It's Just My Mental Illness

I've tried to be open and honest about my mental illness since my late 20s. I currently volunteer telling my story through NAMI MN. I've been doing that for almost two years now. I started this blog to tell my story about my mental illness and how it affects my life.

I knew I was going into some sort of swing about six or so weeks ago. I was getting irritable, especially with kids. I don't get irritable with kids. I have a ton of patience for kids. When I found that every child except my own was getting on my nerves, I tried the tools I've learned. I tried catching up on my sleep, meditating, journaling more, journaling less (so I wasn't obsessing), getting back into yoga, taking small walks, staying AWAY from kids, etc. Nothing was working.

I got into a huge fight with Shawn one morning. I knew it was because I overreacted to the situation. I was able to take responsibility for that one, but I couldn't believe that my reaction was so out of character for me. That day I went to Hope Prayer Cabin. I had reserved it a month or so before, and it just happened to be the perfect day to go there. It was so peaceful, and I was able to do a lot of thinking. I came home knowing I needed to discuss with Shawn exactly what was going on with me.


I told Shawn about how I was feeling a day or two before my appointment with my psychiatric nurse. I can barely remember the conversation except to remember how incredibly supportive he was. When I did have my appointment with my psych nurse, we discussed which medication could be increased out of two. I decided which one I wanted to increase, and I started the new dose the next day.

It's been a week, and I am feeling so much better. Tonight we increased the dose again, and I hope to be back to my relaxed self within the next two weeks. My psych nurse said I should feel much better after three weeks of starting the increased dose. Just already feeling better is a relief. I'm handling kids much better. I also have some medical issues going on that could be stressing me out more than they are. It's not like I don't care about them. It's just I'm not stressing about them so much.

I'm going to throw some random photos in here of the laziest animals ever...




...and how about a couple of pictures of myself with one of the handsomest sons ever?



Until the next dirt...

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