This semester has been so crazy and so busy, I've already been to the hospital because of it. I'm on a very small dose of lithium and doing great with it.

I'm getting married and I want a Christmas wedding. Not just a wedding in December, a wedding with green and red and holly and berries, garland, lights, the whole thing. Like a giant old fashioned log cabin Christmas party. My mom hates this idea. She says none of my siblings can come. I'm not changing my wedding date for them. They're 20 years older than me, they live on the other side of the country, they have never been part of my life, except for one of my brothers. Who is invited, and should attend.

I haven't sent out the invitations. It is October, the wedding is December 22, everyone says this is too early, except my mom. She is going to order new ones just to send to my siblings. I tell her not to, I will send them out. I have been having a bad day, so I change my face book status to say she's a effing b and I'm eloping. Bad move.

What should happen: I realize this is wrong, apologize and my mom accepts and we move on.

What happened: According to my mom everyone is mad at me and she is telling them I have a metal illness and I can't control my self. ( I can so. This is not an excuse for my behavior.) My brother, who may be bipolar and now lives with my mom calls me and scolds me like a 12 year old. (I am 22, thank you. You are not my father nor have ever been part of my life. Good big brother may scold me. Crazy Big Brother cannot.) I get a bunch of emails from my mom explaining how she will have nothing to do with me or my wedding or my senior recital coming up because she will not be where there is evil, and all that comes out of me is evil. She is going to sell all the wedding stuff she bought for me and my dress. She cannot sell my dress, it is in my possession.

I email her and say, I am sorry for my bad language it was inappropriate. She emails me back and tells me to call her. I don't have signal, so I wait a few days until I'm home (I was with my future in-laws). I'm about to call her, but I think to check my email again. She tells me I need to apologize in person and online on facebook for everyone to see. She goes on how she hasn't been eating or sleeping and all this.

My mom put 5 of her 6 kids in foster care because she had a drinking problem. She's been married 4 times and had an external marital affair. Except for one (and now me) all my siblings talk to her. And she looses sleep over this? Seriously?

I did not call her. I understand what I said was wrong. I really don't like my mom because she's been guilt tripping the crap out of me for this whole thing. It's not a simple lecture on how this is not appropriate and all that stuff, it's a huge ordeal as if I wrote a whole book on everything she's done.

My future mother-in-law, who is a wonderful woman, helped me pick out a new location, new invitations, and other things these past few days. And it was fun. It was what I wanted.

So. School is pretty crazy. I'm in my professional semesters, which has a lot of homework. It's only 16 hours but it feels like my 20 hour semesters. (Don't do that. Especially if you have mental health problems.) I started to accept that how I felt in high school was not how life was going to be. I hadn't felt passionate or much of anything in a year. I just wanted to sleep. A lot. Stress and lack of sleep got to be too much. I started to contemplate suicide and for a while thought that God wanted me to die. I didn't feel my usual depressed and what not, just that I should not exist, as if something in the flow of time didn't happen correctly and I was a fluke, which must be corrected. At the third day of feeling like this, I left school early with Fiance and called the crises center. I was involuntarily committed for 96 hours.

If you can help it, don't go in on a long weekend. Go in if you need it, but 3 days without a doctor, eww. Our facilities does not count weekend and holidays as part of your 96 hours (96! Some places have 72. Its a long 4 days). So I went in Wednesday, got out Tuesday and should have stayed until Wednesday, making it a full week. It sucked. I couldn't watch TV, half the time I really disliked the show on the one TV in the rec room, the other half the time I was too ancy to sit still. I went to groups most of the time. One day they were just going to read the rules and do daily goals. I don't have daily goals, I can't practice my instrument, I can't do homework, I can't harm myself in any way (they go to great lengths to keep you safe). So I slept in. At lunch everyone who went to group got a chocolate pudding cup. I asked for one and the nurse explained it was for attending group. She gave me one anyway and said "Next time go to group." Someone else gave me theirs. I generally do what I'm suppose to and you're guilt tripping me with a pudding cup to go hear rules read and be told not to sleep all day? Really.

Anyways. I started Lithium, just 300mg which is pretty small. It made me sleep like a normal person, so unfortunately I was awake for this whole experience. The good news is, I'm awake during the day and able to get all my work done, excellent since I missed 3 days of school in a very heavy semester. I'm able to handle the day again. I feel like doing stuff instead of sitting on my bum all day. Generally I feel great! I'm glad I finally have a med that fixes the bipolar and lets me still function. I just wish I didn't have to spend a week in the hospital.

I think it's time for a good post.
I started working at Kohl's a month ago. I hate doing truck; taking stuff from the box as the box is shoved down the line in horrendous heat and humidity. Not my cup of tea. But it's getting easier. I've done a lot of register shifts, which has made me very happy. I like talking to people and I love circling how much money they saved.

I deleted my mom off facebook. I feel so much better not hearing her dumb comments or listening to her complain about Roger. She has a 10 x 10 house she gives him for free to do around the house stuff. Of course she doesn't give him a list, she just expects him to be her slave. She constantly goes through "I'm going to kick him out"/"we worked it out." I don't want to hear about it.
Anyways, I had my engagement ring re-sized because I've gained weight. I don't need my wedding band re-sized, despite buying them at the same time. So I write a post about it. She comments "larger or smaller" As if she didn't know. It's obvious I've gained weight. I'm sick of these little weight comments. My mom doesn't understand that medicine makes you insanely hungry or low metabolism. It is only caused by what you eat and how much you eat.

I get married in 5 months. Yay! I'm very happy. I finally got done with my month long manic episode. I lost 15 pounds. Finally. Then I got on a new medicine, which slowed down my mania, and majorly added my appetite. I'm trying so hard to loose weight or keep a weight and I can't. It's so frustrating. I'm going to ask my doctor to change to something, until I find someone that doesn't put the 15 pounds I lost in a month back in a week.

I auditioned for drum major and didn't get it. Which is ok. The teacher said those of us who auditioned and didn't get it would have leadership roles. Awesome nice person got drum major, I'm happy for her. My two buddies who tried out got section leader. And I got nothing. WTF? Last year I got alternate for color guard, which I thought if I do good then I can be on guard. Nope. Do all the work, watch from the sidelines. I do not like this teacher. I feel like I'm getting the short end of the stick.

I hated my job for a while. I was unloading the truck, which is hot and repetitive. They keep pushing the boxes down the line while you're trying to get the clothes out. Then the boxes pile up and I get flustered. I got to work register so that makes up for it, sort of. Unloading truck is only for the summer because I have school.

I had to go off Invega, which worked really well. I just lactated....awkward. It's gotten better, but I've been pretty up. It's been awesome, all that hypomanic harmless energy bouncing around! Like seeing the world is super color. Unfortunately this annoys the pee out of people, especially Fiance, who is now stressed because of me. This ruins my manic high, but I don't bottom out. Sometimes I annoy him, and I want to keep annoying him, not knowing what else to do. I haven't done that in a while. I have dreams about cutting. It's almost like that's the real me, I cut and bottom out in the closet then bounce off the walls in public. Pills just cover it up. I have an appointment in two weeks to get back on manic meds.

I wish Fiance would cuddle up to me and tell me everything is ok and that he loves me and he'll hold on to me forever. I feel lonely when he's mad at me. I'm still afraid he's going to leave, and if he doesn't that he'll die. It must be too good to be true. Before the diagnosis and meds everything was such a fight, having friends, having a boyfriend or just someone to talk to. Sometimes I want to self destruct and just spiral down into a void of insanity...

For a while I was pretty depressed. I was crying for no reason and just felt like crap just about every day. The good news is that's in past tense. I started mood charting and found 15 out of 29 days I was depressed on a small level. I took said mood chart to my pdoc and showed him, explained my system and he doubled my dose. YAY! So for one, I don't have to get used to new meds, and two I'm doing very well. I really like my therapist. She understands things, things that the councilors at school just brushed off. Things like, cutting is not ok, we must find a better way to release bad feelings, and suicidal thoughts are not normal, and I have to deal with my mom, but she's still a nutcase.

I have come to realize that things my mom does are not normal. Something about her is wrong. I used to go on another forum for advice, one not meant for advice, to seek help about my mom. Everyone agreed that I was a horrible child and my mom was a kind loving woman. What the hell? She tries. It's not as bad as it could be, but it's not pleasant. I realized the voice in my head that constantly criticizes myself is really my mom's voice. I'm working on getting rid of that voice. I'm working on figuring out how to deal with my mom and her comments.

I got a job at Kohl's, which I think is going to go very well. It helps with the summer boredom, which I get pretty bad. It's also nice having a pay check and being able to build my professional wardrobe at 15% off. I really like how much they put the costumer first and how much power the associates have. We can discount items if they ring up wrong or honor out of date coupons without the managers permission. I went through a five hour orientation and I have some more training tomorrow along with having a buddy. That's a whole lot more training than my last job. I watched videos for an hour and BOOM! I was doing back drive. Not fun for the first time. The manager came in and told us he likes happy employes so that we make happy customers. Finally, someone gets it. I hate how some businesses could care less about employes and customers because if 1 leaves, there's two in their place.