Both figuratively / mentally and literally…. um…. yes. My train of everything is well and truly lost! Let’s try and get back on track, shall we? This is probably going to be a massively long post, I warn you now! There’s also going to be a fair bit about mental health stuff, so feel free to skim :-)
So, starting from when I vanished back in December… well, for the three weeks leading up to Christmas I was pretty much knitting constantly. So much so that I cramped up my shoulder and ended up with an ouch-y left index finger joint! But eek, I had to get the Christmas knitting done!!! Well, as I already mentioned, I didn’t quite succeed, but I did get Mum’s Fetchings done, and I had a scarf finished that I gave her as well. Also within that time, I went to visit C for the weekend, and having been manic not too long beforehand, I think I ‘overworked’ myself, because once I got home again, I when I wasn’t knitting, I was sleeping. Zzzz!
Then, this site was down from 17th – 26th-ish December because of a server crash. It took the hosting company a while to be able to recreate the accounts and then restore the files. The flat files were about 6 weeks old but the databases were all up to date, so I’ve been able to easily restore the things that were still missing (photos, mainly). So that’s all good. Of course, during that time I had a million posts I wanted to make, and now I don’t remember what they were about ;-)
After Christmas, I crashed like a …. crashed out thing for a good ten days. Everyone tends to, I think, but annoyingly I can’t do anything by halves, so I hit a depressive slump with it: didn’t get up or eat or anything really. I slept, or I read – I got through about 15 books, actually. But mostly I slept. Luckily, I’d arranged with Clara, Ally & co. for them to come over for New Year’s. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have done anything for that… and if I’d been up to phoning them to cancel, I probably would have. But as it happened, Clara rang me and just asked me what time they should turn up. I don’t think she knew I was down, but that really is the best way to deal with me when I’m like that. Don’t leave me room to get out of things! So I pulled myself together, tidied up, and sorted out some nibbles and the like. We had a good time – just a chilled out evening, chatting and playing with little M. :-) After that, I was still down for a few more days, but I started to pull up again at the weekend after C helped me with a plan to get me firing on all cylinders again. Hooray!
Since then, I’ve posted my resolutions, which I’m doing OK with in general, and I’ve started Project 365. Mentally, I’ve cycled into a more manic phase, but overall I’ve been mostly within ‘normal’ parameters. I’ve also done something that I’d been sort of putting off for some time – I’ve gone and registered with the drop-in centre down the road. I think I was resisting it because part of me felt that only people with a “real disability” needed to go to somewhere like that. Or perhaps with a more severe disability than I like to perceive myself having, I don’t know. Ah, denial! I thought I was over you, but no! Anyway, it’s a really nice place, and I can go there as often as I want or need, to use whatever facilities I want to. Mainly, I think it’ll be useful for me to have somewhere to pop in when I know that I’m starting to slide one way or another and need to just be around other people to ground myself, and also it’s good to know that the support and advice services are there if I need them. And I have to admit that it’s a huge plus that it’s literally a minute’s walk (or less) from my front door. They do food too, very reasonably, so if I can’t cook, I can eat there. And I got to chat with three other people with bipolar while I was there, and it’s just kind of nice to have that face to face contact with others in the same boat. So yes. I’m going to keep that up.
Hmm, I think that kind of covers it. I’ve been working away on my WIPs, but I’ll talk more about that in a different post (with progress pics, whee). Oh, and I seem to have my sleeping pattern back to normal, so it’s back to the gym and everything this week as well. I missed Knit & Natter the Saturday before last, but my friend M is coming over tomorrow, and I’m planning to go this coming weekend. Now all I have to do is stick to the plan, but also not overdo it!