Meltdown

I'm afraid I'm about to overshare, but try to understand what it's like living with issues such as anxiety, bipolar II, and ADHD all at once, all of which are normally quite in balance and do not easily reach the tipping point thanks to modern medicine.

So today had such promise, but it wound up being Lisa and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. It was even our holiday celebration at work (socially distanced and virtual even), and I wore red and black and a jolly Santa hat with a bell on it, but I am so terribly overwhelmed at work at the moment that I didn't let myself take part in the festivities or even enjoy our provided lunch [well, yes, the brownie was good]. It didn't help that I missed my oral meds last night, and because of that, when I went to take them this morning, my holder was empty, because I didn't realise it needed to be filled. So I didn't have the medications that help me focus with ADHD or the ones that keep me from being anxious and falling apart in an emotional mess. Don't get me wrong, anyone would be overwhelmed (I think I've gotten over 25 offsite requests to schedule this week and had several others in-progress). But no amount of breathing or trying to put things into little chunks helped. I did get a lot done, even so, better than a normal day in some ways and worse in others. But I felt absolutely horrible the whole day, had a terrible headache, and didn't relax at all, feeling like a hamster spinning in a wheel while drowning all at once. Most people went home early, and I was going to stay my full shift, but after I started catching small errors I was making, I decided I had to call it a day and left about 45 minutes early, as I was absolutely no good for anything at that point and wasn't going to get anything else accomplished and just might make it worse. So I tried to focus on what I did get done, but on the shuttle to my car there I was, in a Santa hat with a jingle bell, just crying. It's a good thing I had a mask on.

But a couple of nice things happened today. I won parking for a week in March. A man let me go (with my one item) before him at the line at Kroger, where they were really backed up. I got home and had Sabbath dinner, and it was really nice, vegetarian tsimmes with carrots, honey, and raisins, Quorn roast, cranberry sauce, and challah. The company was good. My roommate was very supportive and encouraging, even when he called me at work to see if I was able to stop by the store, and he realised how fragile I was feeling. So the day is ending on a better note. Monday I'll try to hit the ground running with the phone calls I need to make. Tomorrow is another day, and in this case, tomorrow is the weekend, so I'm going to focus on resting and getting back on my schedule. This is the worst I've felt since August, when I had to ask my doctor to change my medicine because I was in a very dark place and was a bit of a danger to myself briefly, something that surprised my doctor, as I'd been completely stable as long as he'd treatment me over the last decade. Since we made the adjustments I've been fine, at worst a little stressed. That worked for a good solid three months. But I missed two doses and it all fell apart. I hate to think that I'm that fragile. But it does mean I need to be more proactive in self-care, definitely.