing more
than just surviving with this disorder,
that I am
through awareness and planning
learning to live with this disorder,
makes the bit of extra work
worth it
at the end of the day –
on the good ones
and on the not so good ones.

I have really enjoyed having Abby from Life @ The Poles visiting us this week.  I have learned so much from her.  I really appreciate all the extra work she has done to have something for us everyday.

Today, Abby shares with us one of her older posts.  One that she is particularly proud of.  She shared with me that she has several other posts she has done that she is proud of.  I encourage you to take a look at her site and see what she has to share there.

Technicolor Coat of Dreams

By ABBY | Published: JULY 23, 2010

“There is a fine line between genius and insanity.”

–

When you can barely tell the real
from the mirage,
when the mirage is your real,
anything is possible.
Nothing is real,
and anything is possible.
(Chaos.)

If you spend long enough there
you can start to believe anything,
just to have something to believe in.
But if you are careful
if you just sit still
and watch
if you let it run through you
and observe
you’ll start to find
things that repeat.
You’ll find threads
that you can begin to weave together
to make something.
Even if it’s only
threads of insanity woven together,
it’s at least consistent insanity.
Nothing is real,
and anything is possible.
(Chaos.)

It turns out
that those threads
are not always
just insanity.
Sometimes
they are just
bits of reality
that needle their way through.
Sometimes though,
if you watch carefully enough
they are what become
your truth,
the principles and rules
upon which you can begin to build
what will keep you together
within the maelstrom of madness.
Nothing is real,
and anything is possible.
(Chaos.)

And in the middle of the chaos
you’ll find some semblance of peace
and you’ll learn
how to silence
the howling winds around you.
You’ll weave together
the truths you’ve so carefully held on to
slowly
so as not to break them.
And out of them
will come your own
technicolor coat of dreams,
woven of the truths you’ve found
when
nothing was real
and anything was possible,
and all around you
was swirling Chaos.
And out of that Chaos,
out of that Chaos,
that is from where you will come.
From the primordial forces
from which all things came
you will come
wearing your technicolor coat of dreams.
And you will see
what is Real
and you will wear
what is True.
Draped around your shoulders
and woven by your own hands
from the threads that run through insanity,
you will have found
the Truth,
the Truth in madness,
and survived.

–

“It’s not what you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts.” – Oscar Levant

I am very excited about introducing the very first featured blogger for Sugar Filled Emotions‘ new feature Mental Health Blogger of the Week.

Please welcome Abby of Life @ The Poles! Abby was initially diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder by her Primary Care Physician in January, 2010.  She originally created Life @ The Poles as a place where she could write about the “the ups and downs and twists and turns” that go on in her head.  As she has been on her blogging journey she has discovered that her blog can serve as a place for other people with Bipolar Disorder to visit and learn that they are not alone.  Her own words best describe this “Because sometimes not feeling so alone is the first step towards not feeling like it’s your fault, towards being able to believe that you are ‘Normal’.”

I know you will enjoy what Abby has written for us.  Please take the time to show her some love in the comments.

Somebody, Someday

When I was a child
I wanted to be Someone.
Someone special,
someone worth taking notice of.
Someone who,
in their own way,
would change the world around them,
who could would help the world
see things from a different perspective,
Someone who was special.
I admired
Albert Einstein and Van Gogh,
Da Vinci and Beethoven,
and imagined,
wished,
dreamed
I had what it took
to be counted among them.
To be Somebody, someday.

I eventually realized that
I wasn’t ever going to be Somebody.
I was different.
I was weird.
I didn’t fit in anywhere.
In the logic of the outcast,
I decided that
I was never going to be Somebody
because I didn’t fit in anywhere,
because no one else
thought or worked like I did,
because where most of my peers
were talking about
the latest TV show
or celebrity news,
I was eyes deep
in Neurobiology
and Astronomy,
and where my peers were reading
People or Cosmo
I was happily reading
Greek Mythology and Edgar Allan Poe.
I
was strange.
I
was weird.
I
was different.

I
was a fish out of water
everywhere but alone,
buried in my books,
or my poetry,
or my art,
or my music.
I was
a Nobody
to the world of my peers.
And yet,
no matter how often I told myself
over the years,
I was never going to be Somebody,
deep down
that little child in me
still wanted
to be Somebody.
Still wanted to believe
that I had what it took.
Even when
I spent more time
talking to myself
or reading or writing
or working on art projects
than I did interacting with people,
that child
still wanted to believe
I could be Somebody,
even when
all signs pointed
to Nobody.

Sometimes
it doesn’t take much to change
the way you see
everything.
Sometimes,
it’s as simple as
someone you trust restating the obvious
from a different perspective –
someone pointing out
that weird
that oddball
that strange
that not fitting in
means
that you are different –
that
you
are special.
And very slowly,
I began to realize
that all those parts of me
that I had come to hate
because they made me “weird”
or “strange”
or an “oddball”
were why
I could be
Somebody –
if I’d stop fighting
who I was.
If I’d stop
trying to be what I am not
and see, realize, understand,
that you can’t change the world
if you aren’t
at least a little different from it,
and that you can’t show people
how to see things from another perspective
if you don’t see from a perspective
that no one else sees from.
You have to be different
to stand out,
and to be Somebody
you have to stand out.
All those years I spent
trying to fit into
what I thought I should be.
All those years
trying to be Somebody
by being like everyone else.
All those years
of wanting to be something
I already was.

My psychiatrist told me
in one of my early appointments,
I suspect as a reassurance of some sort
after I said I hated myself I think,
that many of the great minds
dealt with a mental disorder,
or were suspected of having one.
Einstein and Van Gogh
are said to have had Bipolar Disorder
and Beethoven and Da Vinci
are suspected
to have had Bipolar Disorder, as well.
I guess I’m not THAT different after all,
because
I have Bipolar Disorder too.
There may be hope
for my becoming
Somebody someday
after all.