Thoughts about the April 12, 2012 entry

Obviously, this might be the height of where I realize there was a problem that required more help than I was getting.

I just didn't know where to turn or that I needed to turn to a psychiatrist.

After all I wasn't crazy.

Thoughts about the March 24, 2012 entry

I don't know why I feel that I need to sum up what I thought about these entries.

For me, I suppose, it feels like I can comment on how shitty I was behaving or the possible causes for my anger & problems.

A huge part of the moods was the pain, but my ability to react and handle the pain was due to being bipolar.

Being bipolar isn't an excuse for your actions, it's a reason why the decisions for taking actions went the way they did.

My asshole brother blames about everything on his bipolar...

I suppose, in short, it was one of my better days...

I guess.

Manual Entry - Saturday, March 24, 2012

My stomach still didn't feel better when I arose.

Ellie & the girls worked on the girls' room, it was very messy & cluttered.

Not feeling well, I moped & read "The Drawing of the Three".  It is the next book in the "Dark Tower" series.

Close to 12:00 noon, I got dressed in work pants and went outside to rotor-till the garden.  For some reason, I remember feeling extremely angry.  I had to carry the tiller from the garage and then it wouldn't always stay running, so I hit it with my fist.  It hurt so the swearing started getting worse.  I did manage to till an area large enough for the cold weather plants before I got too much more mad.

I setup one of my new tools in the shop and organize a few small things.

My head was starting to hurt real bad by then so I went inside after putting the tiller away took 1 pain pill and sat down to read some more.

I made dinner, which I refer to as "S.O.R."  That's either "Stuff on Rice' or "Shit on Rice".  It was good & had seconds, even Little Miss had more.

I wanted to make love to Ellie, but I wasn't really motivated so I went to sleep.

Thoughts about the March 23, 2012 entry

This one shows me how much pain affects my mood.

It also enforces my "don't tell me what to do" policy/attitude.

It also makes me sad.

Very sad.

My family, Ellie & Misses, are a HUGE part of my life and I love them.

I feel great remorse for the way I acted.

Although, I know it's VERY hard to control my moods & actions when I'm having problems from bipolar and pain.

Manual Entry - Friday, March 23, 2012

Woke up not feeling well.  In fact abdomen hurt whenever cats walked or stepped on it.

Took shower, shaved and still felt bad.

Went to utility room for something, on way back my uncle said he had my birthday card.  Instead of stopping, I just said "I wasn't feeling well and wanted to eat."  So he brought it out to me a few moments later.  When he turned to go to his room my wife whispered, "Tell him thank you."

I dropped my fork, said "you're not my mom" and went back to bed.  I was angry & upset for two reasons.  First was that I didn't want to deal with that card/birthday thing yet.  Second is that Ellie has recently been telling me what to do instead of letting me deal with things my own way.  I hate being told what to do.

Ellie eventually came in and apologized and I got dressed.  I sat in the recliner in the front room and had to tell the kids I wasn't ready for birthday presents several times.  It took an hour before i felt good enough to start deciding that we would go see a movie.  By then I'd taken 2 pain pills for stomach & head pain.

We drove to the mall & watched "We bought a Zoo."  Ellie & the girls ate some lunch.

On the way home I got & drank a large McD shake.  McD shakes dont' have enough milk (if any) to upset my stomach.

While we were gone, my uncle bought some pork chops & I cooked them on the BBQ/Smoker.

After dinner, I finally opened my presents & we had cake & ice cream.

One of my presents was the movie "Puss in Boots."  We watched it, I laughed at a lot of stuff in it and went to bed after.  A few hours later, I awoke and Ellie and I made love.

Manual Entry - Thursday, March 22, 2012

I finished watching all of the videos that "Nicole" had recorded to date about her bipolar problems.

The last of these, she went off the meds and was in a hyper-manic state, kind of bouncing around.

I still wasn't doing much work and my head started hurting, so I took 1 pill and finally started figuring out how to make the Windows VSS modules work under C# & .NET.

It felt good and almost Euphoric to get started coding again.

I ate half a bag of dark chocolate M&Ms.

Before I started eating, my heart felt like it was starting to race a bit and I loved the feeling.  I felt alive.

Probably why I ate so many of the M&Ms to keep the "Buzz" going.

I think back, I ate a lot of chocolate the night before too.  Maybe that's why I felt better?

Also, I showered on Weds night, brushed my teeth and had relations with Ellie.

I remember lying awake and not sleeping well.

I contacted Txx, one of my coworkers, about my module and he said he'd get the import from C++ into the C# for me.

Another coworker, Cxxxx, chatted with me about some work I had been doing.

It was good to interact with them.

I often feel alone in my work because no one else on the team does what I do.

What attracted me to writing code was that I realized I see/understand patterns & automate the work for me.  It also allowed me to share my knowledge with others, as a way to help them become as fast as I was.

Turns out that I was faster than maybe I should be... I guess.

Last night while tossing & turning, I dreamt in story mode.  Visualizing the characters & making up the interesting dialog as I went on.  The story only progressed when I was actively thought about it.

It was a sci-fi story, which I don't really write or think about much.  Maybe it's a precursor to a movie or story I will read soon.  This happens sometimes.  I know it wasn't about my future because it didn't feel real.  Whenever I feel, in my dreams, that it is real, it often comes true.

I dreamt about baby chicks in the fourth grade that all but 2 died and one was a rooster.  Well all those came true.  When I was a teenager, my grandma fell.  My family went to visit her that night, as she only lived a few minutes from our house.

I remember as all of us kids lined up to hug her, I was the last.  I bent over and gave her a hug, when I stood up, a vision was given to me.  At the time, I didn't know what it was, but at her funeral months later, I saw the same scene.

When I first saw it, it was like an out of body experience.  I felt as if I drifted to another world for minutes only it had been 1-2 seconds.  Grandma looked at me as if she knew I had seen something and said she would be "alright".  I only shook my head and said,"sure."

I just finished whipping dinner together and my head has a lancing pain through it.  I took the last pain pill I could take until around 10:00 PM tonight.

I'm starting to come down from the excitement because of the pain.

Without the pain slowing me down, I can work, think & move very fast.  When coding, I can see & mentally plan everything out without writing any notes!  Not every developer can do that.  It's like seeing everything on the earth at the same time, that you're walking down a country road.  I take it back, not a walk, but riding hell-bent for leather on an off road bike!

You have to be moving as fast as your thoughts are.

Thinking back to dreams, I have other dreams that have come true, but they were already written down in another journal when I was 18 or 19.  I believe Ellie has already read that one, but I am not certain.

The head pain is coming on stronger now, and my "high" or "mania" or whatever it is, is going away now. 17:37

Thoughts about the March 21, 2012 entry

This was the first day that I really questioned that there was something else wrong with me other than "depression".

The doctors all treated me for depression, which is a symptom for Bipolar Disorder.

Bipolar being a disorder where I person swaps one mood state for another in often extremes.

Swaps from being elated, euphoric, happy, and manic to "normal" or slipping into depression at the same "speed".

I highlight the word speed because it's how I feel when it happens.

In a manic state going 100 miles an hour in an elated state, then dropping into a depressed state still going 100 miles an hour... but in a depressed state of misery, without any sort of way to stop it.

I'm really glad I found those videos...

They saved my life.

Manual Entry - Mon. March 19, 2012

I awoke early and somewhat refreshed.  I worked some that day, but mostly felt terrible.  Part way through I took my last pill for pain and tried to keep going.

It was very, very hard.  I don't think I got anything done except to organize what I needed to do to move from the ##### code to ~~~~ code.

That night, I read some more Fablehaven to the girls, improvising accents where I could.  The Misses eat-up my accents.

The head pain persisted.

I got them to bed and I started the "Blue Brothers".  I rented it via NetFlix.  Music was fun, but the story was lame.  Like most 80's movies, the humor every 5-20 minutes was to make up for the bad writers.

My head continued to pound through the movie.

Ellie came home from her meeting and watched part of the show with me.

We tried to sleep, well Ellie slept, adn I finished reading the "Gun Slinger".  My head hurt too bad.

I eventually got up and played Half-Life II for awhile.

Again, my head hurt really badly.

Finally around 2:00 AM, I dug through my sock drawer until I found the demerol & visterol pills I had been saving for 6 years!  I'll say it again, I was saving those drugs since I was given them by Dr. XXXX in 2006!

I didn't buy them or steal them, I hoarded them.

I took the little pills and didn't fall asleep until around 3:00 AM.

Manual Entry - Sun. March 18, 2012

I laid in bed, ate a little food for breakfast and got ready for church.

We arrived for choir practice and I didn't sing with them after the first speaker sat down during the meeting.  I felt as though my bass voice & timing were off.

I didn't go to Sunday school and my head started hurting so much I took the last two pills left in my pocket vial.

A friend sat there telling me stories of the stupid things he did while drunk or stoned before he was baptized.  I could really understand the allure of those substances, although I often crave a smoke from a cigarette, which I still deny myself.  This friend is bipolar, however, I sure as hell don't know much about it.

Manual Entry - Sat. March 17, 2012

Things started off good today.  I awoke early as I had fallen asleep, early the night before.

When I had fallen asleep, it was as my family and I were watching a movie.  I knew I was tired so I brought a pillow to the recliner and drifted off part way through the film.

Sometime later, I was awoken from a deep sleep by my youngest.  I don't know why, but I was irritated for not being left alone to sleep.  So I yelled about being woken up, then I said I was going to bed.  This upset the girls and they cried, so I was told on Sat.

Ellie was getting ready to leave for part of the day and I was going to do the laundry, you know... be helpful instead of not feeling good and doing nothing.

I need to pause here for a sec, and also note I was rationing my pain meds as I barely had enough till Tuesday, when I could pick up more.

When I was bringing a basket of clean clothes in to be folded, I set it down and started to trip on Bethany's shoes.  I got mad and tried to kick them out of the way and almost fell, knocking a glass candlestick to the floor, breaking it.

Without recalling all the words I said, because I don't know if I could, I yelled at the kids because I almost fell.  I got the broom & dust pan and started cleaning things up.

My daughters didn't even move to help with the glass or to get the shoes.  So I yelled some more and finally went to the utility room or garage.

Ellie came out and was mad at me.  She thought I was being an ass, and I might've been.  But she failed to see where the girls were at fault and got mad when I blamed her.

I blamed Ellie for not stepping in sooner, for not backing me up as I was afraid to fall again, as I broke my shoulder several years earlier from a fall.

I cannot remember all that she and I said, just that I sat down and lost it.  I cried.  I really cried hard too.  I felt as though the world dropped onto me as though I was Atlas.

I cried because I was tired of feeling terrible, tired of the pain, tired of the lack of interest of all the things I like to do.

Ellie consoled me, and we agreed that something had to change, we just didn't know what, yet.

I stayed, sitting there in the shop/garage until I felt gathered again.

When I came in, I didn't let the girls see my face until I had washed and used some eye drops to reduce the red.

After, I took a pain pill and watched Darby O'Gill with them and then took them to a birthday party.

At the party, I was withdrawn unless approached by someone.  I listened to music from an MP3 player and read "The Gunslinger" by Stephen King.

Why that book?  I wanted to escape reality and I loved the rustic romance it provided as the Gunslinger was the last of a generation, just as I felt.

Someone in the world that was left behind...  all of my friends and family are gone for the most part and I had little attachment to anyone, except for Ellie and the Misses.

My head began to hurt at the party, really bad, so I took another pill, the max I could take for awhile.

The girls were eventually done and we left the party & the hippy-like commune and the family with the birthday boy behind.

The misses and I started "The Secret of Roan Inish" when we returned.  All part of our St. Patrick's tribute.  We ate corned beef, cabbage, celery and onions to top the day off.

Dinner was good and I over ate by having another full plate.

My head still hurt when I went to sleep.

It was so cold... kids were fighting for turns on the rotisserie

It was in the low 30's this morning when I got up.

BTW, last night, I decided I need something to help me sleep.  Which led me to taking an Ambien last night.

I took it around 9:30 and during the time between when I took it and when it finally kicked in around 11:00, I was starting to feel very, very manic.  I was seeing myself moving through source code very fast, and felt like I could connect various electrical points & ideas from place to place in just milliseconds.

Going back to the cold, I left my office window almost completely wide open last night.  I'm sure the computers were happy with the cold, but at 56 degrees I'm not so certain.

Even now, with the temperature just over 60 degrees I'm actually thinking about putting on a pair of PANTS.  Who knew that I'd ever think about pants at a time like this?

After all, I am "Mr. Heater" or is that "Mr. Heater, Deluxe Edition"?

I lit a candle, which will help warm the air a bit, turned on my second computer system, and started burning some incense in here.  All in hopes of warming this little room.

Right now, the sun is coming through the clouds & fog, so it should warm up my little office in another hour or so.  Which makes me wonder if it'll get back up into the high 70's in my office again this afternoon.

I'm pretty tired, right now, but not as tired as I was this time yesterday.  So I'm actually thinking about taking Ambien again tonight to help me stay asleep tonight.

I actually thought, last night, that I was going to stay fully awake through the Ambien.  I haven't done that in over a year... but the Lamictal has been helping me to not go into full hypo manic episodes.

Just opened the curtains of my office, hoping that the sun will do it's job and warm things up in here... although, through the glass of the windows.

Can't seem to stop yawning right now... Perhaps I need more O2 in my system?

I also keep thinking about these dreams/flashbacks and perhaps it's time that I start putting them together into a story and write it down.  Could be interesting and again it can just be a lot of words on a page.

Well, I wish that it was raining, as it's generally much warming when its raining than when it's clear.

Hallelujah, brother! I am here to comfort the sinner and return the stray lamb to the fold.

The post title is from the movie "Cat Ballou".

I just got a kick out of the "preacher" going through that routine.

I don't know exactly what I'm doing today.

Just coasting along today and thought to myself... "Self, why not write a blog entry today?"

So, here I am.

I feel like I'm just rambling, as I don't feel like there is much to really write about, which is why there haven't been any posts for a while.

The diet is going pretty well, I'm just under 300 lbs! Finally!  I haven't been this light since last year.

Arthritis pain is still there, but pretty much only around whenever I'm actually walking/standing for too long. 5-20 minutes used to be too long; at least for walking.

Walking is my primary pain generator for my arthritis.

Similar to my actual peddling machine.

 
What I do after work, for 1/2 an hour or more, I exercise my legs on my peddler.











Last night, I had a hard time sleeping, like "usual", but woke up around 4:45 AM and got out of bed around 5:00 AM.  I'm planning on cutting my hair after work and taking a good hot shower after.

Currently, I'm not depressed or manic...

My bipolar symptoms are currently "dormant", I figure.

What is still going through my mind are the "dreams" that I keep seeing, even though I'm still awake.

I don't know why those happen.

There are several of them that keep cycling through, and I'm not going to post the details of them.

It's not that I'm ashamed of them.

They might make good ideas for short stories or books.

Recently, I've been on a goth reading rampage.  I read Dracula and Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker.

Last week, I watched the video of a coffee shop "prank" in the style of Stephen King's "Carrie".

Since I hadn't read that King book yet, I was going to look through my ebook files to see if I had it, but Ellie reminded me that we had it in print already.

Ellie and the girls are doing fine!  Including my oldest daughter in college.

There isn't anything bad to complain, write home or post about.

I'll try to go back to posting everyday.

On Thursday, I know I'm going to have some trouble posting things, as I have an all day training.

It's such an important training, that breakfast, lunch and dinner are being provided.

Yesterday, during work, we were able to slap the teams who don't want to run our tool with the dead fish of "we do everything that your original tool(s) do and MORE!"

That and corporate higher ups are starting to exert pressure down onto the other teams, so that they'll quit being choad smokers.

Well, that's all I got for today...

Oh the tales I'll tell.... I hope...

I have an appointment with my shrink on the 17th, in the morning.

If things are OK around home, I'll work from the office for the remainder of the day.

What I want to chat with him about or at least let him know about is that I keep having these flashbacks of things that I experienced.

Not all of my flashback are bad, and not all of them are good either.

Like just now, I was reliving my Jr. High School prom... I didn't want to go or have anything to do with it.  Well, my mom didn't want me to miss it, so I was forced to go to the stores to buy my suit & clothes.. Then forced to get ready to go and dropped off... I DID NOT WANT TO GO!

When I got into the prom, I had my camera and just goofed off, as well as I could with my friend(s) who were there.  Most of my friends weren't there because they weren't forced to go.

I'm sure some of you reading this are wondering, why didn't I run away? Well, I didn't know where to go, and when you live in a big city, it's hard to find a good "hide out", and the police patrolled the area due to a curfew put into place.  Why didn't I just not go?  Well, my mom is very forceful, and my dad threated use of the fucking belt!

Well... Right now, after I realized that I wasn't really there, I had to de-tense, because I didn't need to be so freakin' tense.

Perhaps I'm ready for some ice cream... that sounds good right now...

Gooood Morning Vietnaaaam!

Ok, so I'm not in Vietnam, but the phrase/scene of Robin Williams calling out "Goood Morning Vietaaam" will always accompany me.

Shit.. that just brought on a flash back of the time(s) that I was watching that show, like some sort of fucked up PTSD.

Fuck, I don't know why it is that my mind is just randomly pulling shit out of memory like this still.

Kind of hard to live for the moment/present when you're always recalling shit that you haven't been around for more than 20 years.

I never did serve in the Military, but I did serve the Military through my work on a contract through my employer.

Not that I'm saying that everyone involved with the military is fucked up, although, those who've served battle tours can undergo some pretty terrible stress.

I've met many of the guys who've served combat duty and most of them have a good grip of life outside of the the combat zone.

Some though... They struggle because of what they've done/seen.

Shit, I don't think I've done/seen anything terrible in my past, but my mind keeps recalling these damn memories & dreams like they're scenes in a movie that I'm watching of my life.

I wonder how many others go through this type of shit?

Probably more than I really want to know.

Well, things are going to be fun today. I'm feeling better than half way alert & happy today.

Just need to keep plugging away until I get fully operational/woken up.

Seems like these days that I'm firing on all eight cylinders (Yes, Eight, I don't want to be a puny four banger) after 10:00 AM or so.

With that, sit tight, put your tray tables back in their upright position, put your head between you legs, and Kiss your bums goodbye!