Bipolar Disorder and Sleep Patterns Poll – Closing Soon!
A couple of weeks ago I posted a small piece on Bipolar Disorder and Sleep Patterns and in that piece I added a poll.
This poll has now been running for a couple of weeks and although I have been very grateful to fellow bloggers who re-posted/re-blogged about the poll and encouraged their readers to participate I have to admit the number of folk actually participating to date has been quite poor.
What I don’t want to happen is for the poll to simply be forgotten or to simply run on endlessly with no real results no matter how small. So I thought it best to set a date when I will close the poll and since the poll was launched on the 19th of January the 19th of February seems a very good date for this poll to close.
So that then is the official date for this poll closing: February 19th, 2012.
If you haven’t had a chance to participate in this poll but would like to you can find it here. Bipolar Disorder and Sleep Patterns Poll.
I really would like to thank all my fellow bloggers for taking time to publish this poll and to encourage their readers to participate. Once the poll is closed I will then publish the results so that everyone can see the percentages.
Again many thanks to all those who took part and who encouraged others to take part.
Kind regards,
Kevin
But Soft! What Light Through Yonder Window – Oh who cares, just turn it off!
LOL No I have not been invited to take up the role of Romeo and prance around Capulet’s Orchard in tights in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s next performance of Romeo and Juliet. (Now there’s a mental image no one needs to have – me prancing around in tights)
And NO the light is not SOFT!
It is piercing and frustrating and whilst I am very grateful to God for blessing us with the sun and all its radiant light and warmth (much-needed warmth at the moment I might add) when you haven’t slept properly for days, the presence of that light though yonder window can be just a little irritating!
But actually it is a different kind of light that I am thinking of and very much grateful for at the moment. The light at the end of the proverbial tunnel and hopefully it isn’t just another on-coming train!
Over the past few days a great deal has been happening…
Lots of re-wiring being done in my house – for which I am very grateful and most delighted with the results,
A way too complicated design and printing job that I undertook for one of my neighbors, which is now finished!
Conceptualizing and Designing a new blog – which I have now also finished.
Maintaining a couple of websites.
Trying to sort out my finances.
Trying BUT FAILING MISERABLY to get some sleep!
I think my difficulty with and subsequent lack of sleep is the one aspect of my mental and physical health that I find the most debilitating and harmful of all. It has far-reaching effects on the rest of my health. It makes me too tired to exercise and fight my weight problem. It affects my focus and memory. It affords my mind far too much time to play games or tricks or to explore harmful avenues of thought.
Even the things that I love to do, such as writing and reading my bible, drawing, painting, blogging etc become too great an effort and yet I am so very grateful that I am still able to function to the level I am.
The Bible says ( I think in Psalm 121) that God (he who watches over Israel) “will neither slumber nor sleep” which is wonderful assurance for us all but on a slightly more humorous note if He needs someone to chat with in the wee small hours, I am usually awake and available LOL.
Although with my memory, focus and comprehension impaired the way it normally is when I get this tired, I am not sure how much sense I would make?
I am aware that the bible is not something everyone sets much store by and thus get much comfort from and indeed I do try not to push or to be seen as trying to push my personal faith on others but I will share that one Psalm that always gives me comfort is Psalm 63.
For me it not only recognizes our need but also who is the ultimate source of help and additionally and perhaps just as importantly it reminds me to keep on praising and remaining positive.
My heart goes out to anyone who has difficulty sleeping and I know from some of the comments that I have received and from visiting fellow blogger’s blogs that I am not alone in this difficulty. As for myself, I am so very tired and yet so very grateful for all that has been happening over the past few days and so very committed to ‘keeping on’ and indeed to strive towards that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.
And if it is yet another oncoming train I will just have to leap out of its path! Let’s just hope that my Romeo tights don’t get caught on something as I am leaping.
Oops there’s that mental image again sorry!
A Hectic Day But One So Full Of Blessings!
Ever have one of those days when you have planned just doesn’t happen and yet what does happen is so much better?
Well today was one of those days and I am soooooooo happy!
I had a lay in this morning as a result of my having a particularly rough night with next to no sleep whatsoever as a result of my going through a very rapid cycling phase at the moment with mood swings coming fast and furious.
When I did get up and after I had partaken of my compulsory first cup of coffee – which is to me what antifreeze is to a car engine – I checked my emails and received notifications of the two additional nominations for the Versatile Blogger Award. What an excellent start to the day.
After writing a post thanking those kind bloggers who nominated me I decided that I would do some filing and computer work that I need to get caught up on. Not because of any dead-lines but simply because it has been on my mind of late. But my son and his partner turned up and took me into town for dinner and to buy some equipment for an extensive change around in my Internet system within my home and that my son and I have been discussing of late.
Because I am disabled and as a result of my health I live in a bungalow here in Ireland and one that is fairly long as a result of it having enough rooms for myself, my son, and the live in carer that I am meant to have but absolutely refuse to have.
This of course makes it harder to keep the place clean and tidy and I am a bit of a clean freak when it comes to my home but the main problem is that the signal from the wireless router that was installed in my study doesn’t reach all the way to the end of my bungalow. This therefore meant that it has been very difficult for me to sit in the comfort of my lounge and use my laptop or my android pad.
So Matthew and I had discussed moving the router into the hallway but there were a couple of major problems with this. Firstly there were no power points out there and secondly there were no telephone points out there.
But as I say, today Matthew and Trish took me into town to get some equipment and he has now not only installed a power-point and a telephone socket and moved my wireless router into the hallway outside of my study but also installed a power-point and a second wireless router at the other end of my bungalow. So I now have wireless access in ever room of my home and also in my garden and I am delighted.
Wanting to do a good job and keen to make sure that I remain safe, not only has he done this for me but he has also started to re-route all of the network cabling, telephone cabling and television cabling up through the attic space and down into the rooms. This way not only does it make my hallways look a lot tidier but it also means that there is less chance of me falling over any loose cables should they come free from the walls. It isn’t quite finished but since it is so late we will complete this mammoth re-wiring task sometime tomorrow.
Whilst Matthew was doing this I took the opportunity to install a couple of additional hands-free cordless telephones, one in the kitchen and one in my study and this means that I am now much safer as, since I have a habit of falling, no matter what room I am in (other than the bathrooms) there will always be a telephone handy should I need to ring him or the ambulance service for help.
I also took the opportunity to do something that I have been wanting to do for a very long time now. To clean my wireless keyboard by stripping it down, removing each and every key, and thoroughly cleaning them individually before then putting them all back. Something that has its risks not only because of the various springs and connections involved and the need to replace them all the keys correctly but also because in the past when I have been rapid cycling like this I have started a project of this type whilst manic only to then have m,y mood crash and simply not be bothered to finish it all.
So as you can see today (although technically it was yesterday now since it passed midnight a few minutes back) really was an excellent day. But I am so very drained now and really need to try to rest so I am going to try to go rest. Tomorrow is (as they say) another day and there is a lot still to be done.
Bipolar Disorder and Sleep Patterns Poll – Update
Hi all,
Firstly I want to say a really big THANK YOU to those who have reblogged the polls and encouraged their readers to participate.
I believe that whilst fairly basic, this will be an interesting poll and the more we can get to take it the more representative and thus useful it will obviously be.
For those who have missed the poll it is split into three sections and each participant is asked to give one (the most accurate for them) answer to each section. You can find the poll here Bipolar Disorder and Sleep Patterns – New Poll
Please be assured participants names will remain confidential and only the answers will be shared. I am able to confirm that at present 13 people have participated in the poll.
Again many thanks to all who have participated.
Kind Regards
Kevin
She
Very often, when I can’t sleep, my mind starts to wander. And that, more often than not, is not a good thing because it grants liberty to the voices and then to the bad thoughts.
So I divert it, trick it, preoccupy it.
Last night, whilst not able to sleep, I sat in front of the fire looking into the flames and I wondered how I would react if instead of it being me who suffered with mental health issues such as Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder it was a loved one, a lover if you will.
Just how would I feel if I had a lover and if she had Bipolar Disorder instead of me…
She…
She fell,
Ashen and spent.
So fragile and delicate,
upon the hard granite hearth
that is her illness.
Static and empty.
The smallest of movements
created by the gentle wisps of breath
that encapsulated her.
And in her stillness
such beauty and yet such despair.
such fragility and yet such grace.
-oOo-
Only moments before I had been watching,
watching for what seemed like an eternity.
As she danced, spun, toppled, soared, dived, leapt.
Dancing involuntarily to the tune played
by the heat of the fire that is the mania
A fire that I could no more extinguish for her,
than experience for myself.
But now that fire has let her go.
Ashen and spent,
fragile and delicate
she lays before me
and before another world
her other world.
A world as dark, as desperate, and as hopeless
as the fire was radiant and fulfilling and alive.
Another world I truly cannot enter for her
or even hope that I could keep from her.
-oOo-
She.
She is beauty
She is wonderment
She is fire and she is ice
She is flame and she is ash
she is need and she is fulfilment
She.
Bipolar Disorder and Sleep Patterns – New Poll.
Ok here is something different and please understand that this is new to me and so I am still muddling my way through it all – so please bear with me.
As a result of my own experiences, an article I read recently and a subsequent post that I published here on Voices of Glass, the whole question of sleep patterns within people who suffer from Bipolar Disorder has started to really interest me.
So in response to this I thought I would draw up a little poll or three and invite folk to share their own experiences.
I really hope you enjoy doing this and that I haven’t messed up the design of it.
Below you will find three very short polls. All you have to do is choose one answer that is most accurate for you personally in each of the three sections.
Due to the way the polls are set up (or at least my very limited understanding of how they are set up) I have had to keep them fairly basic. So if you are on mediation that affects the answers to the following questions please answer as if you were not taking medication.
Thank you for doing that poll, now please choose one from the following…
And finally this one…
I am so very grateful to you for completing these short polls. I will be covering their results in a later post but I think I have enabled you to see the percentage results yourself.
If you run a mental health blog yourself, I wonder if you would please consider covering or reblogging this post and placing a link to it on your blog so that we can increase the potential numbers of folk participating?
Many thanks I really do appreciate it.
Voices of Glass
A deep, dark, damp cellar exists beyond your reach.
In the middle of this deep, dark. damp cellar sits an old rough wooden high-backed chair.
On the chair, bound and gagged, sits a small frightened boy. He is cold and shivering, naked, and blindfolded.
In the deep, damp, all-consuming darkness he sees nothing and yet all too well he knows those piercing bloody eyes look upon him and within him.
All around him sinister voices call out to him. Voices that call out to him with jeers and accusations. Call out to him with lies and humiliations. Call out to him with hatred and degradation. Voices that cut into his very soul like shards of glass.
Too afraid to call back, too tired to struggle, too lost to reason, he sits there frightened, cold, shivering and naked.
His skin scarred by the cuts he places upon himself in order to feel. His heart scarred by the cuts of the sinister voices that shatter the silence of his solitude.
This was a true story. This was my story. Or should I more honestly say this IS a true story. this is my story.
You see in reality, at least the reality that you and I share, I am no longer that small frightened boy for I have grown now. Now I am a father and a man.
And yet what of the reality that you and I do NOT share? What of the reality that is my mental illness?
The cellar – that deep, dark, damp cellar – is my mind.
The darkness – that deep, damp, all-consuming darkness – is my mental illness.
The small boy – that small, naked, cold, frightened, shivering, boy – is the me who never truly had the freedom to grow as he was meant to be.
The eyes – those sinister, bloody piercing eyes, – are the eyes of those who hurt and damaged and misunderstood, mislabeled, mistreated, and rejected the child I was.
The voices – those jeering, accusing, lying, humiliating, hating and degrading voices of glass that cut deep into me – my paranoid schizophrenia.
The scars – those deep, aching, searing, reminding, punishing, and yet releasing scars – on the canvas that is my skin well they come and they go, they fade and are renewed, but on my heart they burn relentless.
No this may not be a reality that you and I share, or even one you could possibly begin to understand or comprehend, unless I dare to let you see it sometimes, but it is still a reality, my reality.
No, I am no longer that small frightened boy for yes I have grown now. Now I am a father and a man. But do not presume that this reality that you and I do not share no longer exists. For exist it does within my nightmares and my fears and yes even within the places I go to when that darkness finds me in my days, consuming me drawing me back to that place where I never should have been and never want to go.
And yet a place that I so desperately need to understand if I am ever going to conquer and escape it for ever.
This blog – this place of desired openness and freedom – is but a journal written in the reality you and I share of the journey that I hope to make in conquering the reality that you and I can never truly share.
And what of Christ?
Doe He truly belong in this reality that you and I share can He even enter the reality that you and I can never truly share?
Yes He does and yes He can and yes He did. For without Him that reality would be dead, dead like the small child it grew within. And I am convinced that without him there will be no conquering, no light and no freedom.
Ransom Note
So there you have it. An introduction into my reality and an introduction to why this blog and what I hope to achieve from it.
You are welcome to come along for the ride, part of it or indeed all of it, well that which I am willing or able to share with you. You are even welcome to contribute and comment.
All I ask is that you take care in your participation. Care not only for me, and indeed that small boy whom you have already met at least in part, but also for yourself. I will value your contributions if I am able to receive them as loving, caring, constructive, comments and contributions and will publish them. If however I am not able to receive them as such, I will not publish or share them and they will simply be rejected – probably only finding their voice within the darkness we have already spoken of.
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