Welcome to Mercy

 I've been sitting in front of a blank screen for hours now, trying to figure out what to write.

For days I've been trying to come up with a good bipolar story to share. Alas, I have nothing. I just can't think of a story that won't hurt someone's feelings.

I spent a wonderfully quiet night at the Mercy Prayer Cabin. I couldn't resist putting my luggage down and snapping some pictures as I was walking up and in. If you want to know why I find such peace there, just take a look at these pictures.

I'm pretty sure I spent the majority of time on that little loveseat, reading and writing in my journal in front of the fireplace. I also slept a lot. I knew I needed the sleep.

As I was leaving the prayer cabin, I saw this beautiful deer. It made a wonderful ending to my time there. It just walked around and let me take its picture. I sat there watching it for a couple of minutes and taking a few pictures.

I've been looking at the symptoms of mania, the ones that I've been trying to ignore, and I've determined that perhaps I am entering a hypomanic phase. My irritability has been out of control, and that was even before the accident. I've also been paranoid, although I didn't realize it was paranoia at the time. I was thinking that people were purposely shunning me. Perhaps they were, but perhaps I'm just not trying hard enough. It's hard to say. My lack of wanting to sleep should have been an immediate indication that I needed to talk to my psychiatric nurse. I have an appointment with her this week, and so I'll be sure to talk to her about my concerns and stop things in their tracks before they get any worse. I don't need a full-blown manic phase that ruins my life and relationships.

I have a tendency to think that people don't like me. I have resting bitch face and angry eyebrows, and I always thought that made me come off as unapproachable. I think that most strangers would find it interesting to know that I'm very approachable and warm and easy to talk to. I'm an excellent listener, and I tend not to shut up once I warm up. My friends in school used to call me the "mother" of the group, because I used to listen to their problems and be a bit of a solver, make them cakes on their birthdays, watch out for them, and just be there. All my life I wanted to be a mother, and I loved playing the role. It kills me now that I don't have friends outside of my sisters.

So a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to Nick that we should get a new car and have Bryan buy Tina, the 2010 Prius we currently own. He took "new car" literally, which I was not expecting. Meet Karen, my beautiful new Prius.

I know a lot of people give us crap about owning a Prius, but these cars whip. The yee-yee trucks get all sorts of pissed off when I go flying around them when they're putzing around taking their time. Then they speed up, go around me revving their engines, and end up slowing back down again. I just shake my head and laugh. This Prius is named Karen because she's not putting up with anybody's crap. She wants you out of her way, and she's not afraid to go to the manager. (Sorry to any Karen reading this that isn't like that.) I know most of you who are friends with me on Facebook have seen her, but I thought you'd enjoy the backstory.

I have an assignment to get done for my creative writing class, so I'll sign off for this week. Until next week's dirt...