People are Strange...

When you're a stranger... Ahhhh The Doors are stuck in my head right now-

Life has definitely been throwing me a few fast pitches over the last couple of days.  I don't like the idea of curve balls  because I think you can still pretty well see those coming!  My poor baby sister is basically being held hostage as part of an all out family feud.

With the help of some very patient and kind counselors, and DSM-GOOGLE, I have realized that the majority of the personal ticks and issues that I have are a direct result of being raised by a Narcissistic Mother.  And all this time I just assumed she was BiPolar like the rest of us, but it turns out she is not... She has said she has been tested and wasn't, which never made much sense to any of us that were close enough to see her patterns of behavior, until NOW!

Cue: Lightbulb!

My husband, sister, and father have all had this huge Ah-Hah! moment.  So now to add that to my long list of: Please Let Me Avoid These Things While Raising My Daugher-

Top of the list- Check yourself.  Are you a narcissist?  Are you providing R with stability?  Are you well?

I ask my self an entire plethora of self-check questions every day. Part of my daily mood charting routine (which I am not doing religiously) and check in.  My husband has noticed the difference.  I have noticed the difference.  Until this weekend I have been regulated.  My mood has not fluctuated much at all.  I always find myself searching my baby's eyes for signs of me being off... I peer in looking for a sign that she thinks I'm RIDICULOUS.  Luckily she just gives me the same "I love you, you're my mommy" eyes every day all day!

So as part of my therapy I delve into Stability Training.  Interestingly enough, one of the bloggers I occasionally read wrote about stability today!  It is important for children to know what to expect.  It gives them security.  I never had that as a child and I vow to always provide it for my daughter.  Except in those rare instances when I feel like we need to load up the family and Road-trip-It to somewhere bizarre- Like the magical tree-houses that I keep hearing about here in Oregon.  I can't wait until she's old enough to partake in my whimsical moments :-)  Daddy just might get a phone call from Canada!

Today I am well.  I miss my sisters, both of them!  I have resumed my household chores and I am well.  I am well.  Living with a diagnosis of BiPolar you immediately think of yourself as something other than well, but YOU ARE WELL.

Thank you T for reminding me of that!  I <3 you

We Were the Jones'

So much has been happening- I've been a little elevated... Husband has been home most of the days, which equates to not much work and a very sad bank account.  Baby has been trying tirelessly to crawl.  I'm pretty sure she's even been doing it in her sleep with all of the tossing and turning that's been going on, sleep giggles and whimpers and all!  And our very temperamental Boston Terrier has taken to defecating on the ONLY white rug in the house consistently.  Not ONLY, but definitely my favorite.  He's a very strange one...

Ok so maybe we weren't the Jones'.  But when times were good and my cash flow was GREAT we always had the new and better.  Not necessarily best, but definitely better.  Okay maybe we did have a few of the best's.  The new phones, electronics, oh my goodness and our closets!  I miss how our closets were.  We had fresh tags hanging off of our clothes often.  But that's not the case now.

He has a different job entirely, I've chosen the stay at home route, and I have made the decision to aspire to the minimal life.  Whatever that may be.  That's hard to do for an ex-shopoholic (manic bipolar episodes are probably a more accurate description).  I still want the designer labels and new gadgets and I find myself getting depressed when I think about how I can't just go out and buy them like I used to-  And then I get frustrated for getting depressed!  How stupid is that?!  I want to go against the new American Lifestyle of gotta have it now, and raise my daughter to appreciate all of the little things around her, so that when she can get the good stuff she'll have THAT MUCH MORE appreciation for them.

I struggle probably mostly with her- Toys and clothes for her are my big one right now.  Toys not so much I guess, I love the little things that I have made for her to play with.  But when I buy her toys I want them to be Euro-friendly.  Non-toxic.  NOT MADE IN CHINA.  Rubber not plastic.... And the list goes on... And for her wardrobe.  I hate having her dressed in Carter's in public. How pathetic is that?!  Mainly because she's not just another baby dressed in a monkey suit.  She's effing AWESOME and her wardrobe should show that.  I know it's dumb to buy designer baby clothes because of how fast they grow.  But damnit, I have definitely tried, and I think I have been quite successful at it :-)

As for my mental health these days-  As usual having Hubster home is hard for me.  I work better solo.  But I guess we're managing.  I have been cycling pretty much hourly and have given up altogether on mood charting for the past couple of days.  I think it's safe to say that I'm a glass half-empty kinda gal today- Tank on E. But my mind is running away leaving my body behind.

Micromanaging I.P.-

I'm slowly chipping away at all of the little redundancies that I think will help me to better manage my Bipolar-

• Routine... Check
• Mood Charting... Check
• Food Diary... in progress

I just feel like if I am able to chart and log every aspect of my life I may be able to determine some correlations and then eliminate anything that causes the high's and low's.

I can feel the caffeine pumping through my veins right now and I am pretty sure that is one of the things I will have to work toward eliminating-  I type this with a clenched jaw and a vision of me with a cold grip around my coffee mug!  I have cut back!  I have!  I HAVE!  My coffee almost looks like tea!  At least I can still feel it working...  It's what gets me started in the morning.  And when you have a little 7 month old whose new voice is a full on high pitched SCREAM... You NEED the kick-start!  I guess I could take the advice of my 15-year old sister and take a bite out of an apple...

Gluten will definitely have to be completely eliminated... I already knew that.  I don't eat much of it anyhow since having my little bambino.  And I also know sugar is my other nemesis.  DAMN YOU girl scouts hanging around outside my grocery store!  I am pretty sure they are all gone until next year though.  Phew!  No more ducking for cover inside the market!

Have you ever really put any thought into how those little girls feel when they see people running from them? I wonder if they develop a complex from it?  GS: "Would you like to buy some cookies?"  Sugarholic running inside the store with a look of terror on their face: "Nooooooooooooo!"  Poor kids-  They need a debriefing after each cookie selling season.   

I digress-  I will soon be making all of our carb loaded snacks from scratch-  My theory is that if I can control the ingredients, then I may be able to control their reaction in my body.  We'll see how it goes!

Mood Level: Elevated
Anxiety Level: On the rise
Energy Level: Gggrrreeaatt!

I love having her toys as my table decor! :-)

Two posts in one day~

Standing in-line at the grocery store today a homeless man reaches out and touches my daughter's hand. Normally I would freak out because of all the germs that are out there, but then I started to think

maybe this is the most warmth he has felt in a long time. And I can easily swab her hand with the baby wipe that's anti-bacterial. And why is he homeless in the first place?  Is he one of the many people that have fallen victim to mental illness? Is he unemployable because he freaked out on his last boss during one of his schizophrenic episodes? How do I know... and I really don't know- 

So I swallowed the big lump in my throat from the panic that I felt whenever he touched her hand, took her out to my car washed her hand and smiled knowing that maybe she brightened his day.  It was definitely the least I could do-

Staycation-

Since my husband has been home for most of the last month I have sort of been all over the radar.  I feel mostly even keel- but I bet he would beg to differ.  Again, I need to be logging my moods!  UGH!  It just seems like too big of a task to face my feelings throughout the day.  My house is sort of covered in incomplete projects, but I see an end in sight for all of them.  I have been pretty good about setting realistic expectations for myself.  Part of that has included ignoring the outside world.

On an interesting note, Travis has spent his time off diving into child-rearing books ;-)  I guess baby happened and then he realized, "oh wait, maybe I should learn a little about this squirmy thing!"  I'm glad that he is finally taking an initiative.  He did read the Attachment parenting book that I threw at him early on when I decided that we were going to be an "attached family" no matter how difficult it seemed.  And we have succeeded so far; baby-wearing, co-sleeping, exclusive breast-feeding and all the ooey gooey stuff in between.

Anyhow, his most recent read has been supporting my instincts as a Mommy which is quite great!  He even came across some info about how you can possibly prevent mental illnesses such as Bipolar with the right amount of nurture!  Imagine that!  Loving your child and holding them and caring for them can actually make their brain function at it's full capacity.  Without any mishaps- mood swings- hi's and low's.

I feel like I have been trying to do everything I can to set her up for a stable adult life.  I don't want her to have the pitfalls that I have had that are a direct result of my illness.  I want to protect her from the shame and confusion that come along with mental illness.  Even if we as a society make the efforts to educate others about these illnesses, the self-destructive shame still exists.  I have paid careful attention to brain specific nutrients and supplements, avoided chemicals thought to be toxic and neurologically damaging, and had a full on breakdown when I realized that my most recent cavity was filled with a metal rather than the ceramic that is recommended for people with mental illness.

But I am optimistic now!  I have hope that she will be "stable."  She does have one CRaZY Momma, but she may prevail nonetheless.

My heart might actually burst...

Sitting in the back seat of my car with my sleeping baby on our way back from grandmas house. The weekend was full of lots of squeals and giggles. As I look back I smile knowing that she is loved so very very much and all of these moments she will never remember, but they are the building blocks of her character and the future little adult she will grow to become.

She is so easy going. Even when I'm about to jump out of my skin in fear that something is going to upset her or wake her from a much needed nap, she prevails. I'm in awe of the little well rounded, grounded, almost mature little thing that she is. She's still very much a baby and let's us know when she's had enough, but trouble she is not. She's not unnecessarily fussy. Not cry-y. She is curious, with a giggle about to break from the corners of every smile.

It never occurs to me how well things really are going until someone points it out. Today, before leaving town, we were having lunch at an exceptionally loud restaurant. That sent me into an anxiety spiral, worrying that it was too much stimulation for her. Then as I sit playing with her my SIL boyfriend says, "it's crazy how she never really cries." And that's when it hit me! Of course she never really cries! She's attached! She has everything she needs. We listen to her. She's perfect!

I'm definitely far from perfect and have a lot of work to do so that she never gets put in a situation where she thinks that she has to "save mommy." I have read a lot of books and seen a lot of movies based around that premise exactly. I'm not trying to redefine bipolar. Just manage it. Hell! Maybe I am trying to redefine it! Show the world that we too can raise stable well rounded bambinos!

Happy V-Day!

The romanticism does not flow from my body much, if at all!  So today I will bite the bullet, push through, tough it out, peel away the layers, bring down the wall... You get the idea.  It's not that I don't enjoy the romantic stuff, I do, maybe it's the build up?  Fear of rejection?  Who knows-  I realize I'm always looking for a clinical diagnosis for all of my issues.  The best part about today will be seeing the acceptance and gratitude in my husbands face when I slough off my rough exterior and

R    E    L    A   X

Dinner and candles :-)  I hope that's not too ambitious for my overworked manic brain.  Speaking of manic- the last several days have actually been quite peaceful.  Baby had her 6 month checkup on Friday and the good Dr gave me some lovely supplements to help regulate my hormones.  I think they're working!  

Now to get my little monster to stay asleep longer than 40 minutes-