One of my goals for this morning is to write this blog post and make a YouTube video on the disorder of bipolar disorder. The title for this post came to me shortly after I was done meditating, one of my habits I do consistently. It dawned on me that Bipolar Disorder isn’t just a disorder of the mind, it creates disorder in your life. Is messiness a symptom of bipolar disorder? I think so. I’ve also found that tackling my life’s disorder also helps me to manage my bipolar disorder.
This morning I woke up early, at 5 am. I was pretty proud of myself because I have consistently stuck with my sleep routines for over a week. Woot! My house is looking great, and I am making great progress with my second ninety-day transformation. Although I haven’t completed everything, I have been making steady progress toward completing all of my goals.
Last week I was discouraged because I had already fallen off track on my goals. One of them was to write a blog post for Girl with Blue Energy every week. And, up until today’s post, I hadn’t written a single post. I have made a few YouTube videos for my Girl with Blue Energy channel, but my goal was to write one blog post a week and make one video per week. I am determined to complete all of my goals this time.
This time I made my goals achievable and realistic, so if I don’t complete them I will be disappointed with myself. I also want the self-confidence you get from completing a goal. This leads me to this morning’s meditation. When I meditate, one of the things I do is make decisions about my day. I don’t always do this, but if I am struggling with which items to put on my to-do list for the day or if I can’t make a decision on what to do first, I often bring it to meditation.
As I contemplated all the things I need to do – the emails and voicemails I need to reply back to, the content I need to create, and how much my fingers and shoulder hurts from overuse, I thought I don’t have time to work on writing my book. I also don’t have time to work on writing a blog post. Maybe I’ll just make a quick video instead.
But, this is not what I wanted for my 90-day transformation. I wanted to create great content for my blog and my YouTube channel and work on my procrastination and writer’s block issues. And, then today’s topic hit me as I looked around my clean kitchen. What do people with bipolar disorder struggle with – disorder!
As soon as I thought about this, I went and did some quick research. I never know if I am the typical person with bipolar disorder, or if my issues are anomalies. I don’t think they are. There are a few mental health and neurological issues that are often comorbid with bipolar disorder, one of them is migraines and another is OCD. It took me years to realize that I had OCD. I always thought people with OCD were clean freaks. I think that is a misconception. OCD can take numerous forms, and I am just now learning about it.
You might be surprised to read that messiness and hoarding are forms of OCD. I am not a hoarder, quite the opposite. But, I have always struggled with tidiness and order. Messiness followed by manic cleaning is just one symptom of bipolar disorder. One I know all too well. I have always been one to get my house manically in order and keep it that way as long as I am manic. Just for it to fall into utter chaos and disgustingness when I am depressed. I have gotten my house the cleanest of clean only to find it later to be the messiest of messy.
People with bipolar disorder struggle with routine and order because of our illness. But,\order is what provides the most stability for bipolar people. This is why I talk about it and the things that help me to get my life in order. For me, that is a consistent sleep routine and a bare minimum of doing my three habits – making my bed, doing one load of laundry, and doing the dishes before I go to bed.
And today, I feel a tada in my progress. I completed one of the 12 blog posts I set out to write during transformation day two. I worked on writing my book, and now to make my YouTube video.
If you have bipolar disorder, understand that life starts getting better when you start working on putting some order in your disorder.
Patty
The Girl with Blue Energy
