The cloud of darkness

I have my ups and downs, luckily for finally getting the right meds this year has been mainly ups for my mental well being, I haven't been hit to bad with any downs.

Until recently, it creeps up so slowly, one little push from some meaningless word or doing and the spiral into the cloud of darkness starts. It's hard to explain to the people around you especially when they don't know anything about it.

It really is a cloud, thats what it feels like in my head, clouded, dark, misty, heavy and all rationality and stableness flies out the window and I turn into a whole other person, maybe a multitude of people depending on what you say to me, from raving lunatic to vicious and defensive, to weepy and quiet, eventually I just withdraw from everyone and it's just easier if everyone stays away from me.

I can't deal with myself never mind anyone else, being a mother is hard during these times as patience isn't a quality that the clouds allow, being loving and affectionate to my BF is a task I can't take on and getting through a day is a mountain I have to crawl up with very little strength.

My mom and my sister know how to handle me best, I don't think they understand what is going on in my head but they have witnessed it enough times to know, don't ask any questions, don't probe, don't touch me and don't tell me to be rational. I realised this on Sunday when the BF called them and told them to either come fetch me or fetch Aiden because I wasn't being sane and they came and took Aiden without any questions or judgemental looks.

The BF is also pretty good with me, he doesn't fully grasp it yet, he is still learning that these phases are not who I really am and that it's something I go through and eventually I reach the light again, he's still learning that it isn't one day of darkness but it can be a week or a month but he does take it on the chin and never raises his voice at me and tries his hardest to handle me with sensitivity and care.

I do wish I could snap my fingers and be out of it, just rise above it because I know deep down it's not reality but it's there and it hovers and right now it's beating me and I struggling to make it through one day at a time.

Hopefully the sun shines soon.

Life changes...remember to live it

If I close my eyes and think where I was last year this time and what my life consisted of, I can't believe the change, I can't remember where the time went, actually I can, it went to stressing, worrying, fighting, illness and negativity. I spent so much time focusing on all the things that were going wrong, yes things were bad all around but I forgot to live my life.

I forgot to love Aiden every day and revel in his stage of growth at the time. I forgot to lay in the sun and see the beauty in the summer. I forgot to visit friends that relationships have now weakened. I forgot to make time for myself for what I enjoy. I forgot to work at my relationship and nearly lost it because of it. I forgot to let my family know how much they mean to me.

I lost out.

I lost out on a whole year of my life because my focus was all in the wrong places.

I am in a much different frame of mind now ( yes meds made a huge difference ) but now I stop to smell the roses. Now that I am working 9-5 I appreciate those 2 days I get to spend with my family, partner and son every week. I wake up excited for the day ahead and what it brings, good or bad, I see the light and maybe I am not out of the tunnel yet but everything has a warm glow and I find myself finally living life again.

Don't forget, don't live in yesterday, don't worry about tomorrow, all we can do is right now and yes it might sound cliche' but don't wake up one day and feel like you lost out on a whole portion on your life because as much as you wish you could go back for those cuddles with your child and kiss your mom before you leave her house on Sundays and lay on that blanket and seep up the summer sun, you can't.

I am guilty of living in the past and guilty of stressing about the future, I consume my mind and soul with worry and I have missed out on so much instead of just simply, enjoying today.

Love from Bear

I am struggling with motherhood right now

We all know it's not easy being a mom, it is the greatest gift in the world, the most incredible love you will ever experience but also one of the biggest tests of your strength, patience and sanity.

And right now it's testing me and pushing my boundaries and my patience is non existent.

Aiden is an extrovert, he loves attention and 24 hour play time with some one, you will never find him quietly playing with his toys or using his imagination to invent his own games. He wants you to join in every second of it. 

Right now, he is like my shadow, I fall over him while I cook, have him follow me every time I need to take a pee, I constantly have cars being driven up my legs and dinosaurs shoved in my face with roar sound effects and I am tired.

In between the constant entertainment he is craving right now, the terrible two's have appeared with full force and tantrums are a 100 time a day occurrence. He throws things and breaks things and lays on the ground screaming.

It probably is also because all these little things that are probably normal motherhood issue, they just all piled up on the wrong time and a very stressful time.

I know I need to find the patience inside of me, leave the stress and worries at the door at night and focus my full attention on me wee boy but right now I am struggling with being a mom.

Right now I wish I could just be me, just for a little while.

Love from Bear

Relationships (not the movie kind)

Relationships are hard. Whether you are married, living together, not living together, whether it's been one month or 10 years. They take work and commitment, patience and communication.

Maybe they are a little harder when you throw in a kid, a kid that in the beginning isn't his and then kind of becomes quite his but still not quite his. Then there is that, which is a second relationship within an already hard relationship.

Then throw in some bi-polar and an anxiety disorder, a dying granny, 2 crazy extended families who work very differently, some money troubles, a hectic festive season and BANG, explosion.

It takes just one sentence to let loose a catastrophe, one word to crush a heart into a million pieces, one word to make you question all the love and all the time already been spent, it takes just those few words and your whole life can be completely different.

Those words make you cry and scream and eat chocolate but they also make you question every thing, them, you and whether it was all just in your head. Was the love just a game, was it just for now, was it really just another wrong choice because shit, I have done that a good few times.

But then you get this one feeling, and I have never felt it with any one else, that this is it, that it can't have gone so wrong so quickly, that no matter what words were said and what actions were made, the love is real enough for forgiveness and acceptance, that shit happens.

People do things, crazy, irrational things all the time. I know I have and still do (bi-polar here, hello) I'm the queen of hasty, queen of nasty and queen of thinking the worst at the most stupid and unrealistic points.

In relationships, real ones, not the movie kind of ones, they don't always go to smoothly and when you calculate the damage caused by past hurts and betrayals, some times you have to tread carefully, some times you have to take a step back and both breathe because if you don't, it can end all so quickly way before it's time.

Fight for who you are and never loose sight of that but fight for those you love because a world without people, people you love, is not a world at all.

Love from Bear

Anxiety Girl

I've always been a bit of a control freak, okay I am an insane control freak and I have always been an over thinker. I constantly think of past situations and always try figure out what is going to happen in the future. I drive people insane with my incessive need for a plan and for things to go a certain way.

I also have developed a serious anxiety problem that stems from all kinds of crap. To try explain it, I would literally be writing for days.

This is what my doctor says:

I am suffering from Chronic Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because of all the shitty things I have been through. So with my naturally controlling personality I am literally turning my great life in to a tug of war. My sub conscious is trying to control my own sabotage because my life has fallen apart so many times and my conscious conscious is trying to control everything so much so my life doesn't fall apart thus leaving me with anxiety.

But anxiety so bad it literally is depleting my body. My body the other day basically shut down with a panic attack so bad I ended up in hospital because I went completely paralyzed. Scary stuff I tell you.

You don't really think about what situations do to you, sometimes you just keep going because you have to, you just carry on being strong because that's whats expected of you but it eventually will catch up to you and when it does and when you leave it for years and years, it can almost kill you or literally send you to a padded room and thank God I never got that bad.

And then there is of course my refusal to believe I am Bi-polar when my doctor told me 5 years ago, so when he saw what state I was in he wasn't happy about me not being on the right medication.

I'm 2 weeks into my new medication and I am finally feeling human again and realised just how bad I had gotten, how I still have a boyfriend and friends still is beyond me but truly blessed they stuck around.

People don't understand these things and I have been scared to put this out there but it's the truth and it needs to be okay that this is part of who I am.

I am Anxiety Girl but I get shit done because of it.

Love from Bear

The Beginning

Bear = a nickname only the closest of closest people call me, it's a name that represents who I once was and who I am still deep down inside somewhere.

I am a 'single' mom to a 2 year old little boy, we have just moved in with the love of my life and my life is finally falling into place. This space is my space, a space for me to find myself again, it's my time out and about my journey about sometimes putting me first.

Some where along the line of being a mommy I have forgotten who I am and lost what I loved in life. So now I pick up the pieces, rebuild them and reshape who I am as a mother, a daughter, a sister and a lover but most importantly who I am as me.

There will be pieces on being a mommy and pieces on being in a relationship, there will be pieces on new things to do and try, pamper products and easy and quick ways to make yourself feel good again, there will even be recipes, healthy recipes of course as I have recently been diagnosed with Insulin Resistance and seeing as I am no cook or baker, only recipes for dummies will be placed here.

I will be open and honest but bare in mind this is supposed to be my happy place so sometimes it will be overly fluffy but with a little bit of a twist and pieces on my diagnosis of Bi-polar disorder.

I have had two blogs before, starting as Miss Preggy and then From There to Hear, both will be shut down as they hold on to so much of the bad things that have happened in my life. Things and people that I have chosen to forgive and let go of.

So here's to finding my happiness and awakening my soul and seeing life through new eyes.

Love from Bear