I haven't been well over the last few months. The high stress levels that go with distance learning and the uncertainty of school beginning has me somewhat frayed. I've been steadily getting more depressed since the Summer Solstice. It has me considering, seriously, getting out my lamp and using it in the half hour in the morning that I don't have that morning sunlight when I get up. And possibly for a while in the evening. I don't know what the best way to approach this, but I'm thinking light therapy may be helpful even though it isn't even really where it's dark around 6pm.
My mood cycling hasn't been great. I was a bit mixed for a few days and then back down into depressed. When I was mixed, I was cranky and restless. I haven't had a full blown manic episode. I'm glad for that. But I do kinda miss the energy that I had during the hypomanic episodes. The Vraylar that I take for my bipolar has evened everything out and I'm low key depressed most of the time now. It' just there in the background and I don't think it will go away. Or at least, it won't improve until the crisis of Covid-19 has passed.
I'm exhausted from operating in crisis mode all the time. My brain says that the air is lava and I'm reluctant to go outside because of it. I'm afraid to send my kids back to school in a few weeks but I just don't have the capacity to keep doing the distance learning. I feel really bad that I don't have that capacity. Undeneath the layers of trauma and illness, I have the school teacher in me screaming to get out and help my kids. But I'm so tired and it's so hard to focus for extended periods. Add to this that the kids have two very different levels of educational needs that I would have to rapid switch between to make sure they're getting the help they need, and, well, I just can't do it anymore.
I've been having problems perseverating on the general bastardry of some of my relative. I catch myself having mental arguments with them despite the fact that I'm never going to speak to them again. I'm also full of grief over the fact that their toxic behavior has denied me the luxury of having a healthy relationship with them. I am getting super anxious posting on FB because of other relatives, whom I know talk to the ones I've cut off. These other relatives haven't contributed anything of meaning to my life in the last ten years, if not longer. Still, a part of me says I shouldn't cut that tie because they're my family.
I know that if I reveal the ugly secrets about the household I was raised in, they'd try to explain it away or they'd go back to my parents and tell them what I was saying. At which point my parents would do something stupid, like show up at my apartment to start a fight. The trauma of my upbringing would be a bit easier to bear if it weren't for the fact that I regularly find myself in a position where I have to bite my tongue and play nice with "company manners". It is emotionally like going to family gatherings where there's trouble brewing just beneath the surface and no one is going to acknowledge it but they're going to pick at each other to try and make someone the bad guy and the 'trouble' can be their fault.
I catch myself walking on egg shells again. It's got me edgy and anxious. I'm doing my best to manage it but that coaping mechanism of shutting down and being a ghost keeps popping up. I am tired. I'm stressed out. I find myself wanting a cigarette despite the fact that I haven't smoked in almost twenty years. I know I can't do it. Aside from the fact that it's a money pit that has no returns, I'm asthmatic and smoking would be really bad for me. Not to mention, I'm not sure how it would interact with the laundry list of medications I am on. I find myself wanting to drink. Not because I'm an alcoholic but because I miss the taste of whiskey and the sensation of drinking it. It was an occasional treat that I really enjoyed. But now, again, because of the laundry list of medications, I can't do that.
It's really hard to allow myself to do the things that I enjoy like my embroidery. I'd have that tapestry mostly finished by now if it weren't for the fact that I feel like I haven't earned the privilege of doing so. It's all the stuff from how I was raised coming back to the fore. And that's because I've been isolated for months and it's bringing up memories of the isolation I grew up in. I'm frayed a bit and my hot buttons for anger are getting more exposed despite my efforts to cover them up. It's just hard because I feel like I should go get into these fights but doing that would damage other relationships and have a negative net return. In part because these people don't take me seriously and just think I'm a "nice, quiet" person.
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