|You Are Not Alone|
It’s 5:50 am and my alarm is scheduled to go off in an hour and ten minutes – at 7 am. I should be trying to cling to my last hour of sleep like a baby holding onto their favorite new toy before I have to wake up and get ready for the day like I usually do. But I woke up to a painful leg muscle cramp, also known as a Charlie Horse back in the day, and haven’t been able to go back to sleep since and that happened around 2 am.
It’s almost 1 am and usually by this time I have already been asleep for a few hours. Ever since I started my new job on August 2nd, on nights where I have to get up at 7:30 am for work, I take my night time meds around 9 pm and I am usually out within an hour. I am always so tired during the day since I am still trying to adjust to work life again so I haven’t had much trouble falling asleep at night.
I was finally able to force myself to try to lay down and rest around 6 am, shortly after my I published my last personal post, but no matter how hard I tried I could not get my eyes to stay closed or my mind to shut down enough to get any rest. I laid on my moms pull out sofa from 6 to 9 am just playing on my phone and once my mom and the dogs got up I gave up trying to rest and just folded the sofa back up for the day.
I know I already published one very long personal post earlier, but it is after midnight I still pretty awake so I figured I’d blog a bit more about whatever comes to mind. Although, I did just finally take my night time meds around 11:45 pm which is way later than I am used to taking them since moving back to my moms so hopefully they kick in before 1 am so I can still get an okay amount of sleep before my mom and her dogs get up in the morning.
It’s been awhile since I last posted anything personal on here. Last month, shortly after my wonderful Sea Isle City vacation with my boyfriend, my life was once again flipped upside down and uprooted. I’ve faced and struggled with a few major life changes this past month.
I know I have been posting blog post after blog post over the last several hours (thanks to mania and insomnia), but I thought I would try something a little different for me and write about 10 things I am grateful for this morning.
It is almost 5:30 in the morning and in just about 3 hours, my mom will be calling me to let me know if she is definitely picking me up this morning to take me to do some running around while my boyfriend is at work. I didn’t plan on not getting any sleep tonight, but I was (and maybe still am) a bit manic and when I get manic my night meds don’t always seem to put me to sleep like they usually do every other night.
Living with anxiety can feel different for each and every person because symptoms of anxiety can be experienced differently. After all, we are all unique in our own ways. Many people who live with anxiety on a daily basis can relate to one another while still adding their own spin on what anxiety feels like to them.
Upon restarting therapy today, my therapist and I were discussing ways for me to try to keep myself busy during the day since I am not working at the moment so that I don’t have too much downtime to get lost in my head and start overthinking every detail of my life. For me, being stuck in my head with too much time to think often effects my mental health in negative ways.
I have only had three different therapists since I started therapy maybe 8-10 years ago. My first therapist got laid off about 2-3 years after I started with her. That therapist didn’t believe working on past traumas and felt just trying to move past everything was the best method of treatment even though it was a lot of my past traumas that caused me to feel and act the way I did.
I left for vacation to Sea Isle City, New Jersey on Saturday, June 12, 2021 and returned back home this afternoon. I went with my boyfriend and his parents. They go down every year and meet up with extended family (minus last year, 2020, because of the pandemic) but this was my first year back there in like three years.
I had an amazing day today and got to hang out with my bestie, Jazmine, and my god kids for a few hours today. I don’t get to see Jazmine and her kids that often anymore because she works full time and has 5 kids to look after. She’s like a busy ass super mom. I cherish the time we do get to spend together. We have been friends for like 22 years now. We met in middle school in science class in 6th grade. We started talking after she told me that she liked how I did my hair and we have been best friends ever since.
It’s strange to say that since I quit my job I am less stressed and overwhelmed even with having to deal with financial hardships and having to look for a new job. You would think that I would feel even more stressed since I have to worry about where money is going to come from and where I can apply for a job that would fit my limitations.
I am no stranger to inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations or even to partial hospitalization programs for mental health treatment and care. Before my first ever stay in a Behavioral Health Unit, I lived in fear of being told I needed inpatient mental health care because it was something I had never experienced before and feared deeply.
DSP stands for Direct Support Professional. Most people with this job title help care for and support individuals who have been diagnosed with intellectual and/or mental health disorders who could also have a physical disability as well. Most individuals who receive this level of care reside in residential group homes that have been purchased by an agency who is in charge of providing care to the individual in question.
I quit my job on Monday, April 12, 2021. My boss wanted me to sign a contract starting that I would work whatever hours he wanted me to, when he wanted me to without notice if someone were to call off. My hours were 9a-4p Monday – Friday. I refused to sign the contract so he immediately cut my hours and took away Fridays. Then a few hours later, he took away Wednesdays as well and claimed there wasn’t enough work available for me. I got fed up of the bull shit and tension and told my boyfriend to come pick me up and I quit at 2pm.
I just wanted to share a very easy and simple mindfulness technique that you can try almost anywhere you are. It only takes a brief few minutes to complete. This exercise can help ground you and bring you back to the here and now during times of high anxiety or stress.
No one wants to live with a mental illness but if you find yourself on the opposite end of a psychiatrist’s desk and they are telling you that they believe you suffer from a mental health condition it can feel like your world has suddenly stopped. Or you could feel numb, maybe a bit uncertain about what this means for you.
(Warning: This personal blog post came out longer than anticipated. Sorry for the long read!)
I feel like I am always exhausted and in need of a good cat nap. I don’t even work overtime or anything strenuous, but by the end of my shift at work I am usually ready to veg out in bed while flipping between Netflix and Hulu until it’s time for me to take my night time medications and go to bed.
After staying up all night blogging about how my insomnia was triggering my anxiety in the wee hours of the morning, I feel like I’m just ready to crash and be lazy for the rest of the day. Only thing is, I still have about 2.5 hours of work left so being fully lazy isn’t an option for me at this moment.
