First blog entry...hmm. Sounds like such a daunting task. Guess it's not. For an introduction of myself...I was diagnosed bipolar four years ago. I guess that makes me eligible for a lot of sympathy, although I don't feel I really need that. About a year ago, my life went in the shitter. Lost my job (laid off, but was one of the first ones because I was missing so many days), and my fiance moved out because we were having our problems, financially and personally. I had alienated a lot of my friends and I just felt totally alone. I was also in the midst of going off my meds...lot of stuff running through my head at that one time!

Whatever. I digress.

Point is, I started working hardcore on my own recovery. I realized that my attitude towards this whole diagnosis was completely off-kilter and wrong for me. I was using my meds and "illness" as a crutch and excuse for a lot of self-destructive and outwardly destructive behaviors. So I spent a couple months getting back to the basics, meditating, spending a lot of time with friends, spending a lot of time outside in nature (especially hiking and camping in the mountains, I LOVE the mountains), and all-around learning how to control myself and not depend on others to support me when the world turns upside down.

Of course, I've learned since then that I DO need others...

That's all right. I worked a shitty job for a while and finally realized I just wasn't happy making a decent amount of money but ignoring my hatred of my job. I up and quit, spent my last paycheck on enough food and tobacco to last myself and my fiance 2 months, and just worked on living for a while. Just when we were really running out of food, I got my stimulus check (thank GOD!) and I got a new job at a consumer-run peer support center for people with mental health issues.

Whew. That's my story of entering the recovery movement.

Now for the real stuff.

I've been having a really hard time lately. We were teetering on the verge of homelessness a couple weeks ago, and a friend I met at my job at On Our Own let us stay at her place while she visited her shaman in Arizona. She came back and let us know (at 2 AM) that she had totally gone off of her meds...and we didn't get any sleep for three nights after that. Didn't help that I was in a downward swing at that point anyway. She went down to her sister's new house about five hours away (drove...aaa!) and now her family's "helping her" get her life back on track...which I guess means helping get her brain back on track, but I'm worried that their idea of "on track" doesn't quite match up with hers...that wouldn't be good. Anyway, her cell phone's off, and I'm pretty worried about her. It would crush her if she had to put away all these new dreams she has for moving to Arizona because her family chalks it up to "manic irrationality" or some bullshit like that...

However, I now have a place to live, definitely, so I guess that helps. Shit's been so up in the air lately that I really don't know what is gonna fall down next. That's kinda worrying me because my job takes so much emotional energy on most days (although my coworkers are SO supportive) and I don't know...do you ever just get bitter because you live near a bunch of stupid drunk college kids who scream at you in the middle of the night because your hair is pink and they think that's funny, but you know that their BMW's and Hummers are currently being paid for by their parents and it just isn't fair that you're working your ass off and don't even have a car or always have a definite place to live, while they're doing the bare minimum at school and their parents pick up the tab while they party most nights? WHY DOES THAT MATTER SO MUCH TO ME? Gah.

Anyway. I'm getting another job, too. Hopefully that won't drive me totally up the wall, hopefully I'll have enough time to write, etc. I wouldn't get through anything if I couldn't write. It's just a small job, helping a 9-year-old girl with autism learn how to read, and basically hanging out with her. Hopefully that'll give me a little brightness in my life. There are too many things going on right now that are just depressing.