well, it is sunday already. have kinda enjoyed the weird experience of having "family" visit.

there ARE a lot of issues, which my son, my father and I will attempt to address today before they go.

I will turn my mind towards finding a flatmate; now that I have got my mental health more stable, I have grieved my ex a bit, and I will have had my visitors come and go. All things that privacy is great for!

I do a mood chart each day and I'm starting to be quietly encouraged by my consistency of daily mood. I fluctuate a lot during the day but the differences between the days is starting to even out with these mood stabilisers.

the past three weeks of expressing almost each and every emotion here, has actually been good therapy for me (thanks guys), as I slowly climbed my way out of one of the deepest depressions of my life. I intend to keep that safe place in which to explore my emotions, part of my daily healing schedule. It won't need to be as intensive but I will still stay linked in. It will help smoothe out the ups and downs of daily life - and if I can do anything to help others while I'm here; all the better.

I've starting to put together some kind of loose routine (plan). I don't expect to keep to it; but will be stoked if I can. It is more a guide than anything; an objective plan of trying to bring what I most value into my life via my daily activities.

"If it is to be, it is up to me"
I could easily feel lonely today but I will try to "fill myself up" with activity.
I'm going to do my laundry. I'm going to have a spa. I'm going to give myself a manicure and facial. I'm going to warm myself up in the beautiful sunshine. I'm going to sweep and mop my floors. (I might even try to psyche myself up to get my haircut - just a trim at a bargain basement hairdresser - that will make me feel good). I might think about values and try and set some realistic medium term goals. I might look over my notes on the values course I did. In the interim I will:
1. Notice my experience without getting caught in the experience.
2. Breathe deeply into my diaphragm.
3. Do just what is need in each situation.
4. Keep an eye on my objective and do what is necessary to achieve them.
5. I will cheerlead myself
6. I will do pleasant things that I enjoy
7. I will laugh. I will find things to laugh at.
8. I will imagine my life how I want it to be.
9. I will make my environment, clean tidy and pleasant to be in.
10. I will recognise everything I have in my life; and allow myself to feel gratitude for all I have.
11. I will feed my mind with interesting content and get it to process information (it needs to eat too).
12. I will go for a walk and hear all the sounds and really observe things I can see on my walk. I will notice if I can smell anything, what the temperature feels like, how the sun feels, how my body feels on the outside and on the inside.
13. I will deeply accept the realities of life; the things I can't change and have no influence over.
14. I will do just what is needed to meet my objectives in the most effective way possible.
15. I will observe my emotions and understand what they do for me.
16. I will look after my physical health and do thing that I enjoy.
17. I will let go of painful emotions by focussing on the present moment.
18. I will act the opposite of painful emotions; to help them subside.
19. I will accept that every feeling is acceptable, and I have a choice over my behaviour.
20. I will accept that only thoughts can be irrational and good decision can made despite intense emotion.
21. I will accept that pain is a natural part of life and I can choose to tolerate whatever level of pain I happen to experience.
22. I will keep hopeless relationships ended
23. I will accept that some situations cannot be fixed
24. I will act in a way that keeps me feeling good about myself
25. I will state my boundaries clearly
26. I will ask for what I want or need
27. I will accept low intensity situations as they are
28. I will try to change high intensity situations
29. I will try to get what I want in situations
30. I will nurture my relationships
31. I will keep respect for myself

Okay, that is my bootstraps pulled up... I'm going off to tie them now so they don't loose and I don't trip over the laces

Hi Cracked,

I think you'll enjoy this story. Yesterday when I was about to park my car at home, and "psychic lady" popped into my head and I spontaneously decided to go visit her, to repay the money she lent me. (She wasn't home at the agreed time on a prior occassion). She invited me in, gave me a mandarine and glass of water and said. "Sing! You need to sing girl!!" I was like "WTF? Huh? Say What?". Next thing she is setting up her Karaoke system and sticking a mic in my face. I was like "I can't sing". She said, "Doesn't matter, you just gotta get that singing out of you, girl". I was like "Oh, okay ". The first song I didn't know, but from then on we were fine. I had so much fun belting out these songs with this woman, because it was just us, no observers and we were both singing. My uni friend and I used to do that to music too, (without a mic of course). I have a Karaoke party to go to the Saturday night - the one after the one coming up, and I'm going to TRY to give it a go, no matter how intimidated I feel with the other 100+ people there - even if I sound like Cameron Diaz in that really bad movie! haha.

You seemed to like the story about psychic woman at the train station and you love singing, so I thought you might enjoy me recounting that funny little incident.

This woman doesn't even know my name - and she invites me into her home and sets up Karaoke for me... it was a blast.

I've got to decide what I am going to do about the outcome of my court case. Sure I don't like it but I'm taking a realistic look at my resources. Do I have enough to achieve justice? Probably not. Can I find a place to suck it up and bear the financial burden. Probably not So what is this black duck going to do? I can see four options and none of them seem fantastic. Time keeps ticking and I feel blocked.

The same with my accommodation situation. The rent is $50 under my total income and I've been living like that for six weeks. It's not sustainable but again I feel stuck. If I go and rent a room, storage is so expensive, it is false economy. If I sell my stuff, I would generally have to accept I would be selling it at rock bottom prices and would probably need to replace again at some stage at a higher price. How can I transcend this situation? How can I create a sustainable accommodation situation that limits my degree of financial worry somewhat without having me paying top price to live in a "brothel"?

The telecommunications company have officially done my head in. After 9 months of barely providing a service but me paying top dollar for the service, I've had it. But I live in a remote area and I only have the partially government owned telco to chose from. I don't want to hear "well if it was up to the fully privatised telco's you wouldn't have a service". Because I DON'T have a reliable service and am still getting charged TOP DOLLAR for having one. The Ombudsman might not as well exist. They are merely who you have to go to get Telstra to provide any basic service; the Ombudsman don't concern themselves with the chronic telco issues.

Now I'm ready for some really good solutions to open themselves up to me in these three pesky situations. I want resolution and I want the outcomes to be fair. I've been shafted on Problem 1 and 3. Problem 2 is just an unfortunate situation which I need to make adjustments to somehow.

I had something close to a "function" day today - the kind of day the rest of the world has and thinks nothing of, but that we with mental health issues delight in and feel incredibly grateful for. Nothing extra wonderful happened today. It was just a normal day - and to be able to experience that was extra wonderful.
The day started with an intense session with my high calibre pdoc. It then moved to an hour with my state of the art chiropractor. I then went and picked up my delightful son and we grabbed some Subway which we took to the beach and then we went off and did some other things. I noticed his father drive past on his way home after work, so I dropped our son back off to him in case my afternoon appt with the chiropractor went over time. Over time it did and I was 5mins late to our son's psychologists appt.
The psychologist diagnosed him with depression but admitted she was not qualified enough to differentiate between ADD and early onset bipolar symptoms to get a correct diagnosis. I appreciated her awareness and honesty around her capabilities. It was a positive session where she indicated she would be very interested to support us with any of the non-medical, no-biological aspects of things; and that is a vital part of any treatment. She agreed correct diagnosis and medication had to be the starting point though. I felt good that we were on the same page. My ex-husband also contributed to the discussion. We saw things really differently but we both were happy not fo hold too tightly to our positions - and met each other in the middle...funnily enough, it happened to be the same place where the person who this is all about, was positioned - our 14 year old son. My pdoc had given me good list of child pdocs, and my ex-hubby agreed for me to take on that side of things; sourcing the most effective doctor and orchestrating the referral etc. (On a side note, it was so cute - on the way to the car, he showed me a photo of the blonde bombshell he has been dating for the past three month... and I went "Whoa! How did you do that good?" And he said with a smirk "Yeah, I reckon!").
After the appointment was fun as we went back to my ex-husband's place to meet my father who was waiting to take our son away on a road trip for a week. My father would be bipolar for sure but there is much more wrong with him than that. He is the type that doesn't wear shoes and has his testicles hanging out of his shorts. I lay down the law; no drugs, no alcohol, keep your balls tucked in and your pants on (your grandson is still having nightmares!) etc. I managed to make a joke out of it; which would have more effect than a hostile approach. (Honey rather than vinegar). Our son has his mobile on him fully charged with emergency numbers on speed dial. We are not overprotective. My dad is extremely erratic and we have given our teenager everything he may need to help manage anything untoward. Neither his father and I trust my dad, but we really trust our son. Hopefully our boy will enjoy the few days of adventure with the only grandad he has and rarely sees. The lines of communication are open and his father and I will sort out anything that arises.
There was sooo much in today in a deeper subconscious level and I'm pretty exhausted. Really glad to feel that it was a day I "lived" through rather than dragged myself though. I feel functional just atm. . Thanks for reading