Nope, still up

I can't believe I'm still awake, but I am. I have horrible indigestion (not that I've eaten that much today) and lying down is uncomfortable. But I just want to do it anyway. I want to sleep. I want to dream. But I can't. So I'm sitting here desperately searching the internet for something to do. I might just end up playing Angry Birds, again.

I hate insomnia.

And of course, there's all sorts of things I could be doing with my time. I have some thank you notes to write. I could be doing a little work on ... I don't know, something. I could be cleaning my room. But I'm just going to sit here and watch the Twitter feed and see what people in other countries are doing. They are awake because it's normal to be awake right now in their time zone.

I'm in: Stop Self Hate

There's a lovely lady on Twitter (VoiceinRecovery) who decided to start a new campaign to stop self hate. "Because I am ready. I want to prevent eating disorders, self hate, self harm, and radically work towards self love, respect," she says.

And how do you stop self hate? Well, it's the little things. It's all about the self care things you do everyday like eating right, but not obsessing over it. Exercising, but not too much. Everything in moderation. Just being comfortable with yourself. One of the things I've started doing is buying myself flowers. They brighten up my room and keep me happy. I always get different types so that I can have different colors and blooms.

Some things I can do to love myself a little more is forgive myself for gaining some weight. It's ok. I've been through a lot lately, and it's ok to have fallen a bit off track. It doesn't mean I'm a loser or hideous or anything. In fact, I'm probably at a healthier weight now. My body has settled. I need to be ok with it, even if it means buying bigger clothes.

So what can you do to love yourself a little more? Be a little less judgmental? Show yourself the kindness you would a friend.

Stop self hate.

A crazy dance team? Respond!

Check out Amy's response to the high school dance team who did a "psych ward" routine. She's pissed at NBC because they did a story basically saying "what's the big deal?" she's asking all of us who have been affected by mental health woes to speak up for ourselves and say it's not ok to make fun or portray us as zombie-like. So go read the original article and leave a message telling NBC just what you think Of discrimination.

The full monty

So there's a cool chat on Twitter that happens on Tuesday nights at 9pm (#mhsm). Tonight they were talking about disclosure; when and who to disclose to, what the repercussions are, etc.

I'm one big contradiction. Everyone in my life knows I'm bipolar. I tell people usually the first or second time I meet them. I like people to know up front, and I like to have the people around me educated about the illness. I find it easier to just be me and have people who can call me out on my behavior if it gets too one direction or the other. It's also good to have people in your corner when you're not a very good advocate for yourself. Saying, "I don't feel good." to someone who knows how bad you can really feel is easier than getting yourself to a doctor. So really, disclosure is totally selfish.

But hardly anyone knows I'm sober. Isn't that odd? It's not like I care if they know, but I do, sort of. I mean, everyone drinks, and everyone is used to me drinking heavily. It's part of my personality, like being bipolar is. So what happens to a me without alcohol? I'm just finding that out, and I'm not sure I know how to represent myself yet.

Strange, huh? That I should be ok with the debilitating illness and not with the minor alcoholism?

Hashtag, not hashbrowns

I'm finally learning to use Twitter to it's fullest potential, and I have to say, it's a really neat thing. Last night I got to participate in a "chat" with people from all over the world just by following a hashtag (Tuesday nights follow #mhsm) about mental health. Someone started the conversation (NAMIMass), and we talked about the portrayal of mentally ill folks on tv.

Right now, someone started a conversation on stigma. He asked everyone to come out to the Twitter community and say how they struggle with mental illness. It's #whatstigma if you want to follow it. People all over the world are expressing their diagnosis and opening up to the community. It's really an amazing thing to see.

A Twitter chase

“We’re harvesting our lives and putting them online,” Calacanis writes in his piece. “We’re addicted to gaining followers and friends (or email subscribers, as the case may be), and reading comments we get in return. As we look for validation and our daily 15 minutes of fame, we do so at the cost of our humanity.”

I thought this was an interesting quote. I suppose I'm right there with them; putting my life in the public eye; even though I'm doing it anonymously and I don't read comments (not cause I don't care, I just don't remember to). But it's attention-getting all the same.

I got to this site via an interesting article on suicide on the web. It all starts with the @WhiteBentley story which broke on Twitter. A man was leading police on a car chase in L.A. one night, and someone created the Twitter name to tweet as if they were the person. People all over tweeted about #white #bentley, and in the end the man committed suicide. I'm not explaining it well (read the article), but it talks about how people lose their humanity online. People were egging this man on, talking about how he should just kill himself and save the city some money.

It's fascinating to see social behavior. We like to believe in the good of people at their core, but episodes like that and 90DayTania (another piece in the article where people were egging on this woman's suicide - thank God the blog was a joke) show the inhumanity of people online. We all put ourselves out there, and sometimes receive amazing support from like minded folks, but a lot of times the public can turn against you.

Be careful, bloggers.

Riding the waves of depression

"Feelings are like waves, we can't stop them coming but we can choose which ones to surf."

Can I surf this depression and ride it to the end? I feel like I don't have a choice with depression. I have to surf it, or it will drag me under. It's like a riptide, pulling you back into the ocean, far from the shore. If I get on my belly and surf the tide, I'll make it back to shore. There's always the fear that I'll fall off and crash, or I'll hit the shore too hard, but I think surfing is the best way to do it.

Tweet me!

Lord help me, I started Tweeting. Yep, it's technology-ville over here! I'm on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and if I had a cool phone I'd be doing FourSquare. As it is, I think blogging and updating status' all over the place is enough for me. I can't do any of it on my phone, except send tweets, so I'm sure it's all going to go down the wayside once I get a job.

For now, come follow me at #Sobrietybites. Or at least, I think that's how you do it.