November Challenge

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