Personal Update – Relapse

I haven’t made a post here in a while. A lot has been going on but also nothing at all. I was making videos on my YouTube channel (until I discovered my headset cables had been chewed through by the kittens – now I have to wait for new cables to come) but haven’t been writing much. I started working out a month ago and have gone four consecutive weeks with five days of work-outs each (except for last week when my wisdom teeth were removed, preventing me from working out on Thursday). That is about the only thing I have been doing consistently and, while it is better than nothing, is not enough productivity overall for me to feel satisfied. However, I know better than to not be grateful. I’ve been in worse places.

While I have been able to work out (almost) every weekday for a month, which takes about two hours out of the day, I have not been able to do much else, at least not consistently. One day I’ll record three videos for my gaming channel, then the next four days I’ll record none. I cook dinner most days, but very rarely is it something that takes longer or more effort than a chicken breast in the air fryer.

It takes over an hour to prepare myself to work out, and after that, I spend the day napping until it is time to cook for my mom and me. I cook, eat, and then nap some more. As I said, I’ve been in worse places, but this is worse than it’s been since I started the lithium. I wonder if the bipolar part of my diagnosis is resistant to treatment – I will see what my psychiatrist says at my appointment with him on Monday.

They call it a relapse when your symptoms return. It reminds me that my diagnoses are lifelong, and no matter how much we treat them, they may always come back and hit as hard as they want to. I’ve been having depressive episodes every day for about two weeks, and I’ve been having depressive episodes nearly every day for two months. I have trouble remembering what I need to tell my psychiatrist some appointments. Even with a note in my phone, I would never get to it in therapy. He won’t be happy when I tell him that I’ve forgotten to tell him about the depressive symptoms for the last few months.

Still, I am hopeful that my psychiatrist will find an adjustment to my medications that will bring me back to a semi-normal mood. I am hopeful that he will encourage me to keep working out, which he knows is more than I’ve done consistently in years too.

I have plans for my next blog post, thanks to a friend who was essentially curious about what growing up with mental illness was like. If you have any questions or comments, please shoot them my way via my business email (on my “about me” page) or my social media accounts, which can be found at the top and bottom of this page.