One time I saw a sketch from some old comedy show about a dating service called “Lowered Expectations*.” I’m guessing you can kind of get the gist of it from the name of the service.

To an extent, that’s kind of how I’m feeling about living with bipolar disorder right now. The secret to success at the moment (as opposed to overall, long-term success) is to lower my expectations a bit and celebrate small victories.

Really, really small victories.

So, basically, I am like, “Heck yeah! I put laundry in the washing machine!” or, “Right on! I managed to put the receipts in order by date! Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

Now, admittedly, between bipolar and ADHD, putting the receipts in order by date is kind of a huge thing for me. It also makes me feeling like I’m a step closer to disentangling the horrible Gordian knot I’ve made out of the bookkeeping (the finances, meanwhile, seem to be going along without crashing, mostly because we’ve grown rather paranoid about large purchases since the books are a huge mess right now).

I actually think this might be a good strategy. Yeah, it’s kind of ridiculous, but you know how it is. If “ridiculous” gets you from point A to point B when nothing else will, then you might as well embrace it, right?

This is particularly important because, frankly, doing stuff is hard right now, guys.

Like, I had no intention of writing this post. I paused in my laundry process, sat down on the sofa, and cracked open my lappy for some darned reason. Problem is I haven’t the faintest clue what that reason was — and, in fact, hadn’t the faintest idea by the time I was done logging in.

This happens to me a lot right now.

My mind is feeling clearer right now than it has in a while. I wish I could really explain this — mania kind of gives me mental tunnel vision (though often it feels deceptively like laser focus, which it isn’t); depression makes me feel like I’m walking around with a 2-meter thick wad of cotton wool wrapped around my brain.

That said, it’s still hard for me to maintain attention. I mean, harder than normal. Task-switching is particularly hard; I forget which task I’m switching to before I get through the switch (task-switching is never easy for me, for what it’s worth — like everything else, it’s just harder than usual right now).

Anyway, I’ve done some looking into things and discovered that, unfortunately, my schedule isn’t going to play nicely with the Honors program curriculum, so it looks like that’s out — but I probably will stay until May for reasons I might discuss later. I’ve added an intro-level exercise science class to my schedule because A) it looks interesting, B) it might actually prove useful to my future plans, and C)it’s an online class, so why not? It doesn’t add commute time or classroom time.

I also bought a plain black V-neck t-shirt for ballet class. Up until now I’ve been dancing in my bike race t-shirts, because my gynecomastia makes me shy about wearing plain t-shirts in general. I bought a green version of this t-shirt to go with another outfit and discovered that the fit works well, so I decided to try a black one. The black shirt looks pretty sharp on me. Looking forward to seeing how it performs in class — the fit is a bit more athletic than the average t-shirt I’d wear (go figure). An athletic fit is good because it gives your teacher a better sense of how you’re using your body.

Okay, gonna close here. Obviously I’m still a bit on the uptick. I’ll be going to see my psychiatrist on the 24th, so I’m hoping to maybe work out some kind of medication plan that works. I’m not sure how this is going to work, since Lithium and Risperdal are right fracking out (I was on both in high school, with disastrous results, including the gynecomastia that continues to be a big problem for me).

Keep the upside up!

Notes
*Googled it. Turns out it was on MadTV.