|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.
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.
Seeing a psych for the first time can be stressful, but going in prepared can help tremendously. Almost everyone is so nervous the days leading up to the appointment.
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.
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.
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.
Just a few hours ago, before I realized how bad my insomnia was going to be tonight, I posted about how I am still feeling like I am in an okay place in life. Even though I am feeling okay and content for the most part, that does not mean that I don’t have any more bad days or nights. Tonight happens to be a another night where insomnia has fully taken over and it is already almost 3:30 in the morning and my alarm for work is scheduled to go off at 7:50 am…
There is still so much mental health stigma in this world, even after all these years. While we have made some incredible progress toward understanding mental illness, what causes it, and how we can treat it, there is still a lot more pertinent information that we have yet to uncover and learn about.
Educating people on mental health and mental health disorders can help tear down the walls of mental health stigma one brick at a time. People fear what they don’t know. So, helping people who have never struggled with their mental health or who have never had a loved one who struggled with their mental health learn the facts from the myths can help make the topic feel less scary for some people.
Don’t get caught up in believing in these 5 common mental health myths!
I feel like my new habit is monthly personal posts with other content sprinkled around here and there sporadically. It has been about a month since my last personal post which was titled: “Feeling Like I am in an Okay Place Lately.” And I am happy to report that I am still feeling like I am in an okay place in life right now.
I finally feel like I am on the right medication combination for my mental health disorders. It took 20 years of trial and error and getting prescribed more medications than I can even remember to get where I am today. I honestly felt like I’d never get to the point where I am okay on all my meds without any major side effects.
When things are going fairly well in my life and I am not on the outs with a loved one during the holiday season, I usually always feel a childish sense of excitement and eagerly await Christmas Day. But this year, it doesn’t even feel like Christmas time for me. It feels just like every other day of the year. Don’t get me wrong, I am thrilled that I get to spend tomorrow with my family and my boyfriend but it still just doesn’t feel like Christmas to me. And Christmas has always been my favorite part of the year.
