Tarly Tries to Take Over the World: II -- Dealing with my scatter-brained sidekick

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

FWIW there are other diagnoses for "Lower grades" of bipolar, they are known as mood disorders. Back 20 years ago when I took abnormal psych in college we were still using the DSM-IV, so I might be out of date on things but I suspect you more likely have one of those lower grade ones. I just googled and cyclothymia is still a diagnostic. I'm only going off what you post here, and am not trained to be a diagnostician, but I don't think you go full manic or full depressive, based on how I interpret what you describe.

[Stronkey Kong]

5 hours ago, Snarkyfishguts said:

Well, mental illness is not a setback in the publishing world-TRUST ME. And honestly, most authors have mid-list success, earn a modest sum, and have day jobs. And given how much you are writing now, I think we can safely call you an author, just a  pre-published one. 
 

IF you meet the criteria for a type of bipolar disorder,  it doesn't really change who you are. It just provides some guidance for maybe some behavioral changes, medication, and possible therapies to help ease what is keeping you from moving forward in life.  But you will still be you. And remember, that was just a question, not a diagnosis. This was just an intake to determine if therapy is appropriate and if that therapist has the knowledge required to help you. 
 

Lets talk about this sandwich on a croissant. Was is flaky and buttery? I used to love croissant sandwiches. I think I am gonna look for croissants when I go to the store next time. I mean, its really just food perfection, right? What kind of cookie did you get? Was it chocolate chip? Cookie cookie cookie. I’m hungry. 😂

 

 

It wasn't the best croissant, and the sandwich was kinda mushed into cling wrap... but all the ingredients were there and I love a good turkey club so it was still a nice break meal from the routine diet.

 

4 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

FWIW there are other diagnoses for "Lower grades" of bipolar, they are known as mood disorders. Back 20 years ago when I took abnormal psych in college we were still using the DSM-IV, so I might be out of date on things but I suspect you more likely have one of those lower grade ones. I just googled and cyclothymia is still a diagnostic. I'm only going off what you post here, and am not trained to be a diagnostician, but I don't think you go full manic or full depressive, based on how I interpret what you describe.

 

Well...

 

I have had at least two episodes of full-blown mania... never hurt a fly... and these were both before I joined NF. I've probably had several episodes of hypomania since, and perhaps even very recently like within the last month... hence times where it's difficult to concentrate on this big ambitious thing I want to do, work etc.

 

And I've had the depressive episodes. The worst of those occurred since I've been on here, but of course I'm usually not posting when that happens.

 

And still, both mania and depression have been relatively mild and manageable the last few years. I recognize signs and triggers and manage them.

 

=========================================

 

I typed the above before I left for work but forgot to post it.

 

 FML I had a burger. Our manager did his usual Thursday night dinner run. We got burgers from a burger place that has a heavy metal theme... all the food is burnt* and the burgers are named after heavy metal bands. I got the Mastodon: which had fried onions and bbq sauce. Somehow that symbolizes the band Mastodon.

 

* like burnt just right. Like past perfectly browned, but not quite all the way to "Oh fuck! We got get these offa here. The buns and fries anyway. It suited the bun well, but the fries were too much. I like when I get a couple extra crispy fries at the bottom, but the whole serving was like that.

[Stronkey Kong]

I got on the wheel after work. 30 min 330 calories... I just got on, warmed up, then pushed myself to peak cardio range 150-170 bpm) and maintained that for about 10 min.

 

Then I wrote 1267 words... including one of the most fucked up sentences ever written in the English language... and many of you have read my drunken hijinks NF posts. All in one hour without even sprinting. I'm still gonna need at least 1200 more words to wrap that story up though.

 

At some point, in the near future, I'm going to take a vacation from work and quit drinking coffee.

[Snarkyfishguts]

Ugh. I am disappointed in your sandwich. But I’m glad you liked it!
 

a well done burger can be an amazing thing, especially when its seasoned really well. It sounds like there’s nothing to regret here. I think a vacation is an excellent idea!

 

i’m going to be giving up coffee too, if you want a buddy.  I’m tired of the way it stains my teeth and Its starting to hurt my stomach 🥵

[Stronkey Kong]

On this day July 17, 2020, Chris Tarly stopped drinking caffeinated beverages and committed to continue this practice for 30 days until August 17, 2020.

 

I'm not so worried about what it's doing to my teeth and stomach, but I do have to think about my concentration levels and mood.

[Snarkyfishguts]

14 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

On this day July 17, 2020, Chris Tarly stopped drinking caffeinated beverages and committed to continue this practice for 30 days until August 17, 2020.

 

I'm not so worried about what it's doing to my teeth and stomach, but I do have to think about my concentration levels and mood.

YOU GOT THIS! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!  

 

I hope you find positive results in your mood and focus! How do you feel today?  I feel a little wound up, like "hey hey hey hey hey" but not in a bad way. But I might work out early. heyheyheyheyheyheyhey   

[Stronkey Kong]

On 7/17/2020 at 4:42 PM, Chris Tarly said:

On this day July 17, 2020, Chris Tarly stopped drinking caffeinated beverages and committed to continue this practice for 30 days until August 17, 2020.

 

I'm not so worried about what it's doing to my teeth and stomach, but I do have to think about my concentration levels and mood.

 

On this day July 19, 2020, Chris Tarly began drinking coffee again and regained the will to live.

 

Seriously. Quitting coffee cold turkey was to much at once. The first 24 hours were doable. I was tired, but it was doable. Then yesterday I was only awake for 6 hours. All I did was watch Netflix and eat. Total mess. I slept in until 8 pm, then was awake until about 2 am, passed out in front of the TV for a while... I have not done that in years... then laid in bed cat napping in a downward spiral of depressing thoughts until 8 am. I got up and had a cup of coffee, and a while later I felt normal. But now my weight is at 260 again because I'm stuffed, bloated and retaining water.

 

So... what did we learn?

[Snarkyfishguts]

2 hours ago, Chris Tarly said:

So... what did we learn?

That you need more sleep. And coffeeeee.

 

 You can have my coffee too!

 

[Stronkey Kong]

Weekly Summary: (keepin it brief)

Nutrition: Made some shitty choices toward the end of the week (burned heavy metal burger, and burger king). This was because I was lazy and didn' t make lunch.

Tracking: Measurments suck this week. Weight is starting to trend up. See previous line.

Workouts: 30 min, 330 calories burned. Not enough.

TtTOtW: Nailed my word counts and am still ahead of schedule to hit 25k by the end of July... even though I took yesterday off from writing.

 

Pinky: Frankly, my intake meeting put me in a rough headspace. I watched some videos, read some things on bipolar. I admit that I do meet enough criteria for a diagnosis, I also don't feel like what happened was beyond my control. For instance, had I stopped and prioritized sleep over procrastinating then pulling all-nighters to meet deadlines... I probably would not have gone off the rails into mania (or whatever it was). And in my "mania" I wasn't completely out of control, just a little messed up for a while.

 

I'm going to continue pursuing some treatment. There may be some things I can get out of it, but I'm not going to assume I need this for the worst case scenarios.

 

===========================

 

For this week:

Make and bring all meals to work. (do not get takeout/fast food, it's not worth it)

Track coffee intake... # of cups per day. Just tracking this week. Not limiting. Then next week, maybe some adjustments/limits.

Get more exercise... I'm gonna aim for 3 x 30 min sessions like the last one I did, warmup, maintain high intensity for 10 min (or more if I feel like it) then finish the rest however.

[Harriet]

It should be interesting to see if you get a diagnosis and treatment advice for bipolar. It might not be nice to open the box, but it can hardly make you worse off to know what they recommend. After all, you can always ignore them and carry on as before  Anyway, I hope they have something useful for you. 

PS What's the next step after the intake meeting?

[Stronkey Kong]

1 minute ago, Harriet said:

PS What's the next step after the intake meeting?

 

Next step is a a few sessions with a counselor (over video chat), then once we know more about what's going on, I can talk with the psychiatrist.

 

With people not being in the office and all the covid craziness... I've been playing phone tag with them. Which means I called once, left a message, then they called back and left a message telling me to call them back. So that's annoying as fuck.

[Stronkey Kong]

 

I have 7267 words left for camp Nano and 10 days to do it.

 

I made a bunch of tracking spreadsheets and graphs so I can track my sprints and daily word counts in google spreadsheets, independent of the Nano site. I really like their tracker, but I'm going to be opening things up and want to hit a steady word count on multiple ongoing projects if need be.

 

And then I did 30 min for 330 calories on the wheel.

[Sciread77]

FWIW, I was diagnosed with Bipolar 17 years ago. It took a while to get meds in order and I still have to adjust things from time to time, but I’ve been able to live a pretty darned full life with it. If you do have it, sticking to mess is critical because it likes to tell you how much more productive you are without them. While you’ll have bursts of creativity and productivity, you’ll spend a lot more time doing nothing creative or productive whilst recovering or spending time in depressive episodes. I could totally see you having bipolar, as well as you having other things that look like it. 
 

In any case, a bipolar diagnosis is rough but a beginning, not an end. In some ways it feels like opening a Pandora’s Box but it’s more like disarming a bomb that’s been counting down. 
 

Mania and hypomania happen on a spectrum. Neither are particularly good for you.  I’m glad you’re aware of the triggers already. A good balance of medication can help substantially. I’m pulling for you. 
 

 

[Stronkey Kong]

Bipolar stuff: I tried again to schedule a meeting this week. But I got bounced around the phone answering service, and once I landed where I needed to be I was instructed to leave a message (since it was after their office hours) and since that didn't work last time, I hung up. I'm not currently in a crisis thankfully, but I'm just planning for the road ahead, so for now I'll be patient.  I'll try again next week.

 

Challenge wrap up:

 

Just keeping this short.

 

I tracked all my nutrition and measurements. I have stalled these last two weeks. It is clear that it is from giving in to cravings for shitty food. However, I'm still doing okay on calories and macros overall. All challenge i was between 2000-2500 cals. Above 100 g Protein. Since I've moved into 200-250 lbs. territory though, the cravings are spiking more often. I need to find a way to deal with this. And to break this plateau, I can't really lower calories anymore since for a 6'1" male, going lower would not be very healthy, and I feel a little starved as it is.

 

I worked out a little bit, but not enough. Lately, I'm only getting one short but intense workout on the stat bike each week. I might be getting a little bored of it. Also this is competing with my writing time.

 

I started writing again, and I'm sticking to it. I decided to jump in on Camp NanoWrimo July for 25K words. I'm at 21614 as of typing this, and I may be finished with 25K by the time the sun comes up. I did the math and I can do it in 12 sprints or less, and its not unfeasible to do that on a Saturday evening / Sunday morning with nothing else to do. I'm working on my cyberpunk novel, but once I hit 25K I'm going to put it on the back burner and let it simmer while I go back to the fantasy book I started last Fall.

 

On top of that, I'm using my word count as an indicator of my mental health. If I'm in a good place I should be able to steadily write 700-1000 words a day. That only takes 3-4 sprints. If I'm a little down, I'm usually skipping, and it could be that I get into hypomania and might have a day where I make 10K words of gibberish. We'll see. More likely, I'd get to that point and I'd be more distracted by other things and get nothing done.

 

===================================

 

Next Challenge:

 

Keep tracking: Diet, measurements, exercise, coffee, word counts

 

Nutrition: I'm going to allow more grains and lean proteins, because... see exercise.

 

Exercise: I'm going to add strength training back in. Bodyweight and barbells. I've been feeling, tight, tired, and weak. Muscles are just getting shitty and not working like they used to.

 

Keep writing: Maintain a writing hour and aim for 800 words or 3 sprints every day.

 

Finish and electronics project: Mini-emulator for Raspberry Pi ZeroW

[Harriet]

 Barbells and writing!!!! Yay! 

2000-2500 sounds like a good, sensible number of calories. For me, anyway. Can't imagine I'd be satisfied on that if I were bigger and heavier. Hmm. No idea how to break through plateaus, sorry. I've read so much on weight loss, and every stupid theory crashed hard when it came time to put it into practice. 

 

Why aren't they answering the phone?

[Stronkey Kong]

2 hours ago, Harriet said:

 Barbells and writing!!!! Yay! 

2000-2500 sounds like a good, sensible number of calories. For me, anyway. Can't imagine I'd be satisfied on that if I were bigger and heavier. Hmm. No idea how to break through plateaus, sorry. I've read so much on weight loss, and every stupid theory crashed hard when it came time to put it into practice. 

 

Why aren't they answering the phone?

 

2309 words to go.

 

Macro calculators all tell me to eat 2500 to lose weight.  Not sure if metabolism slowed because I've been under that for so long... but that just might be another stupid theory as well.

 

They're not answering the phone, probably because I'm calling at the end of the day, because that's when my day hasn't even started yet, and everyone's already mentally checked out. Plus, these people are all probably sitting at home amidst piles of distractions, rather than in the office because that's all closed for covid.

[Stronkey Kong]

Still 1683 words to go.

 

At least if I don't finish this weekend, that's only two hours of dedicated writing left.

[Snarkyfishguts]

1 hour ago, Chris Tarly said:

Still 1683 words to go.

 

At least if I don't finish this weekend, that's only two hours of dedicated writing left.

That is awesome!

[Stronkey Kong]

944 left to go.

 

Just did a sprint with 417 words. So three, maybe only two sprints left.

 

Addit: 653 left to go.