Yet again, I let myself wander away from this blog. I think it is mainly because I always seem to struggle with knowing what to write about on here for regular day-to-day type stuff. I haven’t quite found my niche as a blogger.
So, tonight I sat questioning what to write about. I want to be more consistent in blogging regularly, but that’s hard to do when you don’t have a focus. So, I narrowed it down to a few important topics taking prevalence in my life right now: Bipolar, Body Image, and my Baby.
Bipolar
It’s been three and a half years since I was diagnosed as being bipolar.
Typically, when people hear the diagnosis “bipolar” they think of Type 1 Bipolar, someone whose mood swings are severe and cycle rapidly. Whereas a Type 2 Bipolar usually displays more mild mood swings – hypomanic (excitable and hyperactive) phases followed by periods of severe depression. I fall into the later category.
It’s funny how that simple little diagnosis suddenly made years of problems and struggles make sense to me. In high school I was diagnosed with depression. The problem was, they missed the manic episodes that intermittently popped up, and thus missed the true diagnosis. By missing the mild-manic episodes and only seeing the depression, I was prescribed anti-depressant after anti-depressant. They only seemed to make things worse. I felt fuzzy. I felt lethargic. I felt even more depressed than before. I could never seem to figure out why. Finally, a doctor saw the real issue and gave me a combination of Abilify, Brintellix, and Vyvanse (for the ADHD). Within a few days I started feeling better. Within weeks, I felt better than I had in years, maybe better than I had ever.
Fast forward a few months…. I got pregnant and went off all my meds for the safety of my baby. Then I was breastfeeding and still couldn’t take the medicine I was on before. And, of course, my health insurance wouldn’t cover a trip to a psychiatrist to find a new combination of medications that were breastfeeding friendly.
So, one option for writing would be to focus on my struggle through bipolar disorder and day to day life.
Body
Growing up I was never one of the skinny, beautiful, popular girls. Looking back, I was fairly average. But at the time it didn’t feel that way. It started a terrible, out-of-control, downward spiral. I would feel all these overwhelming feelings and have these crazy thoughts running through my head that would lead me to depression and anxiety. I would binge to make myself feel better. And in the moment, it would work. But it continued to cause me to gain weight and that would make me even more miserable and alone.
Then there were these rare periods where I would be super motivated. I would exercise. And I would restrict my intake or stop eating almost completely. And I would lose weight and feel good about myself. But it would never last. It would be a few days, weeks, maybe a month at best.
And then I would rebound back into the binge eating and be the emotional train wreck that I was before. And gain even more than I had lost. Over and over this cycle repeated.
It wasn’t until I finally got my bipolar diagnosis that I finally began to understand what was happening to me. When my depression kicked in, I would go through a binge phase. And when the manic moments happened that’s when severe restricting and weight loss happened.
For the past few months I’ve been working on trying to find healthier coping strategies to deal with my depression and mania. One thing that has really helped me has been finding a healthier diet that really works for me. I’ve been doing the ketogenic diet since the beginning of November. I’ll post more on that later. Promise! Oh, and I’m training for a half marathon in a few weeks. Disney Princess Half! So excited.
Baby
As I mentioned above, I am now a mommy! I have the sweetest, most beautiful 20 month old baby boy. His name is Joshua and he is the light of my life. There are no words for the joy he brings me. But I promise I will be posting stuff about him now. For example… cute Joshua story:
Jeremy (my husband) asked him to say cat and Joshua responded “Caaaaaat”
Jeremy asked Joshua to say dog and he said “Dooooh.”
Then, Jeremy asked him to say car and Joshua goes “Beep! Beep!”
He is always doing silly stuff like that. So you’ll be getting fun little stories like that now and then. And maybe even some pictures? Idk. Haven’t decided on that yet. Anyway….
If you’ve stayed with me for this long, thanks!! I’ll still be posting my writing of lyrics and poems and other random stuff I am thinking about; but, hopefully you also enjoy the other posts that will come from this new directional focus.
❤ always,
Ashley Grace
A Heart of Grace 