Emotionally, I fear resilience as fleeting. I have the perspective that if I can't maintain this level of function, then I don't have it.

I think that perspective largely comes out of having spent most of my life depressed. It's all going uphill, and I feel like each new fortress I claim, I'm only holding onto by virtue of pushing back an onslaught that would wash away all my progress were I to stop and take a breath.

Always pushing. Always a challenge. Not in a good way. ;)

So it is with trepidation that I'm enjoying the energy I'm having today.

I'm trying to outmaneuver myself and convince myself that just because I do something once doesn't mean that I'm committing to doing it forever, and I can just enjoy that moment without having to defend the castle I've made of sand.

I'm lactose intolerant. I love dairy. I'm trying a week of no dairy. I already try to eat low carbs. This is going to be a hard week. I don't even want to think about how hard its going to be should I decide to continue this beyond a week :P

Also annoying that I never really know what to attribute to diet or elsewhere. This is something that has always frustrated me. Its hard generally to make solid connections, now I have vast changes with bipolar medications to make everything even less clear!

Seems like a good diet if I can take it. Pretty much no options aside from paleo. Although I don't do veggies or beans, so something is going to have to give.

I seem to have re-stabilized over the past several days. I'd been on a dose of 1.5 to 2mg Risperdal. What it took to get me stable was 5mg. I spent two days on 5mg, and was stable for the first time in a few weeks, but spent most of the day sleeping, only getting up for appointments and not really "waking up" until 3pm.

I've dropped back down to 4.5mg Risperdal and added in .5mg Klonopin, which is much more tolerable. Still sleeping more than usual, but not so dramatic like with 5mg Risp.

The thing I'm most happy about right now is that I can trace this to my own naive actions. Its most likely because I smoked pot. It was certainly not the brightest idea I've ever had, but it shouldn't have been *that bad.* But it was *that bad,* and its not a mistake I'm going to make again.

Much better that way than to have had a bad episode like that strike out of the blue. It bodes well for the hope that I won't stray too far from my baseline of needing 1.5mg Risperdal if not majorly antagonized.

I'm finally getting my diet and exercise back in order. Both of those went by the waste side during the episode. I worked out for the first time on Friday, and am having my first calorie restriction day today. I shudder to think of what the scale is going to say, and aim to continue avoiding it for as long as my morbid curiosity will allow ;)

I think its that edge I was talking about recently. The really poignant "myself and those I love might not be okay."

Plus the damn thing is just so gorgeous. I was dying to see it from the first preview.

I cried more watching that movie than any movie prior. One heart wrenching piece was how much that kid reminds me of Tovar, in all of the pains and frustrations and fear he goes through.

Its good to feel a little of Tovar's pain. He's going to have it whether or not I acknowledge it, at least this way I see him a little better.

( spoiler cut )

The movie had such an impact that I can't tell if its just a moving movie or if I'm in a bipolar state. Such is life. ;)

Welcome to my world ;)

[edit]

Sort of. ;)

I would normally keep this story to myself, but this seems like something worth spreading the word about.

When I first got diagnosed bipolar, Patri said that he thought that pot contributed to my manic episodes. I went along with it, but was skeptical that it was anything more than a slight enhancer.

So for two years I didn't touch the stuff. Then Patri was out of town, and I happened upon his stash, and I really really really love the stuff and temptation got the better of me.

I had a fun weekend and it wasn't a big deal. So the next week I had just a little bit.

And then a couple of days later, I started the worst mixed state episode I've had, with a little bit of hypomania mixed in, and its been over three weeks and I'm still dealing with the aftermath.

During this time I've talked to a few friends about it. It turns out that out of the few close friends I've mentioned it to, three of them shared with me personal accounts of other friends who were bipolar and had some pot and went off the deep end. Add me and we've got four, and us bipolars aren't exactly that high a percentage of the population.

This mixed state stuff is scary shit.

Patri's addendum: It is difficult to get studies on this, because the causal link goes both ways. People may seek pot or other drugs to self-medicate, and drugs are illegal so there are no randomized studies. But there is some evidence, for example that pot smoking as a teenager increases the later risk of psychosis from schizophrenia/bipolar by 40%-100% (although small in absolute terms).

There's a lot about race and racism that I'm not sure about. How much activism do I want to have? How can I best contribute to making the world a fairer place?

One thing I can do is influence my child. He's growing up in a predominately white/asian school. Although unlike my experience in a similar scenario, almost all of his teachers have been people of color, with many of them being African American.

I was thinking that this was good for his racial world picture, to have people of color being in roles of power. Then someone mentioned about how peer group is important, and I do wonder if that overshadows the teacher roles by a lot.

One thing that I have put some investment into is buying books with people of color. I found these great fairy tales done with Blacks as the primary characters. After looking at these books, the regular Disney books are blindingly white.

I also ordered some other Amazon books that popped up regarding people of color. Something I've learned from my reading is that for dealing with racism, a White person actually needs to become more aware of skin color, not less. One of the books I ordered is "The Skin You Live In." A book all about skin color. I would never have thought to consider this! But I imagine now, in a world where I was someone of color, I would be extremely aware of color, and this book would be refreshing for me.

I just finished reading Beverly Daniel Tatum's book, Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria

I found her perspectives very interesting and insightful, including that she answered the title question in a very different way than I had expected.

Something that has been getting under my skin is my response to her assumption that alleviating racism is important for Whites as well as Blacks. (Again, something that I am hesitant to express my feelings about) I personally feel pretty unaffected by racism when I am not actively seeking enlightenment (for myself and others) about it.

Its something that I would like to believe, but is it true?

One way in which it does benefit me is to give me a broader picture of the world. While our own drama is always what is closest to us, getting a sense of being smaller is useful for not drowning in it.

Being bipolar is the majority of my drama of late. Its a very big deal. I could die if it wasn't handled well. And, that doesn't make me different than a lot of other people. People suffer and die all the time.

In polite conversation, a friend was talking about how things were back in the good old days when things were more straightforward.

My immediate response before would have been to point out how "the good old days" probably didn't exist, since I believe that we are more in a process of evolving than devolving.

My response this time had a sister of "and good old days to who?"

As I have been plenty guilty of in the past, this guy seemed to be working under the assumption that he would be in the same upper-middle class regardless of what age he landed in. His assumption of "good" appeared to be based on giving ease to that class.

When pressed he made an argument that the era would create ease for people of all classes. An important point that I didn't get to was how that would not be the focus of all the different classes. You probably don't give shit if life is more straightforward if you are a slave!

A good friend told me that I've been more aggro over the past couple of years than the years prior. I was surprised!

I certainly am when hypomanic, and I've been that a lot. Especially considering how often I probably am hypomanic at a low enough level that I'm unaware of it.

To further aggrivate, I'm much more extroverted when hypomanic/aggro, and therefore give friends a biased sample.

Patri pointed out that being aggressive isn't a bad thing in and of itself. The problematic part is that I (like most people) am much less sensitive to others when in that mode. Patri says that I'm usually very sensitive to others one on one when not aggitated and/or aggressive, although I miss a lot of cues in groups, which matches my internal experience.

Why is it that every time I have a bipolar hypomanic, and now mixed state, episode, my first reflex is to want to leave my marriage?

The rest of the time, when I'm sane, I love my marriage and am very grateful and thrilled to have Patri as my life partner.

This time, when I thought about it, it seemed like the only choice, because all of the problems in our marriage seemed so much more significant than the fact that we love each other and just enjoy being with each other. And it seemed more important that Patri have more kids than be with me, and I'd decided that I didn't want any more kids and didn't want to be in a poly scenario where he could have more kids.

When I'm hypomanic, I'm more interested in the thrill of being off on my own. Although amusingly, my fantasies generally revolve around things like joining the Peace Corps and helping out in third world countries. The most recent fantasies have been to live at a zen or yoga center.

These are improvements from my old fantasy, of getting locked up in mental ward with clean white sheets and white walls. The buddhist stuff would be much more realistic and enjoyable.

The overlap of all of the things I would run to would be simplicity, and minimal belongings and responsibility. Just "be"ing, in the Buddhist sense.

Its kind of a shame that I didn't do the several month long Buddhist retreat sort of thing back before I had responsibilities, but I did travel Europe and Costa Rica and China, so overall I think my galavanting was a net win ;)

I think maybe once I'm old, if I can convince Patri to come along and/or hang out nearby, I'd like to do a long retreat. And for now, I'm very excited about the upcoming possibility of grief counseling. It takes a special sort of person to be enthusiastic about grief counseling, and that is apparently me ;)

I used to be so comfortable. There was always margin. I grew up in a very insulated and wealthy neighborhood. Bad things just didn't happen.*

Since these past several years, perhaps starting with the premature birth of my son, I've had much more of an edge. I was so sure that things would be okay. The Stanford doctor asked if I wanted my baby to be part of a clinical trial if he was born premature. I was so certain that it wouldn't happen that I thought it was absurd that the doctor would ask. Of course something that awful wouldn't happen to me!

So now I'm feeling more in touch with life. Being bipolar is certainly one of those things that keeps me perky. Really bad things could really happen. Reality is not safe.


*_{Except for certain patterns that I found traumatizing which I didn't realize weren't normal.}

So I had my first really pronounced mixed state over the weekend.

In a nutshell:

It culminated in two days where I had the worst day watching Tovar ever, couldn't sleep, decided I hate my diet and can't keep it up anymore, wrote a poor innocent girl a really angry paranoid email, decided that I can't handle having kids or being poly, and tried to break up with Patri.

Patri and I are fine, and I can handle life again, thanks to a lot of patience and understanding from Patri and a little pill called Risperdal. I'm more or less stable at this point, although still doing a little leveling out.

I'm on a really high dose of Risperdal right now, and not sure whether my grumpiness this morning and evening have been from too much Risperdal or not enough. I've felt pretty good through most of the day.

I hopped on OKcupid for the first time in years tonight, and ended up chatting with some random guy. At some point he asked me if I have any friends who are Indian. I said yes, and asked if he's Indian. He said yes.

He said that as soon as he mentions he's Indian, women will stop chatting with him. Its happened more than once.

I guess that's some anecdotal evidence for the studies on race selections on OKcupid that have been getting passed around.

I just found an audio course recording:

Power Relations and Connection Across Differences in US Society: An NVC Perspective

Scroll down to "More Topics" to find it. ( Read more... )

So people keep suggesting caution about multiple children, and Patri keeps pointing out how the odds are low.

I can see how the odds are low, but still have been feeling wary. I think I understand why now. The odds are indeed low of having multiple births. But if those low odds happen, they have much higher impact than would be likely the natural way.

If you're trying the natural way, odds of twins are much lower* than odds of twins when you're implanting multiple embryos. And odds of triplets or more are much much much lower trying the natural way than trying with multiple embryos and a surrogate, even though the odds with multiple embryos and a surrogate are still low.

In general, if you're going to have more babies the natural way, with as many "tries," they are going to be spread out by years, not coming all at once as they would in the surrogacy scenario.

This dimension that I'm seeing that I hadn't intellectually understood before seems related to some of the arguments I was making re: race and soldiers.

*_{depending on your genetics.}

With the Panamanian agency that we worked with, the communication and timeliness both sucked. It was typical to be taken 1-2hrs after an appointment that had been set. It also took them about 3 days to come back to us with a pregnancy test that should have taken hours. I felt like the doctor tried to tell us what we wanted to hear a fair bit.

On the upside, the hospital is nice and clean, the doctors seem to know what they're doing and they're very friendly.

One important difference between the Panamanian and Indian agencies that we just learned is the odds of the surrogate getting pregnant. My impression from what the Panamanian doctor told me was that there was a 20-30% chance of each egg taking. According to the information I'm getting from India, that's based on the assumption of a donor egg. From a woman who is not necessarily in her prime, the odds may be more like 10%.

So its likely to be a lot of rounds before you get a successful pregnancy, and the Panamanian agency charged us $5k/attempt. Also the odds of attempts with frozen eggs go down. My interpretation of what the doctor said was that if they make it through the thawing process (85% do), that they were as good as unfrozen eggs, but the impression I've gotten elsewhere is that this isn't true.

With Panama you have the option of 2-3 embryos implanted with one surrogate. With India, with Planet Hospital, you get two surrogates with up to 5 implantations each. Plus with the deal that Patri and I are getting, they don't charge anything for 2-3 following attempts with frozen eggs.

You can ask Patri about the odds, but from what he says, with 10 embryos implanted, odds of one baby is about 65-70% on the first attempt. Odds of twins, let alone triplets, are pretty low. In the unlikely event of a lot of embryos taking, they don't allow for the surrogates to carry more than 2 babies each.

An additional factor is price. If you take into account the likelihood of multiple implantation attempts, India is about half the price of Panama.

I can't recommend Non-Violent Communication enough. Especially now that I'm practicing variants of it with my coaching mentor.

So often we talk and talk about things, without identifying what it is that is actually driving us to speak.

This stuff helps you step back and get more conscious awareness. Conscious awareness is useful for being more efficient when working to achieve goals, even if the goal is just to be understood. And it ultimately gives you the tools to understand others better, and to work with and help them if you choose to do so.

I just had someone recommend an audio version to me, and there are NVC practice groups in most major cities.

Sometimes my yoga teacher talks about being young again. I really felt it today. Cumulatively, after going to yoga for a few months, the stretches aren't so bad anymore. I'm getting flexible! I hadn't realized how stiff I was until I started trying yoga.

( body maintenance ramblings )

I've got this special coaching blog going, and have been advertising in magazines and on craigslist. Where do I get all my clients from? Nearly all of them have been people who read this blog.

I would have never expected that, because, well, I'm not exactly professional when I write here. But I guess y'all love me anyway ;)

So in case there are any more of you lurking out there who are interested in the free month offer but too shy to write, I do have a few more spots left, and would be thrilled to fill them up. So even if you don't think you'd be a good client or can't afford to continue after a month or whatever, I encourage you to give it a try :)

While I would of course like paying clients, I could also just use the practice. Its really hard to keep a full roster in this economy.