Best of luck! I always have more respect for someone who is trying to improve for the better. You seem very genuine.

May I also suggest getting into meditation, as I think it would align with your goals very well.

Thank you Kevin. Yes meditation! I've recently tried guided meditation, it feels awkward, but I can see the benifits.

Therapy was great today. I left thinking, "my therapist is ****ing awesome". I don't know what the difference is this go around with therapy, but I feel like I'm making a lot of progress. I feel more open with this therapist and I'm more open to listening.

I had a very busy and productive work week. It feels really good to get a lot of things accomplished and I love being crazy busy at work. I do really well in high paced environments. This job has been lax and boring, but this week was different and had me excited to go to work everyday.

I got to watch my wonderful daughter play baseball this week and she killed it.

I got a special treat tonight from my boyfriend and it eased my mind and made me feel pure joy.

I had a good, productive weekend and it made me feel awesome. It's hard with depression to want to get up and clean and cook. With the help and inspiration of my bf, I was able to clean, do laundry, and prep meals for the week. I also spent a lot more quality time with my daughter than usual.

During therapy on Friday, we discussed my relationship and meeting each other's needs. My therapist suggested I try to find more things to do for my bf because he really appreciates acts of service instead of me complaining about what he isn't giving me. By finding things to do for him, my focus shifted and my thoughts changed from wanting to nag to trying to make him happy and he in turn reciprocated instead of shutting down. Sometimes I get to focused on what I'm not getting instead of focusing on what I'm not giving.Good progress.

I was excited to go to work today because I knew I would be busy. I really enjoy work when I feel that I am getting things accomplished and making a difference. I'm looking forward to work for the rest of the week.

So right after posting I got a surprise phone call from a guy friend I went to college with. We talked for almost 2.5hrs. He calls me about every 3 months to catch up and we always talk a lot about work and relationships and what we are both struggling with/working on at the moment.
This is the best part of life, I'm so thankful for the amazing guys I've got to meet and go to school with and work with; I feel so lucky. I used to feel bad that I didn't have a lot of girlfriends in college because I was surrounded by guys and I felt like I missed out, but how lucky am I now to have these amazing guys as friends. I wouldn't want it any other way now.

When you feel this amazing, please consider that you may actually be manic.

I'm not discounting it and I'm skeptical of my emotions. Ive been feeling good for about three weeks now, but I've also been making a concious effort to feel good and change my thought processes and not dwell on anything negative that I might bring me down. I'd be lying if I said there isn't a fear in the back of my mind that I might crash any day now though.
The only sign of mania right now is my sleep patterns; I haven't been sleeping much, but my perception of a lot of sleep might be scewed because of the amount of sleep I needed while in depression. I'm not feeling hyper sexual or unable to fucus. I feel normalized, but with a little extra happiness. The happiness could be from my concious efforts and looking forward to the future (feeling stable in my job, buying a house, and my relationship with code3 feels more stable); I've also had a lot of interaction with friends that could be contributing to feeling good as well. It could be mania, but my hope is that my BP is suppressing and I'm coming out of the depression for a while.

Being busy at work this month has also helped to occupy my mind for most of the day and this not letting me dwell on things and triggers that cause me to start slipping.

Wouldn't it be nice to get to a point where you didn't have to question being happy Jmakin? Like, we could just ****ing feel good and not worry that's it's a symptom of mania and constantly dread the day we finally crash.

sleep disturbance is a significant/conclusive symptom of altered mood.

i would focus less on the quantitative developments (such as: am i manic?) and more on the cold hard facts:

- I have a mental condition
- When I am symptomatic:
--- My decision making skills decrease
--- I will remove myself from hard decision making until I am better
- Things have always found a way to get better

It's a balance - and for you there seems to be two extremes. The ideal is somewhere in the middle. It's not really normal to feel absolutely AMAZING all of the time and everything's great and you're gonna quit smoking and change your life. There's dips, there's times where you're just ok, times where you're pretty good, and brief moments where you feel great. It shouldn't be amazing or awful with barely any in between.

The purpose of my blog is to write about all of the good things going on in my life, and things that make me feel happy, and shift my focus on the good rather than focusing on negative things that don't really matter.
I want to highlight and celebrate all the good things in life instead of complaining, and I believe this will make me happier in general. It's working so far.

Wow, I have such an amazing and giving boyfriend. He and I moved my house this weekend (in a storm). Almost everything that could go wrong did and he was such a trooper. When we finally got to go to bed last night, we had to share the bottom twin bed of a bunk bed and sleep head to toe and this was after he pulled a muscle in his back from doing most of the heavy lifting. He got up this morning and painted and mowed as well. I'm so thankful for him and everything he has done for me. It feels so good to have someone I know I can count on to be there when I need help.

Another busy day at work and I just found out my daughter's baseball team will have a make up game tonight, so I'll get to watch my baby one more time before the season is over. I still have some painting to do tonight in my old house, so I will be going nonstop until bedtime tonight. It's great to be busy, keeps my mind occupied.
It feels really good to not have so much downtime to focus on negative things.

My sister's friend opened a house/rehab for strippers and prostitutes that want to get out of the profession, and my sister works along side her. She has been bringing a few of the girls over at night and it has been so much fun. These are sweet girls and it interesting to hear some of their stories. I thought it would suck living out of a laundry basket in my car for a week, but it's turned out to be okay. I've got to see friends and meet new people.

It also feels great to be moved out of my rent house and done with that. I'm looking forward to spending a couple of months with my other sister and hopefully buying a house soon.

I get to see my baby get her baseball trophy tonight too. Good week all around.

My boss has been getting on my nerves trying to micromanage because she's bored, but I've noticed that I'm just rolling my eyes and laughing it off now instead of getting irritated.

Great job! I noticed a recent difference in your posting, before I knew this blog existed.


Surely there are pillow fights when all the ladies gather?

Look into my chicken palm, look deeply, deeply...

You are feeling happy, happy, happy...

Now! forget, forget, forget...

Thanks Big!

Lol....no pillow fights, just pillow talk :/

So I've had 100 things I've thought about posting here the last week and never go around to it.

I'm enjoying nature being out in the woods. I love to hear the grasshoppers at night, the smell of wild honeysuckle, and watching the sun go down behind the pines. I've had a couple of really peaceful nights.
I saw a 10-12 year old driving an old pickup truck down the oil top and got a good chuckle.....I'm so far in the boonies lol.

Had another good session with my therapist last night. We talked a lot about communication and he wants me to practice this scripted/fill in the blank phrasing with my bf to see what kind of response I get instead of the typical shut down, sweep under the rug, change the subject type of response that's typical.

It's funny how many men at work were following the Women's College Softball world series. A lot of them have young daughters playing softball and they have all become fans lol. It's been fun discussing the games.

good stuff mly. i wish i'd had the wherewithal to seek out relationship counseling years ago.

Yay! Just got a huge thumbs up from my bosses boss on a project I've been working on the last couple of months at work. I've come up with plans to save this company 5000x my salary lol. This is just what I've needed after a roller coaster manic high/low week.

I also played my first softball game last night and had so much fun. Now, I'm so excited and looking forward to playing every week. It feels good to have something to look forward to.

I had the best time at dinner tonight and I'm having a wonderful work trip. Most of the guys are from various countries in South America and they are amazing. We all drink , laugh, talk about life, and have a good time. They are all just so happy and upbeat and can completely separate work from having fun when we go out. I'm also the only woman and they treat me like a princess, I love it! Latin men just treat women so much better than American men, escpecialy men I work with. The American guys are so standoffish , and boring while the South American guys have such dealer human interaction and are more touchy and hug and are so sweet.
We went to a little hole in the wall place and sat on the back patio. It started raining and we could feel the cool air and the mist; it was wonderful, I love the rain. When I got back to the hotel, I saw that there were thousands of fire flys in these open fields behind the hotel. Aaah, it's so relaxing and such a beautiful sight to just lay back and watch the fire flys. It reminded me of when I lived/went to school in AR. There was an open field in the middle of a forest with slight hills. I laid in that field so many nights star gazing and watching the fire flys in the trees(and having a lot of sex lol)...such sweet memories.

A of the South American guys are managers at their various locations. Last time we met one of the managers wanted me to come to his location in Mexico(near California) and it got approved for me to go; hopefully I can make the trip this summer. Tonight the manager from Costa Rica asked if I would come there and he is going to help get it approved for me to come train wink* wink* lol. Yay, I can't wait to go to both places. I'm so happy I found this company and the amazing people ive gotten to meet and enjoy life with.

I wanted to continue this despite some jerks in OOT making fun of me.
I like connecting with people and it really makes me happy, so I'm gonna blog about it.

I traveled 100% my first job out of school(about 8 years ago), and I would always meet other people that traveled for work and would end up having dinner with them. I would just walk up to people and ask if I could eat with them, but more often guys would ask me to join them.
I met two guys that were petroleum engineers on two different occasions. It turned out we all lived just 30mins apart.
One of the guys and I have kept in touch this entire time since the first encounter and text each other once a week at least and just discuss life and what's going on with the both of us. Despite talking for 8 years and only living 30mins apart, we have never met up since our first encounter and we aren't connected on social media. I like it this way and I think he does too. It's like we each have a pen pal or something and know every detail of each other's lives, and have a special bond while maintaining being strangers. It's a special kind of connection that I enjoy and thankful for.

I started thinking about this because the second guy I met asked me to meet with him for dinner in a couple of weeks. Not a date as we are both in relationships, but just to meet. He and I have kept in contact, but it's just been really sporadic. I'm really excited to meet with him. It's so cool to just make connections with people that last so long.