Wildflowers, Butterflies And Rainbows

 

As a young child, I often had a difficult time falling asleep.  My brain would wonder in circles trying to figure out how to process the events from the day.  And I would spiral into a never-ending cycle of thoughts.  

The nights that I could not fall asleep, it felt as if my brain was going for a run on a treadmill.  As it cycled around and around, I would not be able to get off this hypothetical treadmill.  And when I would finally sleep, I did not feel well-rested the next day.  

As a witness to my struggles and in an effort to help, my brother made me a CD.  It was filled with 45 minutes of ocean waves, and I would listen to it before going to bed.  Sometimes listening to the waves would guide my mind into a calmer place and help me to fall asleep.  

I also found imagery to be helpful.  As I lay my head on my pillow, I felt it was important to have positive images in my mind.  This helped me to focus my brain on happy, gentle thoughts as I tried to fall asleep.  For example, I would close my eyes and imagine a field of wildflowers.  Flying above the flowers were always butterflies.  And high in the sky was a rainbow.  I would imagine myself in the field walking slowly through the flowers as the butterflies fluttered their wings gently overhead.  And the sunshine illuminated the rainbow.  

In addition to this imagery, over the years I have learned other strategies to help me fall asleep.  I use various cell phone apps that have gentle calming sounds of rain, waves and lullabies to help relax my brain.  I have also tried meditation, yoga and tai chi before tucking myself into bed.    

When I crave sleep but my mind will not let me rest, these various techniques help keep me calm as I lay my head on my pillow.  The inability to fall asleep can be very discouraging.  Without sleep, the next day can be long.  However, every night I try to fill my mind with wildflowers, butterflies and rainbows.  

Love Note: With all my heart, I genuinely request that due to the content written, please seek the guidance of professional help should you feel you need it.

A Horrible Week

 

We could beat around the bush and say that it has been a decent week or an okay week.  We could brush it off and chalk it up to the weather being 55 degrees in the middle of the winter.  Or we can call it what it was and call it "horrible". 

I have had a migraine all week.  I have been totally stressed out at work.  I am completely exhausted and not sleeping and when I do sleep I am not sleeping well at all.  And my daughter loves her father more than she loves me.  How do I know this you may ask?  Because this week, she told me she did. 

When I tell you that every single day this week I laid in bed thinking of different ways to end my life, I am not lying to you.  That is how seriously scary this week has been for me.  But I am not telling you that for you to throw me into the hospital.  I am tell you that to show you my strength.  Because I am still here to talk about it and I got through the…hopefully…worst of it.  It is Friday, is it not? 

I went to counseling this week and he said, “celebrate the little things in life”.  Which at the time seemed annoying to me and I wanted to punch my counselor in the face.  How could you tell me to celebrate when I feel so lousy? 

But honestly how can you not celebrate your life when we are at rock bottom but you chose to get up every day.  You chose to take your medications and take them on time.  You chose to snuggle with the cat instead of making that alcoholic beverage.  And you chose to put your high heels on when all you want to do is turn off your alarm and throw the blankets over your head.  

So, my friends, another week is over and I am still here to talk about it.  Some of my major projects are coming to a close and that helps the stress.  My migraine medications have finally arrived at the pharmacy (it only took 4 days) so I can get some relief tonight.  And even though my daughter loves her daddy more than she loves me, I will take it with a grain of salt because I know she plays favorites. 

Every time I see that little twinkle in my daughters eye, I am reminded of how blessed I am.  Blessings mean nothing unless you can see them and feel them and understand them and know them in your heart.  And when things get dark, you do not see the light on the path.  But being that I am living proof of it, I will tell you, that if you put your high heels on every day, one day at a time, maybe just maybe the light will start trickling in again. 

 

 Love Note:  With all my heart, I genuinely request that due to the content written, please seek the guidance of professional help should you feel you need it.

The Struggle is Real

Yesterday my husband said, “are you still blogging?” to which I replied, “does anyone care if I do?” and he stated, “yes, I do”.  So this post is for him. 

Recently I have been working on a project at work.  Not just any project but a population analysis, with market share and volume projections for 5 years.  This project is a beast.  And to be quite frank with you, I treated it like one too.  I figured it would eat me, chew me up and then swallow me down into its belly just like any other beast you would find in a scary movie. 

The other night before bed, my daughter and I were reading a fairy tale that had a monster in it.  She looked at me when the book was over and said, “mommy, I have never seen a monster before”.  I replied with confidence, “and you never will my darling”.  If my life were the fairy tale, this project is certainly the monster. 

So what does this have to do with having bipolar?  Well, let me tell you… my mental illness plays games with me.  And mainly what I mean by that is that it takes my confidence away.  I spent an entire day staring at my step by step process to which I needed to follow in order to accomplish this projection.  Then I spent an hour with my boss going over the project guidelines in great detail.  Then I spent the following day floundering around in and out of reports and report writing software. 

When I tell you I felt defeated, I mean it.  On Tuesday I called my husband and cried frantically telling him I was going to quit my job.  On Wednesday, I wore flats…I just didn’t feel like my high heels were appropriate for a failure.  By Wednesday night, I was lying awake in my bed trying desperately to fall asleep when a sense of peace and calm came over me.  In that moment, I reached out to the universe for help. 

My girlfriend at work always prays to “baby Jesus” so I thought I might give it a try.  “Dear Baby Jesus, I need your help with this project.  Please help me.  Amen.”  And I drifted off to sleep.  The next day I put on what my husband calls my “power heels” (a red pair of high high heel shoes) and I set off to work. 

I deleted the file that I had started over the past week with all the documents in it that I had begun to work on.  And I opened a new folder and I started fresh from scratch.  I pulled the data from the different databases and I did it MY WAY.  I did it the Stacy way… one excel tab at a time.  I built the entire document from scratch and 12 tabs later, I ended my progress with an Executive Summary. 

But that of course was not the end of it.  I had to present my data to my boss the following day.  So Friday, I put on another pair of high heels and I set up a meeting with my boss at 11:00am.  We sat in a conference room with a large computer screen where we went through each tab all the way to the Executive Summary. 

45 minutes later, my boss looked at me and I said, “I made this project my own.  And I worked really hard on it and I am pleased.  I know I still have work to do but its mine and I am proud of it”.  He looked at me and said, “THIS is what we DO.  And YOU did it.  Great job.”  Now, if you know my boss you know that you are hard-pressed for a compliment from him.  So when I tell you I was on top of the world, I was glowing. 

So my friends, drop the microphone, project (almost- with a few more tweaks) complete with the bosses stamp of approval.  Yes, the struggle is real but the success after a war with myself is even more real. 

Whether you talk to Baby Jesus, reach out to the Universe or pray to the Lord for guidance, I recommend this for sure.  For me, it gave me a peace and confidence that I had not experienced until that time.  And sometimes you just have to walk away from it and start over.  But just knowing that I had cheerleaders (friends, family, my one co-worker) on my side cheering for me the whole time also gave me the support I needed to get through this project. 

So put on your “power heels” and lets do this.  Lets tackle life, one project at a time. 

 

Love Note:  With all my heart, I genuinely request that due to the content written, please seek the guidance of professional help should you feel you need it. 

When Falling Asleep is Tough

The struggle is real.  Falling asleep can be really tough sometimes, no doubt about it.  But I can tell you, when I cannot fall asleep, this is when my mind wanders.  And when it wanders at night, while I am laying in bed wishing I were sleeping, it does not always go to happy places.


To say the least, I have always been apprehensive in the dark.  Darkness has been quite honestly a fear for a greater portion of my life.  So when the lights go out at night, and the darkness of the world settles in, this is when I want my brain to shut off, my body to relax and sleep to fall upon me.  However some nights this does not happen and last night was one of those nights. 


I have come to find that once my brain is on an inner treadmill, the "power off" switch is nowhere to be found.  And when this happens for me, it can get ugly.  What I mean by this is that having a mental illness causes my brain to think dark thoughts at times.  To my family and close friends, I generalize these dark thoughts "bad thoughts".  So last night as my husband soundly slept next to me, I was listening to him breathing thinking that I wanted to be asleep too.  But since I could not sleep I got mad that I was still wide awake.  And when I am awake, not sleeping, and now mad about it, my brain decided that it did not want to be happy anymore.  I am blaming my brain because if I had it my way and had control over my thoughts, I would have been thinking about butterflies and wild flower gardens starting to fall fast asleep.  Instead, I was getting mad and my thoughts went dark. 


Dark thoughts for me can mean many things.  This includes thoughts about the universe and why I am on earth.  Why was I picked to be on earth and why not someone else?  Who had I become and how did I become this way?  How did I get to be the age of 33 and what had I done with my life thus far to get to that age?  And then my brain goes to the future and if I could not fall asleep, what would the future look like:  Was I pre-destined to be depressed the next day?  (In my experience the answer to this is “yes”).  Sometimes when I lay in bed at night and cannot sleep, I cannot see the future at all.  I can only describe this feeling as an emptiness: desolate and deserted.  It is certainly a depressing thought pattern and can lead down a dark path. 


As I type this post, I am thinking about what happens next and how does it happen.  For example, do I eventually fall asleep?  Do I stay awake all night?  Do I wake up my husband and have him rub my back to calm my anxiety and give me solace?  And while any one of these things could happen, it really depends on the night.  So last night I sang a little song to myself over and over and over again until I finally passed out.  And of course that was not enough to stay asleep so I woke up an hour later and went through the whole daunting process again only to sing my song over and over and.... over again once more.

Love Note:  With all my heart, I genuinely request that due to the content written, please seek the guidance of professional help should you feel you need it.