wartwyndhaven

Signs of a Bipolar Episode

• Feeling more tense or nervous**
• Feeling that people are talking about me**
• Having more trouble sleeping**
• Change in level of activity**
• Having more trouble concentrating**
• Losing interest in things I usually like doing
• Seeing friends less
• Enjoying things less
• Feeling more depressed (or suddenly grandiose)
• Eating less
• Having more religious ideas
• Preoccupied with one or two ideas
• Having trouble making sense when talking
• Feeling like I was forgetting things more
• Feeling worthless
• Feeling like I was going crazy
• Hearing voices or seeing things
• Feeling that someone else was controlling me
• Feeling badly for no apparent reason
• Stopped caring how I looked
• Having more nightmares or bad dreams
• Feeling more angry over little things
• Thinking about hurting myself
• Feeling more aggressive or pushy
• Feeling too excited or overactive
• Having trouble relating to family
• Having frequent aches and pains
• Drinking more alcohol
• Using more drugs (uppers, downers, LSD, marijuana)
• Thinking about hurting someone else

** Universal Warning Signs

This is the scale I use to evaluate myself on a daily basis.  it is a tool, nothing more.  I am putting it here because I needed a place to put it where i could find it without having to scour the internet all over again.  For various reasons, I am currently a 1.5.  That may be optimistic.

0 = suicidal

1 = in bed with covers over head

2 = staring at computer in pjs with uncombed hair scum on teeth

3 = distracted tired bored distracted sad irritable distracted

4 = partly cloudy, moving but not motivated, functioning

5 = fine, functional, steady, stable, working list

6 = looking forward to the day, sunny, energized

7 = feeling great, looking fine, couldn't be better

8 = up since 4 am cleaning, rearranged the living room, wrote the President, had sex twice

9 = can't stop thinking, why are all these other people so slow and stupid, time is short possibilities unlimited, I need to write that down perhaps start a novel, get out of my way

10 = the television told me I was sent by God direct to save the world so I gave away all my worldly possessions and am walking the universe ridding it from evil as I find it...and it is everywhere...

im at work, but it's quiet so i figured i would make an update.  that's if my netbook will fucking cooperate with me.

work; i dont like some of the things that are going on here.  the man who is my primary teammate on this job is the best guy they have here, and they are doing him dirty because he's got a penis.  he trained the lady we have as a manager right now, and she is totally unsuitable for the position.  she is being biased in her decisions about people, and a lot of homeless in the shelter are being thrown out if they simply dont like her, and there is a lot to legitimately not like.  there are many people in this line of work who play this churchy role, like they are these mega christians, and i'm seeing a lot of hypocrisy in that area, and she is one of them.  she thinks because she says she is christian that her judgements about people are somehow better, but im seeing a lot of people who have nowhere else to go being treated very badly, and i wish there were more that i could do.  it's important in this field not to allow your personal opinions about people's lifestyle choices play a part in how you judge them or how you treat them, for instance we have more than a few prostitutes, pushers, and alcoholics here, but they are adults and it isn't my job to make them do what i want them to do in their lives.  it's my job to keep this place safe for the people who need to be here, and that includes them.  but this manager is taking people's lifestyles and basically saying that if you aren't going to stop tricking, selling, or drinking, then you can't be here.  that isn't right.  i hate seeing it.  yes, i'd like for the alcoholics and users to recover, and i would bend over fucking backwards if one wanted to change and wanted my help, but that's their choice.  god doesn't want me to make them change.  his direction TOWARDS ME doesn't involve their life.  his directions towards THEM involve their life.  his directions towards ME involve me treating them like his beloved children, because that's what they are, his beloved children, regardless of their actions, because they aren't answerable to me.  they are answerable to him, but he doesn't need my help to facilitate that.  unless they want my help in that arena it's really none of my business.  but i am also answerable to him, and to that end it's my responsibility to treat them in a manner that remains mindful of the fact that they are his children and i had better treat them that way, and right now that, more and more, is meaning actually trying to protect them FROM MY BOSS.  it's fucking winter.

with all that being said; i am far from perfect and i try to do my best for these people, but i have discovered the regret and guilt of trying to be helpful but in the process causing more damage than i fixed.  i still have people who i wonder what happened to them.  because they aren't here anymore, and i know they had nowhere to go, and i feel that the reason they aren't here is because i made poor or inexperienced choices, or failed to protect them from coworkers, other residents, or from themselves.  i can't do anything about that but try to learn, but what makes that difficult is the fact that i will never be perfect so...it stands to reason that i will fuck up again.  it's like they tell doctors in training that sooner or later, they are going to kill someone.

anyway.

school; in japanese, there are like 7 of us that are holdovers from the previous introductory class, and we all got along pretty well and would talk and joke and keep it light, so we are pretty comfortable with eachother, adn the rest of the people aare from the other introductory class, and they didnt get to know eachother as well as we did, so they are still pretty stiff, but, by now in the class we have gotten to a comfirtability with the language and with learning it that we only speak japanese in class, and getting things wrong doesn't unnerve us the way it used to.  it's GREAT.  i LOVE that class.  it makes me feel happy, joyful even, just to be there.  i never miss that class.

philosophy.  i have been wrong about that class.  i finally had a lightbulb experience regarding the true intent of the 'professor'.  he's a shit-stirrer.  his whole aim in that class is to stir up shit.  if he can get the students in the class to shouting level intensity at some point in our discussion, if he can get us to resort to swearing and personal insults, then he is happy.  my role in his scheme is that of the christian nutcase, and everyone else's role, to his ends, is to see me as the christian nutcase, and to take offense at any opinion i voice, even if, and this is often the case, even if that opinion was specifically asked for by the professor himself.  fine.  bring it on.  especially mis de'la'shamiqua bones or whatever her fucking name is, who exasperatedly, loudly, and pointedly sighs and mutters under her breath to la'queefa and jac'weela her best pals whenever i so much as open my mouth.  i think on a basic level they just don't understand what i am saying.  really they are just high school moron kids.  i dont really fault them, they are just young.  most of what they have toi say in response to me centers around the fact that i must be an idiot because i am not accepting everything that the 'professor' says the second he says it.  which to me sounds retarded.  first of all, i don't accept all the tenets of my own faith until i understand them from either a theological or exegetical standpoint, and second of all, not all of philosophy should be accepted, blindly or not by even the least intelligent of students because, let's face it, it's philosophy; a lot of it is bullshit.
 

personally; been real depressed lately.  don't know if it is chemical or what.  feel very much like this;  i have lost a great deal in my life.  not trying to depict myself as the most unfortunate person in the world, on the contrary i have been a remarkably fortunate persion in my life.  more fortunate than most by far, and i do appreciate that fact.  but i have lost very much.  i have lost my childhood, my family, my career, my identity, my sanity, my marriage, my ability to have children.  at this point in my life i don't have, nor will i ever have, many of the things that i wanted to have in my life.  things that i expected would be a part of my life that are not and never will be.  i hold out hope only that i will have someone who i love, who will be as devoted to me as i can be to them.  i would like to have this.  i dont know if i will, and i dont think i will try very hard not to give up the hope for it.  what i will not relinquish in order to have this is my dignity.  i will not relinquish my dignity.

bipolar disorder sucks much more than people who dont have it think it does..  people who say that bipolar disorder is 'overdiagnosed', that it's the new adhd, are only saying that as a way to say that they dont believe in bipolar disorder, that they dont believe it really exists.  like they arent members of the church of bipolar disorder.  i dont know how much longer im going to be able to take this.

im seeing someone, and im in love.  all of our mutual friends have doomed the relationship to failure almost gleefully.  they lick their lips and dry wash their hands in anticipation of our breakup.  theyre like crowds at public executions.  so i unfriended them all from facebook, and i wont see them without the company of my lover.  i cant take their attitude.  they all have something to say.  why cant they just let us be happy?  the two of us, we dont know what is going to happen, we dont know that the relationship is going to work, but we hope, we try anyway, and we make each other happy. so fuck them.

work sucks now, we have a manager that i cant stomach to the point that i've told my director i can stay.  im going on backup, they will call me if they need me, but i wont stay and help this man destroy this whole shelter.

i still want to die.  yet another issue for assholes who doubt the validity of suicidal thoughts and feelings.  fuck them, too.