sleep | My Experiments with Sanity

Hola crew! You down with my blogging crew? Yeah, you know me! Ok, some throw back to start it off. I’m cheesy, I’m well aware and loving it.

I’m going to keep running with the what worked for me. I’m so stoked someone found value in my last blog and will probably rock her world. Stoked, for sure. I’m honored to be of service and I intend to help as many people as I can. Stop thrashing through the thorns and pay heed to the ones who have already, almost, made it out. You never really do. Make it out. The foliage just thins out, sometimes to where it’s barely even there.

I’m going to try and start my blog with a review. They say if you don’t review material after learning about it, you forget pretty soon after. If you review something, you smoosh it a little deeper into the crevices of your brain, make it so it doesn’t blow away as easily. So much blows away. But we already know everything, so fuck it if it does.

I’m in a strange mood, as you may be able to tell. Way too wound up and really need to stop and take ten breaths. The real deal deep breaths where you fill and unfill every nook and cranny of your body. Suck it all in and spit it all back out. Do it with me…..

Damn, what did you have for lunch?

Better. Calmer. I think my heart rate may have dropped a few points. Ok, so what’s worked.

1) Control your thoughts, control your world. Easiest way to tell what your thinking is to stop and analyze what emotions you’re experiencing. Good? Keep at it. Bad? Reframe it to be good.

2) Believe in something bigger than yourself not for religion but so you can realize that the world does not revolve around you and that you’re just some dust speck, so stop being a useless dust speck, wake up…and believe in something greater than yourself so you can find your true calling and make your soul sing every day. Instead of a sickly soul. They were designed to sing.

3) Address physical and/or emotional pain. Emotional pain, you have to work thru. Get a therapist yesterday. Physical pain, you’d be amazed what you can learn with just a little curiosity. Google is my best friend. I’ve been the hot mess sprawled in the tall dusty stacks of whatever town library I may find myself in, piles of books strewn around me. I’ve been an avid gorger of information all my life and I just credit being really curious about almost everything. Some shit I don’t want to know about. Like shit. Don’t want to think about it. What worked. Focusing here…

4) Self-medication may be immediately gratifying but portion control for my fellow travelers is an elusive pipe dream. Plus different strains, if you blaze like me, have different effects. Like the dooky shit I have now that just makes me want to sleep. But of course I can’t.

Can’t nap anymore. Not bitching, just observing. It’s been months since I’ve napped. I used to nap daily, no joke. Daily for like years and years, and pretty much my entire life. But now, no naps. Sleep awesome every night, don’t hate. Eyes usually heavy as hell when I crawl into bed and when I hit that pillow I’m out in milliseconds. I totally get that I’m lucky as hell I sleep as well as I do. I think it’s because I have a pretty clear conscious, I try to live in communion with my fellow travelers and say what I’m thinking instead of short stepping around what’s bothering me. And my meds are working good.

Much easier just to swallow 2 purple pills, ½ a yellow pill, ½ a white pill, throughout the day. And my vitamins. Don’t forget your vitamins! Fish oil and 1 a day multi-vitamin. Good combo. It’s legal and I don’t have to go the exact speed limit so I don’t get popped for blazing in the car.

Today’s lesson? Stop self medicating. I will when I run out of this last bag of pot. I really think my new meds, maybe slightly increased, will make me better…for now. Ahhh, the gift of being bipolar and the cocktail of pills that is our reality.

I am so grateful to all of you out there who are reading this and all of you that are writing about your travels as well. Because that’s what life is, one big long trip. I’m stoked to be travelling in good company,

Sincerely Yours,

B. Wright

I used to sleep insane hours. Compared to most people, I still do. My defense is being bipolar, we take in sooooo much more of the world than the average Joe. I have had to train myself to block taking negative energy from other people. If I see someone crying, I’m suddenly overcome voraciously with grief and…crying as well. But the blessing of it is that when I feel joy, damn that’s some good joy. And you can tune in to happy, joyous people as well. Happiness, euphoria, it’s all emotions right? I’ve been reading that tuning in to what you’re feeling is a good way to see what your mind is thinking. Do I feel bad? Change something if you do. Do I feel great? Awesome, let’s do more of this.

In the past few years, I think I may have become Pollyanna Positive. I’m always looking for the silver lining, the blessing in disguise. Cause you know it’s there. It’s always there. When you look back on some shitty times when some shitty things were happening in your life often you see that that shit made some damn fine manure. It made something change so that now you had some good times when good things were happening. A flower grew right up out that shit, huh? All right Polly, I’ll knock it off…

As usual, when I write these, I get way off track. And for that I do apologize. I really wanted to talk about sleep. So now, when I sleep sans alarm, don’t hate, as I pretty much always do, I sleep 9 hours. But only about 2 months ago, I’d sleep 11, 12 hours in one laying and take a nap as well. And I’m not talking a 20-minute power nap. Usually 1 to 2 hour nap. It’s easy to look back and realize how depressed I was. To me, my life was better in my dreams.

But now I don’t even take naps anymore. I’ve kind of always taken naps over the years. Sometimes I’d sleep less. Sometimes more. It’s the fun sleepy train of bipolar. But this not napping thing, it’s got me kind of hmmm…excited! Oh, I’ve laid down a handful of times over the past 2 months. But to no avail. I’d be tired from looking at the computer screen for too long and think a nap would refresh me. Yet I was like a little school kid just pretending to sleep but way too excited to sleep. And then I give in, get up, and go organize the Tupperware drawer.

I’ve been smoking pot because it turns out my docs actually don’t have the meds just right. I’ve got a new drug I’m supposed to start taking. Well, I was supposed to start 2 weeks ago. But I figured I’d run through the last of the pot first and then go to my pot in a pill formation. I’m almost out so it’s almost time.

I’ve quit before. I’m a professional quitter, actually. And I’ve known for a long time that this love affair has gone on long enough. Mary Jane doesn’t love me as much as I’ve loved her. It’s been a one-way street for some time now. It’s time for me to cut my ties. Say my goodbyes. It’s been a fun time. We’ll always have the memories, right sweetie?

Although, as I just reread what I wrote up there, it’s easy to ascertain I’m a little manic now. But who doesn’t love that? Oh right, the people around me. The dog doesn’t either since she just follows me around from one room to the next. Dog can’t get a good solid nap in that way. But I love it!! I know, I know, what goes up must come down. I said this in another blog that I’ve been excited but have this seatbelt feeling from my meds. Oh right, my seatbelt is broken. Damn it. Time to fix the damn seatbelt.