Hey Best Friend!

Hey best friend! I know you didn’t feel like working out today but you look amazing. Remember we are only 30 lbs away from 100 lbs lost but that isn’t always the most important part. We’ve gone 9 months without an episode, our sleep pattern is so much better, our moods are more stable and consistent. September makes 4 whole years since our last OD attempt. I’m so glad God saved us (He is so good to us.) because we would’ve missed monkey growing up and all the amazing things she accomplished. We’ve done a great job turning her into an amazing young woman. We get to see her turn 14 in a couple of weeks. (Didn’t we just have her?) We would never had a chance to improve our relationship with Wayne and watch him exceed every goal he sets for himself. We are his biggest fan. We would’ve never had an opportunity to make career changes and create memories with these new amazing people in your life. We can’t forget the blog to document and teach people more about mental health. We also had an event and raised so much money for the AFSP walk. (That was a big day.) but we still have so much to do so remember when we start to feel bad open that photo album on your phone and remember why we keep fighting I know some days are harder than others but I’m so damn proud of you. I love you! (It’s totally okay that we cried while writing this in the middle of the gym.)

Hiding my depression is exhausting

Yep it’s back the overwhelming feeling of anxiety and a low that feels impossible. There is so much going on around me with everyone who knows and helps with my illness I haven’t said anything. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m starting to get bad again. I don’t know if it’s because of the job change though I think that might have something to do with it. I knew at my old job I could be honest about my feelings and I can’t here this isn’t the type of place where you openly share this information. I made the decision not to disclose my illness and I still stand with that decision. I try to explain it to my husband but how do you put it into words even if I start there aren’t words it’s like my brain just stops working. I get up some mornings not knowing what to expect and I thought with all the medicine that I would have the ability to control the moods and know who I am in the morning but that isn’t always the case.  I know that it takes more than medicine for it to work but I openly refuse therapy. Therapy has do nothing over time but cause me more issues maybe it is because I can’t handle the issues and my coping mechanisms suck. I don’t know what to do I’m just so frustrated right now. This was really for me just to vent because I don’t know what else to do. My brain isn’t firing on all cylinders right now. Does anyone else have this problem or understand? 

Taking off the mask of depression

 

Suicide Letter

TW: Suicide discussed (also I am not currently suicidal it is something that I have written just to get it off my chest.)

Hello,

I feel like starting these letter with to whom it may concern to be to impersonal also because it concerns a lot of people. I know why you are reading this and just know it meant I was ready to go and I think the Lord was ready for me as well. I do believe that regardless of how I go that I will still go to heaven and I made peace with everything before I went but I know that isn’t how you feel. I know some of you are going to be angry, confused, upset and ask yourself why you didn’t see it coming; where were the signs? I don’t have the answer to that questions because they weren’t really there. It started off at ideation and grew quickly from there. There are letters addressed to my daughter, my husbands, my two best friends but for the rest of you this is the letter. I’m not even going to try that bs don’t be sad or anything else because however you feel the need to cope with it is how you will cope with it. I just ask when you do yell at me to refrain from using GD. I despise that word. This letter is just a blanket statement that I feel I am required to give so they know how to correctly identify it on my death certificate. I feel like the whole I’m sorry and extra bs in these letters is useless unless you were close to me. 

-Tarsha

Last Goodbye: Queen | All Things Next

19%

I had my 6 month check up with my psychiatrist today and we were speaking openly about suicide after admitting that I was having suicidal thoughts. We were also discussing the differences in being suicidal and having suicidal thoughts (that is a different post.) He said that 19% of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder take their own life and that equals like 1 in 5. Those odds are shocking for some reason. If you think about the big picture 2.3 million Americans are diagnosed with bipolar disorder. If I did my math right that equals out to 437,000 people. That means there are 437,000 people contemplating suicide most with no support from anyone.I am one of the biggest supporters for the AFSP but how do we fix this? What can we as the mental health community do to combat these odds? There are so many people who can’t afford medicine, therapy let alone see a psychiatrist to properly diagnose and help them. This is something we need to recognize and help each other. We aren’t going to receive any help from the government and there is so much of a stigma attached to us people refuse to publicly support it unless it is a celebrity who claimed to “recover” from it. We need to speak openly and honestly about our struggles. I think we can be the change if we become more comfortable being open and knowing even though they might not understand we can make them care. 1 person loss to suicide is 1 too many. Let’s start the conversation and help decrease these numbers.

There is nothing grilled cheese and tomato soup can’t fix.

I’ve had a horrible cold the last few days and it sucks. I hate being sick but I hate more when my depression turns into something that makes me physically ill which I believe is happening right now and it sucks. I came home from work and put tomato soup in a yeti cup because I am lazy and would rather drink it like that vs sipping it out of a bowl. It really helped my throat and I will say being sick is distracting me from other issues. I sound like I’ve smoked 2 packs of Marlboro Menthol’s a day my entire life. (In my brief smoking period I would only smoke menthol’s). My moods have sucked and I am trying to power through it but it is hard to do. I spend the day with my daughter and husband when I got home from work. My daughter eventually went to spend the night at my moms house so the hubby and I laid in bed eating Zaxbys and watching Better Things. (I am now obsessed with Better Things.) I love laying on Wayne there is something about my head on his chest that is so relaxing. No matter what is going on if my head is on his chest nothing else in the world matters at that moment. I am worried about so much mostly money and all of this. I don’t know what I am doing with this and what direction I want to go. I’ve fallen in love with my book again and I need to publish it but it seems so surreal actually finishing it and letting people see inside. I have a blog entry saved here that I occasionally type on when I’m in the mood but I need to focus dammit get all the pieces together and create the magic that started so long ago. I just need to get there again.

Prince William reveals celebrities shunned his mental health charity- see link attached (copied from website.)

Prince William has revealed that every celebrity he asked to support his mental health charity three years ago refused.

The Duke of Cambridge was speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum when he admitted that “a lot” of famous people were approached to back his Heads Together initiative, but none wanted to be associated with mental illness (via BBC).

In 2017, William, Kate and Prince Harry founded the charity, which aims to tackle the stigma surrounding mental health.

The 36-year-old royal suggested that the wartime generation may have contributed to the stigma attached to mental health issues.

“For some reason, people are embarrassed about their emotions – British people particularly,” William told the audience of business leaders. “A whole generation inherited [this way of coping]. This was the way you deal with your problems: you don’t talk about it.”

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/culture-news/a26019349/prince-william-celebrities-shunned-mental-health-charity/?fbclid=IwAR2geQOlS9sSJxqf1_KqerSvp2GvPzq6fUz5m7VSV3UH5yFkRQum6qLQpxs

 

Weight loss journey start date 1/7/2019

Here we go…….

The last time I got really serious about weight loss I took weight loss pills like they were candy, it made me extremely manic and a lot of bad decisions. I got hooked on those and laxatives, it was just horrible and in the unhealthy decisions of mine I lost over 45 pounds in a little under 3 months that isn’t necessarily healthy especially the way I chose to do it. I am giving it a try again except this time without the use of laxatives and diet pills. I’ve made my list of exercises to go by a good time to do them and working on my cardio. I have pictures I took this morning but I am not comfortable sharing those yet. My Snapchat filters can hide a lot and also that you will never see a picture of me below my neck. When I lose some weight and notice a change I will definitely post a picture. So today is day 1 and I am not super excited but I have to change my habits for my health.

I will try to update daily in my gratitude post about my weight loss. I am using those as a daily journal though some of it is limited. I am keeping track of my moods too.

Weekly Update 13

– Diet…… no comment

– Instagram stats are booming

– Still no caffeine and right now I want some

– Bipolar Chronicles are coming along

– I have a new journal and I am looking forward to keeping track of my stats and I am loving where this is going!!!

– I am almost done Christmas shopping but I ran out of money….I’ll be glad when Christmas is over.

-I bought my daughter a guitar for Christmas and I am dying to give it to her. I loved music when I was younger and I miss playing so it is exciting.

– I am sick right now so I have time to work on my blog when I’m not sleeping.

– I am currently working on revamping the site because of the amount of traffic I am starting to see.

– I am almost finished The Office series and I will be sad when it is over.

– The next time I will right this it will be Christmas.

Until next week………