I am dashing this post off quickly, the deal I made with myself that I could only write as long as my coffee lasts. Today is our last official day in this house. We closed on our sale yesterday, and we close on the new house today. When Mike gets home from work, we’ll bring over our first load of stuff (and get our first look at the house as its new owners!), and we’ve rented the U-Haul for tomorrow.

This has been a wild ride. Yesterday, after I finally got to the point in packing where it felt like we were almost done, was the first day I let myself get a little bit excited. Daunted – do you have any idea how much stuff a family can accumulated over twelve years?! – but excited. As I wrote in my last post, MOVING IS STRESSFUL. And it occurred to me yesterday, as I was bawling to a friend about how overwhelmed I was, that my bipolar does not help.

So listen, I don’t want to be, “Oh, it’s HARDER for me than most people!” But, well, I really think it’s harder for me than for most people. For a myriad of reasons, really, but for two big reasons in particular.

1) Lack of predictable routine.  One of my biggest triggers (perhaps tied for first place with people who are condescending) is when my schedule is all out of whack.  Even happy occasions, like the vacation we took a couple of weeks ago, are HUGELY stressful.  It’s not that every day needs to be exactly the same, but more like I need to know in advance  what the day is going to entail so that I can adjust.  I need to take my morning meds at this time, my evening meds at this time, I need to go to bed at the right hour, I need to have enough time alone.  When sleep is short, like it has been lately, I start to unravel.  Throw in unknowns that come with packing and showings and contractors and appraisals and inspections and dates that are up in the air, and I struggle not to fall apart.  And I get that it would be stressful to a lot of people (indeed, stressful to MOST people), but perhaps not to the level of, “OH MY GOD I NEED TO SEE MY DOCTOR. MY MEDS NEED ADJUSTING. I CAN’T HANDLE THIS.  NO, IT’S NOT YOUR MEDS, IT’S JUST STRESS.  YOU’RE OKAY. YOU’RE OKAY. YOU’RE OKAY.” Ad infinitum, day after day. It has taken a LOT of positive self-talk to get through, as well as so, so much reassurance from my trusted people that tell me, “It’ll be okay.  YOU will be okay.”

2) The emotions.  And yes, I wrote about this in my last post too, but it can’t be overstated.  My emotions are RAW.  I mean, bipolar is a mood disorder… my emotions are usually raw.  But right now?  They’re like exposed nerves, excruciatingly painful to even the slightest touch.  All the packing and sorting and emotional letting go has been devastating to my equilibrium, laying bare everything I’ve carefully kept hidden.  I’m an open wound.  (And, again, I’m usually an open wound), but at the moment that open wound is gaping.  And boy howdy is that sucker bleeding. I’m on a hair trigger, angry one minute, consumed with grief the next, getting my feelings hurt at the slightest provocation, paranoid about every last spoken word, gesture, and relationship (the latter of which probably has more to do with the BPD than bipolar, which is… a post for another day)  But suffice it to say, the emotions have been intense.  Preparing to leave this house has been intense.  Buying a new one has been intense.

And don’t get me wrong.  I love the new the house.  I’m excited to move into it and start making it home.  But in the meantime… I’m struggling.  I will be okay!  But I’m struggling.

I am thankful for (in no particular order)

• Pharmaceuticals
• Having an amazing realtor who made it all as smooth as possible
• Having friends who’ve let me boo-hoo all over them when it got to be too much
• Calming tools I’ve learned in therapy, to get myself out of my head, back into reality, and back into the present.  (And in the present there are no problems to solve)
• A family who really does try to get it

We are so close!  So, so close.

My coffee mug is almost empty, there are clean clothes to be folded, and last minute odds and ends to be packed.  I can do it.  I can do tomorrow too, complete with all its craziness.

And when all is said and done, it’ll just be another little blip.  Another tiny notch in the totem pole that says, “Here was this thing.  It was hard, but I did it.”

P.S.  My blog just recently got a spot in this Top Ten Parenting Blogs About Bipolar list. (Which is pretty cool, and the reason I was inspired to write about bipolar today).  Check out the rest of the list!  And if you want to support my work, Patreon is a great way to do that.  You can pledge as little as $1, and help feed my prolific coffee habit to keep me writing.

See you from the NEW HOUSE soon!!