I’m part of a bipolar support group and for the month of
November we were challenged to “choose 1 to 3 things that will make you happy,
is good for your mind or health, that will make you feel better, that will
assist you financially, or that will keep you occupied.” I decided to play. I
have myself two goals. One is to blog. I’m blogging. Check. The other is to
socialize more.
The thing is I’m a very social person, or at least I have
been most of my life. Even on medicine and all balanced I’ve been fairly
social. Lately, however, I’ve had to convince myself that being social is worth
it. My lack of desire to socialize is pretty good evidence that I’m in a
depression right now. If I weren’t depressed I’m pretty sure at the very least
Halloween would have tempted me. It didn’t. I stayed home, lights out so
trick-or-treaters wouldn’t knock, and watched a movie by myself. This isn’t a sob
story. I actually enjoyed myself last night, but I’m not being social at all
and it’s hurting me. Even if some nights (such as last night) are fine, this
constant no social activity thing is starting to eat at me and a good chunk of
me just doesn’t care. And then out of the blue I’ll burst into tears on my poor
husband crying about how I have lots of friends but none of the “hang out with
me” kind. This is true, but maybe, just maybe it’s because I don’t do anything
to hang out with them either. Just an idea.
So my goal this month is to hang out with people. It can be
my husband. It can be my sister in law. It can be kids from school. It can be
good friends. It doesn’t matter. I just have to spend at least 45 minutes of
work-free hanging out every week.
I think this goal has a lot of potential to impact my moods
and even my school performance. I can’t make the depression I’ve been
experiencing just disappear but I can do little things that have a hope of
making a difference. I’m not talking “yay my depression is gone!” difference. I’m
talking “yay I have motivation to do one more thing today!” difference. That
one more thing might just get me through another math assignment, or my English
project, etc. Right now I’m behind in about half of my classes and lacking the
motivation to catch up. I can use every extra minute of motivation I can get.
Hopefully I’m right and being social will help me do better
emotionally and in school. There’s only one way to know and that’s to try it,
so here I go!
Beans
