So Normal

    When I started this blog, my goal was to show how normal an unmedicated bipolar can be and it turns out that can be pretty normal.

    I have nothing to report. Most of the time I feel like I've created an online, public diary because he has such a normal life.

    Do you know what I have to report? Nothing.

    No manias, no depressions. Nothing.

    This is even despite his night job!

    You know what, though? It's amazing.

MOVING!!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

Sorry about that.

Well, we've done it!
After hearing that a house was opening, we've managed to POWER CRAM into this awesome house. Before January.

It was nuts! Just crazy time!

In the day time, I packed boxes with my three little helpers. At night on my beloved bipolar's days off, he'd head over and clean the new house. AND CLEAN!

The last tenants left a house full of stuff. a dry rack with dishes. Three beds. Crazy time.

My husband put in new faucets in the bathroom and kitchen. He put in a new shower head setup, a cabinet in the bathroom. We got bunches of new curtains. I wish I'd taken Before pictures, but it was such chaos, I lost my wallet. My phone also fell out of my pocket, and I ran it over. I'm surprised that I didn't lose my butt!


A good portion of our lives is in a giant pile of boxes in what will eventually be the office and craft room.

Big projects! Slow, steady and obnoxious progress.

Night Shift Update

    Well, the night shift is working out pretty well.

    As soon as my beloved bipolar husband gets his first paycheck, we won't be in extreme poverty anymore.
    I'm pretty excited about that. Just in time for Christmas.

    There have been two other Christmases where we had oodles of money, but I don't remember either of them. ??
    It could be because when he had both those jobs, I never saw him.
    With the first one, he'd come home between 11pm-2am and go back to work at 6am.
    The second one, they'd actually put him up in a hotel every other week. I saw him on Wednesdays.

    The secret to night-shift success is a full sleep arsenal. A nice, bead-filled, cooling face mask, some ear plugs, and new sherpa sweatpants have kept him sleeping peacefully through the day time. The bright, loud daytime.

    He's been using his happy lamp when he wakes up from about noon to 8pm. I'm sure his wake-up times will normalize soon.

    I miss cuddling with him. Sleeping next to his warm body, snuggling against his shoulder blade and being wrapped in the smell of him.
    He misses me to.

    Knowing about each other's mental differences has really fortified our strong relationship.
    Before he knew about my Asperger's, some of my social interactions confused him.
    Before I knew about his bipolar, I had no idea that his bouts of crazy passion were manias, and that those are something to avoid.
    I feel though, that the parts of each other we rely on aren't related.

    I need him to help ground me. I need him to cook and I need him for the kisses.
    He needs me because I somehow keep him grounded. He needs me to find all the things he puts down and looses track of and he needs me for the kisses back!

    I love him so much that I don't see him as a separate entity.  I feel like he's part of me. Not in a romantic, cutesy way. I literally feel like he is a large part of how I manage to be alive. He's a part of my brain that only functions when he's around.

    It's nice, but it's weird.

Night Shift Day 1

   My beloved bipolar husband just got home from his first day of working night shifts again.
   I'll keep an eye on him today.

Night Shift

    My beloved bipolar husband got a night shift.

    Last time he had one, we didn't know about the bipolar. Since we weren't doing light therapy, he got very depressed. He trusts that he can work past it this time with his happy lamp.

    I think he'll do fine. :)

Sleepless

    It might be time to break out the happy lamp.

    My beloved bipolar husband has been having a hard time sleeping lately. He says he's depressed. Poor guy.

    I'm concentrating hard on getting into copywriting and finishing my second novella at the moment.
    My blog has fallen through the cracks.

    I'd love to work on healthy eating and exercise next. As soon as I finish my novella and get my first copywriting gig, I'll move my priorities.

    It's amazing how much my mood affects my husband.

   I try my best to be a pleasant person who brings the much needed happiness to those around me, but I feel like the real me is a very gloomy, sad and grumpy bear.
    It's hard because he knows me too well. He reacts to the feelings I'm truly having.

    Yesterday, my coworker, who is 19 years younger than me, was complaining to my boss about some drama in the workplace.
    "And then there's sweet little Breezy." She said for both of us. "Who never has any drama."

    I felt quite happy about that. However, with my husband I can't "fake it til you make it." I have to rearrange myself.
    If I'm feeling negative, I have to look at the emotion I'm having, validate its existence, and then move past it so I can think of how to apply logic to the problem.
    It's really hard, I do admit. It's so nice to be able to do that though.

Under the Radar

    My beloved bipolar husband told me yesterday that he'd been depressed for a few weeks now. I was shocked.
    Maybe he's gotten so good at handling himself and using coping techniques that I couldn't notice it. As his wife, though, it's distressing. I hope I know him well enough to know when something is up.

    The new baby has been screaming pretty non-stop while I've been at work. It's not surprising because, well, she's not yet 3 months old.
    He keeps saying he'll look for a new job so I can watch her in the day again, but he hasn't yet, That's also not surprising because being employed is honestly, frickin horrible!
    The baby, Lulu (age 3) and Icy (age 2) have all been taking turns waking up at night so chronic sleep deprivation probably plays a role in the crabbiness. I'm surprised the lack of sleep hasn't sent him into more manias, but he is so responsible.
    We've also just been having a hard time this week. Our car battery died and it's a funny one that lives under the back seat, so, it needed to be special ordered. We weren't able to grocery shop, so my husband has been using kitchen wizard spells to conjure food.

    As far as Americans go, we're awfully poor. However, as an American, I do appreciate what we have. If you really look at it, it it quite a lot, so, in spirit of November, I'm going to work on being greatful and happy!

I've run out of words

    I started this blog four months ago, and I feel as though I'm just repeating myself now.

    Maybe living with bipolars is just this predictable, but it seems like the days are similar.

    Yesterday he cleaned the kitchen like crazy and let me play Sims 4 on his computer all day. It's been a nice break since my own computer has been dead for a long time now.
    Every year we go to the Day of the Dead parade we have here in Missoula, but with the car down right now, the girls and I missed it.
    Our friend and old roommate was in town so my beloved bipolar walked down and joined him at the parade. They seemed to have a good time.

    Our life is so normal.

Seems Good

    It's good when life's good!

    There was a challenging moment last night, since our car is broked and we have 4 kids, but we pushed past it and made more awesome memories.
    We had a great time with our little critters.

    Halloween is both my beloved bipolar's and my favorite holiday and someday, we'll have to go all out for it!
    I'm just so glad that we live how we do with what we have.
    I appreciate this man and all our babies

Late Last Night

    My beloved bipolar and I stayed up really late last night, trying to watch Jacob's Ladder. Lulu, our 3 yr old daughter woke up crying at around 2 am, so we had to switch to something more kid-friendly.

    The rest of the night we spent cuddling our little girl.

    I'll have to keep an eye out for them today.

Diet Crashes

    For two or three months, my beloved bipolar husband was on the keto diet.
   His dedication was truly impressive. He didn't even have any sweets on his birthday.

    He discovered that he is pork intolerant, and that broke the keto diet for him.

    I should have done the shopping that month, but I sent him, and since he had just crashed out of keto, he bought oodles of the things he'd been denied; carbs. Malt-O-Meal, muffins, bread and more bread! Oodles. And no vegetables.
    Well, tummy aches obviously ensued so he's wanting to go back on his diet.

    I like the low-bread, high-fat diets. I feel best when on them. Noodles specifically make me feel bogged down and sluggish, however, I do loves me some fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables tend to be higher in carbs as well.

    As an Aspie, I love routine and safe, stable predictability so to have two or three choices for meals would just make my day.
    Well, as long as it included my favourites:

• Espresso with stevia and steamed milk or cream
• mushrooms
• bell peppers
• ALL THE DAIRY! CHEEEEEEEEEEESE

Seems a bit Overwhelmed?

    I think my beloved bipolar husband needs a break.

    He's been a stay-at-home-mom for over a year now, and he does a fabulous job. He is so attentive and caring.
    The problem with being a stay-at-home-mom is that he don't get daily breaks. He works from before he wake up, listening in his sleep in case his shift starts early. That happens after his brain finally collapses from exhaustion.  It's hard to sleep deeply when you have babies to worry about at night.
    He gets no lunch break and he works tirelessly all day.

    We have a single set of grandparents we trust to babysit, and they are often busy. They watch the girls maybe once every two or three months.

    I think it might be time for a break again.

   

Support

    I feel bad sometimes that Aspies have so much support, while bipolars are a bit lacking.

    I'm not saying that I wish Aspies had less support. I am grateful every time I explain that the noise makes me nauseous and someone either asks me if I'm "on the spectrum" or nod understandingly when I tell explain that I am on the spectrum.
    As a child I hid a lot stimming because when people asked why I flapped my hands, I honestly didn't know. I learned quickly that there is awkward stimming, and horrifying stimming. I stopped holding up my eyelids and scratching my forearms around people.
    But, luckily, help is relatively easy to find for me now. When I look around for help in school for my Aspie daughter, I have to look around, but it's there. When I look around for help for my bipolar daughter, most people and places seem to just wish I wouldn't. They seem displeased with the idea of being around bipolars until they meet my adorable, sweet little girl and my charismatic, professional husband. Then they don't believe that they both are bipolar.

    I guess it's because I love my family so much that it really annoys me that when I say I'm Aspie, people are alright giving me a bit of leeway, but that it's not something they'd do for my loved ones.

Babysitters

    I wish I could find a babysitter, because I miss my husband.

    Our littlest baby is 2 months old now and, as expected, we haven't had time to ourselves.

    I'd love to chat with him over coffee in the morning.
    I'd love to chat with him over dinner in the evening.
    I'd love to have friends over and drink wine and enjoy some blue cheese.
    I'd love to go out with him.
    I'd love to cuddle up and watch a movie with him. Go eat with him at a restaurant, go play laser tag together, just be alone with him for a few hours.

    I know most of these things will come back after our little one is about 6 months old, however, some of them won't.
    We don't drink when our babies are in the house, no, not even wine.

   
    My mother-in-law watched them one night, and it was magical. We cleaned, like we always do in the morning, and it stayed that way ALL DAY!
    It was like a mythical phenomenon.

    We were able to relax, thinking that our babies were in good hands. We had wine, and it was such a much, much, needed breath of fresh air.

    After we learned how many parenting differences we do have with her, though, that'll never happen again.

    I fear that we could never just get a babysitter.
    With our tiny bipolar girl and our aspie girl, we'd need a trained professional to watch our girls while we were out.
    That's not to say we couldn't train someone, we could, but it'd take a few sessions with us there, and a lot more money than I have right now.
    Some day.
   

Little Girl

I've been worried about my little girl joining the school system.

    Like her daddy, she displays obvious bipolar tendencies.

    I happen to know that that little girl is the sweetest.
    She's an animal-loving socialite with a huge vocabulary and a deep desire to help with the baby.

    All of my daughters are sweet, but she just might be the sweetest. My oldest gets crabby and intolerant of her pile of baby sisters. Icy has a strong passion for mischief and will taunt people, and the baby, well, she's a baby so she'll scream until you figure out the exact perfect temperature she wants her bottle.
    My Lulu, however, is always friendly. I don't think I've ever seen her tire of being around any of her family. She has a deep concern for all the insects, including spiders and we have to "rescue" them for her.
    She's just the sweetest.

    So, when she gets rambunctious and physically cannot stop, she needs someone who cares about her to gently help her take deep breaths and calm down.
    When she can't see the danger of climbing on things, or can't stop herself from repetitively kissing her sister, she needs someone to help her who'll be as sweet to her as she is to the rest of the world.

    However, seeing how the school never noticed that my oldest doesn't have any friends at school, and never told me after she'd been kicked in the face, I'm expecting that if I still can't afford private school for sweet little Lulu, her life in public school would be riddled calls home. I imagine many teachers labeling her as "disruptive" and having "a short attention span." And I can't.
    I can't let my sweetest little girl get labeled like that. She'll internalize it so fast since she's so sensitive to people. I can't let her become vilified for her adorable brain.

    Unlike Aspies, which are becoming socially acceptable, bipolars are still regarded as dangerous and somehow unworthy of the extra effort they'd spare for an Aspie.

    Having such a little girl with a disorder people don't even begin to diagnose until teen years is hard because people don't see it. They just see a hyper little toddler and I'm sure they'd react with punishment when she needs cuddles.

    I guess this is why I'm working so hard to gather money.
    I need my sweet girl to get into a tolerant school.

    That's not going to be public school so I guess I'm going to have to make enough money to send her to private school.

What Bipolar is Not, Plus Bugs!

  I apologize for the strange, unreadable highlighting on this post earlier.

  My beloved bipolar husband and I were in the kitchen talking yesterday about psychology, evolution and both of our mental disorders and we realized that most people have a distorted view of bipolar.

   It seems like people think bipolars are either depressed, violent or histrionic, (overly melodramatic).

    Yes, bipolars are occasionally depressed, perhaps more often than they're manic because it seems like doctors are far more concerned with controlling manias than helping bipolars out of depression. I suppose, unless it's gotten to the point of suicide.

    Are bipolars violent? Well, if a violent person has bipolar, then yes, but that's comparable to saying people are violent when they're drunk. If the drunk person is a violent person, yes they might be violent when they're drunk, but most people I've met are NOT violent. Therefore, most people I've met are not violent when they are drunk. Most bipolars I've met are not violent. Actually, considering I've only ever met one bipolar who was inclined toward violence,
I've met a lot more people WITHOUT bipolar that were violent. 

    Histronic. Your word of the day. My family is unfortunately absolutely riddled with histronic people. It's awful and extremely unpleasant.
    They are terribly unpleasant to be around. I don't share any information I don't need to because anything you tell them becomes drama fuel. If you don't tell them things, they make up their own ideas and use THAT for drama fuel.
    As an Aspie that likes the truth, growing up in a predominantly histronic family was terrible.
    I don't go to family events anymore and if I did get the chance to move out of state, I would without regret.
    My husband is not histronic. We both hate drama and prize simplicity and honesty when it comes to human interactions. It's one of the many reasons I love him so very much.
    One of my great aunts, who was also bipolar, was histronic, and yes, her bipolar manias really drew that out of her, however, that was a piece of her core personality, it was not caused by bipolar itself.


    I think the worst part about this strongly held misconception is that people in the medical field seem to think this way to.
    The MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment  a nicely thorough study of violence's relationship to mental disorder found "A diagnisis of a major mental disorder -- especially a diagnosis of schizophrenia -- was associated with a lower rate of violence than a diagnosis of a personality or adjustment disorder."

    Despite this, when my husband was diagnosed, they seemed very concerned that he was going to hurt someone while he was manic, despite the fact that he'd gone through 27 years of non-violence, wandering through life all undiagnosed and unmedicated.
    I'm not going to say he wouldn't hurt a fly, because the idea that flies get their poop hands all over his food drives him nuts, however, while we were at the children's museum the other day, we found a cricket.
    A poor little thing on the top floor where there is no plants, or anything aside from cars.
    Starvation, being squished, or freezing to death over the winter were the options for this little guy's fate had he stayed where we found him.

    My bipolar husband gingerly picked him up and we took him home so he can live out the rest of his life in our warm house, being spoiled with oatmeal and fruit pieces.

Our new pet for the next few months

Stimming?

   Well, I learned something new today!

    I learned that normal people stim!

    According to Wiki, stimming is "Self-stimulatory behavior, also known as stimming^[1] and self-stimulation,^[2] is the repetition of physical movements, sounds, or repetitive movement of objects common in individuals with developmental disabilities, but most prevalent in people with autistic spectrum disorders.^[2][3]"


    I often stim by "flapping" my hand, or shaking any object I'm holding. It's quite comparable to twitching and is a great tell that I'm uncomfortable.
    When my beloved bipolar gets stressed, or when he's talking about something that makes him uncomfortable, he does a crab-like finger crawl thing without noticing.
    I brought it to his attention and he was saying that it used to be a lot worse, and he's gotten it down to just his pinkie finger.
   It looks like most of his fingers to me.

    I guess it's nice to know that other people do these things to.

   Yes, it is MUCH more obvious when I do them, but when he does his crab-finger crawl, I feel so much better knowing that someone I look up to so much relies on the same type of stress relief that I do.


 

Saving my fish

    Sometimes, it's pretty easy to see the love in my life.

    My beloved bipolar and I managed to crawl into bed around midnight.
    It was a hard night getting all the girls to sleep.

    Yesterday, while feeding Jesse, our goldfish, my daughter mentions he has an owie on his tail, and then I realize that our fish has a bacterial infection in his tail, and the heater in his tank wasn't keeping him warm enough.
    I mentioned getting a new one, and my beloved bipolar said he doubted that we had the funds to get a new one.

    I've read too many stories about pets and babies who've fought for their lives and it seems that there is a common thread through both those that make it and those that don't.

    The ones that make it have families that tell them to fight, those who explain what in life is worth fighting for.
    Those that don't make it have families who "let them go," who tell them that they don't have to fight anymore, so I sat next to him and stroked the tank, showing him my finger tips. He's hand fed every morning so he associates fingertips with positive thing. I was trying to remind him how much he loves to eat, and trying to make him feel loved by reminding him that we feed him every morning.
    As he barely gulped each breath, he stared at my fingers, and he stared into my eyes, and it seemed like he stared sadly into my soul.

    One thing to mention is that we had run out of his dried krill treats, so he was feeling quite sad. He'd been asking for food all day, dancing at people and following fingers, and each time we gave him a sprinkle of pellets, he got more and more crestfallen. Bit by bit his will to live chipped away as he felt more and more rejected.
    It was horrible to run out of fishy treats in his time of need.

    Well, when we did manage to crawl in bed, I couldn't sleep.
    Usually, I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, so to have me next to him, staring in the darkness and unable to sleep really disturbed my beloved bipolar.

    So at 1 am, despite our very limited funds, I set off to Walmart for a midnight fish heater retrieval mission.  And more fishy treats

 

    Today, despite his very sore looking, very red tail, he's happy and swimming around like normal.

Disaster Averted!

    I'm so incredibly proud of how well my beloved bipolar husband takes care of his bipolar.

    With teeny tiny kiddos around, (namely, our 2 year old who wakes up demanding, unlike our 2 month old baby, who sleeps angelically through the night) it does make sense that their daddy isn't getting enough sleep lately.

    One morning, while we were having coffee together, he told me he was having a bad mania. He explained how his brain felt it had a rubber band around, and he warned that I might see the worst depression he'd had since before we met.
    So, I braced myself, preparing to run him a thousand bubble baths with salts and readied to dole out a ton of hugs.  I got some milk to steam for his coffee and I was set to spoil the crap out of him.

    The day came where he moped around, commenting on how his life is too wonderful to be feeling the way he was feeling, and then, the next day, it stopped. It Stopped!
    After possibly the biggest mania I've seen from him, he only had a day and half of depression!

    I don't know if it's all the brain training we've done to improve our base level of happiness, or the fact that our lives actually are filled to the brim with love, I've never worried about my beloved bipolar. I'm secure in knowing that in a depression he's never suicidal or self-harmy. He's not even usually sad in his depressions. It's usually just a lack of motivation, a desire to hide himself in video games, more like a physical depression where his body doesn't want to move, like after overexerting yourself.
    Is mania is like emotionally overexerting yourself? Seems logical to me.

   I've seen quite a few other bipolars and I've seen them randomly fight with people. I've seen some that would make me nervous, those who just might be dangerous. Those that might fall into a suicidal depression or hurt someone, or burn something, but out of all the bipolars I've met, including those that aren't diagnosed and therefore aren't on any prescriptions but display obvious bipolar traits, I haven't met very many that are dangerous.
    The few that I have seen that do worry me had reasons. Yes, they were inclined to hurt people, but they were inclined to hurt specific people who continually hurt them on a regular basis. It's like the inhibitor that keeps us from performing revenge in our modern society is dampened. It's not gone, even in the worst I've seen, it's just not nearly as strong as other people I've seen it in.
    It just makes me really value how important it is to be nice to everyone.  

    "Be excellent to each other"
               -Bill S. Preston, Esq

Depression

    Well, my beloved bipolar told me yesterday he was in a depression.
    Due to the mad amount of maniac, he was expecting a hard fall, but I think his deep love of "family" kept him from sinking into the depths of depression. I've never seen him fall that far.

    He's mopey.
    He's withdrawn.
    He's sad and he's obviously needing cuddle-hugs, but he's never up for self-harm. Never. I've never seen him worse than just being, exceptionally down.

   Deep in his depression, he was talking to me as I folded laundry. His youngest baby warmly nestled on his shoulder.
    "I really don't have a reason to be sad." He ranted at himself. "You guys are wonderful."

    As he continued to sadly gush about his adorable pile of daughters, and me, and our relationship, I couldn't help but fill to the brim with loving pride.
    Even though we are currently very poor, every day is a magical blessing with him, with his kiddos, in this life of mine.

    As I sit here at 4 am because my little girl woke herself up with bad dreams in the night I blink my sleepy eyes, I'm hurting from sleeping all funny on my neck because I had a baby on my chest who needed the cuddles. Despite all this, I can't help but just feel so lucky and grateful to be living my own life.

    My beloved bipolar husband and I both had pretty rough childhoods. Both of us had sleepless nights, danger and judgement. Childhood was hard and unpleasant. Every year of it, but living through each year of degradation and misunderstanding and betrayal is worth every year of pure, delicious, unaltered joy I feel every day now.
   
    My beloved bipolar's laugh is a rare thing, but whenever I hear it, the rest of my day is wonderful. I physically cannot get upset after he's laughed. It's an amazing magic skill of his.
    Making my little girls smile is also so amazing.
    The waves of warm accomplishment I feel, knowing that I'm making their little lives as good as I can, is possibly the most rewarding feeling I've ever had.


    Some people resent their kids, their spouses or their lives. Find a new situation, because somewhere, this waits for you.
    Somewhere there is a perfect life for you, with perfect people. You have to find them, and after you do, you have to appreciate the good.
   There will be sacrifice, but if you've found your perfect place, the good will be so overwhelming, the sacrifices pale in comparison.