Tag: mania

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Quiet Mindfulness for the Chronically Unquiet Mind

JoLeave a comment

 If you are anything like me, you are tired of your brain performing a never-ending karaoke of that one lyric you know from the song that topped the charts before you were born on constant repeat (I swear I hit shuffle, the button must be stuck!) Sick of your mind treating bedtime like it’s an all-night rave? Well, folks, step right up to the Insomniac’s Club, where fibromyalgia, ADHD, and bipolar mixed episodes collide in a spectacular display of sleeplessness!

But wait, there’s more! Call now, and we’ll throw in a complimentary course on “Quiet Mindfulness for the Chronically Unquiet Mind”! Yes, you heard that right! For the low, low price of your sanity, you too can learn how to navigate the treacherous waters of pain, restlessness, and mood swings while desperately trying to catch some Z’s.


Order in the next 10 minutes, and we’ll even include our patented “Emotional Roller Coaster Survival Kit”! Don’t delay – supplies are limited, but unfortunately, your symptoms aren’t!


(Disclaimer: Side effects may include sarcasm, eye-rolling, and the sudden urge to laugh hysterically at 4 AM. Quiet mindfulness not guaranteed. Actual sleep sold separately.)

  • Start Small: Begin with 5-10 minutes of deep breathing. It’s like dipping your toe in the mindfulness pool before cannonballing into the deep end of enlightenment.
  • Guided Meditation: Find a meditation guide who sounds less like a soothing forest nymph and more like a drill sergeant for your attention span.
  • Breath Awareness: Count your breaths. Lose count. Start over. Repeat until you either achieve nirvana or fall asleep trying. Or pass out. There are multiple options.

  • Create a Routine: Make mindfulness as routine as your morning coffee. Maybe you’ll remember to do it as often as you forget where you put your keys.
  • Grounding Techniques: When your mind’s doing the Macarena, focus on physical sensations. Like how your butt’s falling asleep from sitting still for so long.
  • Mindful Movement: Try yoga or tai chi. Because nothing says “inner peace” like pretzel-twisting yourself while trying not to fall over.
  • Set Realistic Goals: Celebrate small wins. Did you meditate for a whole minute without planning your grocery list? Gold star for you!

  • Use Technology: Download mindfulness apps. Now you have one more thing to distract you from actually being mindful. Irony, thy name is ADHD.
  • Seek Professional Help: Find a therapist who specializes in herding cats… I mean, focusing ADHD and bipolar minds.
  • Practice Self-Compassion: Be kind to yourself when you inevitably get distracted by a squirrel outside your window. Or was that just me?

Remember, finding quiet mindfulness with ADHD and bipolar is like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree – messy, frustrating, but potentially hilarious. Keep at it, you beautiful chaos machines. Who knows? You might just stumble into enlightenment while looking for your lost shoe. If you find it though, send up a bat signal or something, trail of breadcrumbs so the rest of us can find our way too. Til next time gang, take care of yourself, and each other!

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The Circus In My Head… A Manic Shitshow of Thoughts…

JoLeave a comment

I don’t hide where I’m at, smack dab in the middle of a mixed episode and HATING my brain SO MUCH. My mania is making me feel like I don’t have a brain in my head, I can’t retain anything. Imagine your brain is a circus, and the clowns are on a fucking bender. That’s what it’s like living with this bipolar bullshit, especially during these delightful episodes. My mind goes into hyperdrive, spewing out ideas faster than a fucking fire hose. It’s a shitshow, I tell ya.

When the mania hits, it’s like someone cracked open a can of crazy in my skull. Thoughts come barreling in like a herd of rabid elephants, trampling over any semblance of sanity. Business plans, artistic endeavors, get-rich-quick schemes—you name it, my brain vomits it out in rapid-fire succession. It’s a damn three-ring fuckery of creativity and chaos.

The ideas keep coming, faster than I can process them. It’s like trying to catch a swarm of angry bees with a butterfly net. By the time I’ve grasped one brilliant concept, ten more have already buzzed off into the ether. Some are pure gold, others are just steaming piles of shit, but who has the time to sort it all out?

In the midst of this mental maelstrom, I inevitably drop the ball. Brilliant ideas slip through the cracks, overshadowed by the constant barrage of thoughts. It’s like trying to pick out a needle in a haystack made of needles. Frustrating as hell, let me tell ya.
Sometimes, I’ll have a moment of clarity, a flash of pure genius that could change the world. But by the time I’ve finished patting myself on the back, that stroke of brilliance has already been flushed down the toilet of my mind, lost forever in the swirling vortex of mania.

So, how do I deal with this shitstorm of thoughts? Well, I’ve tried journaling, but half the time, I can’t even read my own damn handwriting. Routines and schedules? Yeah, right, like that’s gonna tame this wild beast of a brain. Nah, my coping strategy is simple: embrace the chaos, ride the wave of insanity, and hope I don’t drown in the process.

Look, living with bipolar disorder is a fucking rollercoaster ride through the depths of hell and the heights of mania. The racing thoughts are just one twisted loop in this crazy-ass journey. But you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure, it’s a shitshow, but it’s my shitshow, and I’m gonna own it with all the creative, energetic moxy and humor I can muster.
So, buckle up, folks, and get ready for the ride of your life. It’s gonna be a wild one, but at least we’ll have a few laughs along the way. And who knows? Maybe amidst all the chaos, I’ll stumble upon the next million-dollar idea. Or maybe I’ll just end up talking to myself in a padded room. Either way, it’s gonna be one hell of a fucking adventure. Buckle up! Til next time gang, take care of yourself, and each other.

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Ok, so we’ll try…

JoLeave a comment

Ok, its three and I want to write, lets see how this works out lol.
I said we were going to talk about Mania today, and in a way we will. Its also like talking about the way our brains lie.


I’m manic. I know that. Its a proven fact. But for anyone who thinks of mania as happy, I respectfully disagree.

So what is mania to ME (everyone’s body chemistry is different and mania might look different on you, I’m only speaking about my own experiences).

Mania is my brain on overload. This will make someones eye twitch but I have three screens up. One I’m typing this on, next to me youtube is open on a video I was dancing to a few minutes ago. Its paused so I can continue dancing to it (Too Sweet by Hozier if you are wondering) when I’m done or at 3:50 so I can get my steps in. My top monitor is discord, my kindle is directly next to my hand open to the book I’m reading. And beyond that the tv is on and its an episode I haven’t seen before. Drives hubby crazy when I do this but I can pay enough attention to get the gist of it, and I periodically stop and stare at it forgetting everything else I am doing. And I just did it again, I did my steps watched SVU then sat back down now I need to get back into story telling mode. George has the damn zoomies today I swear.

So now its 3:30. But I’m focused.

Ok so mania to me is, I can’t stop. My brain is already four sentences ahead of me. That’s not always terrible. Annoying, but not always terrible. I think it gives me golden retriever energy (think, comin’ at you with happy but persistent love. smothering you with it). Filling the silence with my own voice, and I HATE my own voice, so I try and drown it out with all kinds of STUFF, from writing here, to catching up on shows and books to chatting, I try and keep at least two things going on inside my brain.

Why? Why not let the thoughts come you may ask. Its a fair question. My answer is that nine out of ten times those thoughts are negative and destructive. They are intrusive and while I used to take in all those bad thoughts, sit with them, probe them, scratch at them, chew on them until I could decide why I felt the way I felt and where the thoughts were spawning from. I can’t do that any more. No one can hate me more than I hate my past self, but that’s where I have to stop. Hating myself for my past mistakes gets me nowhere. Until a Delorean pulls up in front of my home and tells me to hop in, I’m stuck living with what my past self did and how she was. That’s not sustainable. I can’t live in the past. So I fumble and forge ahead with all the grace of a lumbering elephant.


So the multiple screens and such to keep my brain busy so I don’t get any of the REAL BAD intrusive thoughts. These I’m sure many are familiar with. I’m a truly terrible person for what I said to this person that day. Irredeemable who cares its been 15 years, I am a bad person, I deserve to feel this alone, why would ANYONE put up with my quirks, who do I think I am? What purpose do I serve? Am I worth the air I breathe? I’m useless and I’m taking up space/attention/time of someone who has much better things to do.


Do I need to go on? Frankly even just saying that the thoughts are in there is like a little win. I know my heart is good. I know (intellectually) that I am loved. But you see how they attack like that? Like I’ll just be sitting here and forget something and the inner voice comes out ‘you’re so dumb bitch you were JUST thinking a thought, its not important just like you’re not’ then I hear that inner monologue and its like WHOA HARSH! PIPE YOUR LITTLE SELF DOWN RIGHT NOW MISSY! HERE SING NOVEMBER RAIN WHILE I DIG UP A MEMORY FROM 1998 THAT YOU CAN RELIVE AND ANALYZE THE SHIT OUT OF. That ought to keep you busy.

Even when I don’t THINK I’m having them I have them, if someone doesn’t answer a call or a text within like 2 hrs my brain starts analyzing every single interaction wondering what I said or did wrong.

I wish I had the drive and focus to do half the ideas that float by my brain when I’m like this, and I say float because that’s what happens, float, hover, kiss but never really fully fleshing out an idea in my head. Now I have some awesome ‘i’s, and some amazing ‘id’s on occasion but not the real full ‘IDEAS‘, I can’t hold it in my brain long enough to think about them or I bet they would be some doozies that would change the world.

Part of the time I even know its going to happen, I know I can’t change it, so I hold on for the ride. I can be talking to you, looking at you, full on engaged in the conversation I probably even initiated, and my brains like OOPS WE ARE FULL NO MORE ROOM AT THE INN, TRY ME AGAIN AFTER NAP TIME.

It happens so many times hubby says he can see it in my eyes lol now.

I hate that I feel this way, its like an itch just under my skin that I can’t get to. Thing is, I SEE EXACTLY why I am ‘too much’ for others, half the time I’m too much for myself, so I don’t blame people for not liking me. Still hurts but I see their point.

Anyway, that’s just my experience with mania and intrusive thoughts, I’d love to hear about yours, and how you shut up the voice constantly telling you that you suck. You are amazing and I’m glad you are not listening to them, you are cared for and loved and we need you here to anyone who needed to hear it. Til tomorrow guys, be kind to yourself and each other.

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Ok, one of these things has to stop

JoLeave a comment

Ok, it was fun for a minute. It was. I love when I first start being manic, especially after a long depression. I even like it at the beginning of the mixed episodes, its always helpful to get the bursts of energy and inspiration, but see, that’s generally as far as it gets me. I have used every single one of my spoons this week, hand washed them and used them again faster than I could restock them. I have started a lot of projects, I’ve even finished a few (case in point this website, go me!) but I’m just so wiped out!
But my brain is like’ ‘yeah sleep is cool and all but have you ever thought about having an existential crisis? Like for real, whats its all for?’

I don’t know damn it but I don’t think its a 2 am never sleep again problem.

‘Well it is now bitch, enjoy!’



Then today, I had a big thing planned that I wanted to get done. Do you want to know what got done? I went to feed my cat, before I got all invested in a new project. Opened the closet door and couldn’t remember what I went in there for so on autopilot because I can’t sit still I ripped out my dresser drawers and dumped everything. I rolled up all my underwear in one drawer, my bras into another, then the third I allocated to tank tops.

Side note, serious question, what do you guys put in drawers and what gets hung up? This is the third combo I have tried, I don’t wear socks often so I don’t have a lot of them so they aren’t getting their own drawer. Everything else gets hung up or folded and put on a shelf because I like everything out in the open so I can see whats clean, also sometimes if I don’t see it I forget I have it so I end up buying more of something.

So now, that’s clean why am I complaining? Well because I didn’t get what was originally on the agenda finished, or even started, because once I went off on the adventure of cleaning and rearranging it was a train that could not be stopped.

Then, it happened. I looked up and I was sitting in the middle of my closet, my bed was covered, the floor had piles of clothing I’d carefully picked up and folded, or was in a pile to put on a hanger, everything was going great and I was finding a home for everything and then that’s when I realized, I was just DONE. Like I thought I could seriously pass out right when I was because I had lost all my spoons! Like I started today with a deficit of spoons, which was why I’d planned to do other things, things that didn’t require me to go anywhere or do anything. I have hurt myself a number of ways this week, I just wanted to rest and let my body take a breath.

But it was not meant to be, I was mid-mess! So I finished up, not even going to lie, I didn’t go to autopilot but I certainly did a half assed job of it just to be done with it, which just means now I’ll have to redo it and now my closet IS really messy, because all I could do was throw those stacks of clothes right in there and shut the door, I am leaving it for future me to deal with but the overwhelming exhaustion snuck up on me and ambushed me. I know you can’t tell, but I’m very disappointed in myself.

So mania, I love you, I do, you are a fixture of my soul and I wouldn’t be me without you, but could you PLEASE, PLEASE take a small little rest, not a lot because I’d miss you but a little weekend off so I could finish, like, even just ONE of the projects I started I would be ever so grateful. Or, and follow me on this one, maybe my fibro could ease up for FIVE DAMN MINUTES, then me and my mania could go full out flip the house upside down and inside out and clean everything there is to clean? I would take either/or. In fact how about we turn the pain and exhaustion down to like a seven? I think I could get things done at a seven, ideally it would be a zero or one but you know, begging and choosing and all that. So more content is coming, engaging and thought provoking content, I hope anyway, until then if you need me I’ll be wide awake staring at the ceiling or curled into the fetal position into another mess of my own making lol. Be kind to yourself, and each other!