Blogs
Recovery from an eating disorder can be all-consuming at times. In this video, I talk about how you can and should balance recovery with real-life activities and how that balance can ultimately help you in your recovery from an eating disorder.
Is my son, Bob (who has bipolar disorder), experiencing "psychotic depression?"
I'm not sure when it happened, but The Toddler has determined "Mom Time" is a good thing. Good enough to be fought for. Begged, borrowed, and stolen for. Bob, not to be outdone in this attention-seeking contest, has upped the ante (however unintentionally). The end result? One Mom, looking like taffy, stretched and pulled, pulled and stretched, ready to snap and feeling pretty similar.
The holidays are fast upon us and that means it’s more important than ever to remember what they are all about – the spirit of giving!
Specifically, the happiness others experience when they give things to me! Lots of things – flashy, superficial things - digital things made in China – housed in cheap, plastic cases offending the eye with their bawdy, grotesque colors! You betcha! Bring it on! Forget subtlety! At holiday time anything worth doing is worth overdoing; good taste is bad and bad taste is great!
At Christmas We Are Children Once Again; Hideous, Greedy Children
I have two nephews, Des and Landon, that I dote on considerably. During Thanksgiving, I visited Landon at his parents' house, Landon wanted to show me everything ("Fish! Tree! Light!") and gave me one of his toys. When I visited Des at my parent's house, I held out my arms and he screamed--he thought I was a stranger since I'm not around him every day.
Two one-year-olds. Two different phases of development.
So what does this have to do with borderline personality disorder (BPD)? Just as two one-year-olds may differ, so people with BPD may differ. There is no one way to have BPD.
In my last video post, Emotion Regulation and Dating with Bipolar Disorder, I talked about what I thought was a burgeoning relationship or something with Erik. Well, that something has become a nothing and I'm crushed. Not because I was in love with him or anything, but because in spite of my new-found emotional health I ended up where I've generally been: alone.
Recently a doctor stopped by my blog and asked about types of thoughts people with bipolar disorder have. Specifically, he was asking about "crowded" thoughts. Crowded thoughts are likened to "too many people jammed into this office." Crowded thoughts constitute the experience of having too many thoughts at one time.
So it got me to thinking, what are the types of thoughts and what types of thoughts are typical for bipolar disorder.
Analyzing "Talk"
Some people like chocolate and some people like going to movies. Me, well, I like my thesaurus. I like things like this: certain pens, books, a 5,000 page book full of words that connect to words that mean, pretty much, the same damn thing. So, fueled by caffeine, I look up the word talk (and here is to hoping a few you like words, sort of), and am confronted with a whole slew of them.
It's Sunday night. One child is in bed; the other is doing his nightly reading. Tomorrow, everyone goes back to work and school. The long Thanksgiving family-fest weekend is over.
We survived.
Diane wrote as a comment: Now my husband doesn't drink but does all the other stuff! I am planning on leaving after Christmas but am afraid I wont have a place to live with my girls. I am looking at housing/apartments but my wages are low even though I have a college degree. Any advice would help so much.
Diane, you are not alone in your fear. It is important to financially survive after leaving an abusive situation; you may need to make some temporary material sacrifices for your sanity.
Every good decision is part factual underpinning and part hope. The "hope" part can become fact-based with a little research.
Where do we go from here? Most of the family thinks just to let her hit bottom and then if she reaches out to help any we can. Some want to just keep paying her bills and just let her sit in the house with no responsibilities. Never been on medication and impossible to get to her when she refuses to talk to ANYONE.
Help.
On the day we agreed to videochat to make things less awkward IRL she woke up with a migraine so we rescheduled to the day after, I made sure to assure her that it was okay and to take her time. Later that day, in the late evening we had a nice chat but suddenly she stopped replying, even though nothing had happened. The day after I texted her good morning and said I hope she was feeling a little better. she wouldn't open my texts.
A couple days after I sent her a longer text saying that even though I had only known her for a short time I care a lot for her and would like to know how she are doing, telling her I'm there for her, assuring her I'm not going anywhere even though things might not be very easy. She wouldn't open it.
A week later I sent a text saying not to feel bad about not answering and that I will be there when she is able to answer again. It's been two weeks since this and she still hasn't opened my texts. She hasn't been active at all.
I don't know what else I can do. I assumed she might have fallen into a depression. I have tried to just not think about it anymore, and I haven't that much but when I do it sort of kills me inside...