I'm a bookaholic

 All people with Bipolar Disorder tend to cycle through Mania and Depression through varying degrees. During a cycle of a person might go on spending sprees. When I cycle through a fight with mania, I go after books, and there are specific kinds of books I hunt down. I really enjoy looking for children's classics, Japanese manga, art books, craft books, bad vampire books, and all others along those lines. I'm currently weeding through supplies in my studio but weeding through my books is nearly impossible. I have so many I need to read but just not the time. Excuses, excuses. I need to organize my book collection.

It has a name and it is called Bipolar Disorder Order

I met with a psychiatrist for the first time last week and we have a name to go with what I've been fighting for . these past few years, Bipolar Disorder. Its weird to finally put a name to the face. I just wish we would have known this sooner. There is a lot for me to process but the book I was recommended by the doctor has helped me much and there is still a lot to process.

A Battle with Potassium and Lunch Schedules

I really hate bananas. I don't like the smell or the taste. Yet, I have a pretty bad potassium deficiency,  and needing to take supplements everyday to help me deal with the problems caused by this problem. Bananas, which everyone loves to tell me about when I mention I have a potassium deficiency, is a great source of potassium. Yes, I know this, but I hate bananas.

So here is my list of foods you can have to help your potassium levels when are like me and hate bananas...

• Sweet Potatoes
• Orange Juice
• Beet Greens
• Potatoes
• White Beans
• Dates
• Yogurt
• Tomatoes
• Clams

I found the information here at The Daily Green with more links to different foods rich in certain vitamins.

Now other ways I have found to help this deficiency and the other vitamin deficiencies I am faced with was to have a more stable eating schedule. The most important time for me in my opinion was having lunch which was extremely unstable at the school I taught. Two days of the week I was scheduled to eat lunch at high noon, then two more days I would eat 10 am, and finally the last day of the week I was eating lunch at 10:45 am. Now it wasn't my choice when I got to eat lunch, it was scheduled for me. Without a proper lunch I was pretty strung out by the end of the work day and with a potassium deficiency here are the symptoms I had to deal with on a day to day basis.....(Yes, I was taking my medication every day consistently).

Muscle Cramps Muscle Fatigue and Weakness Irregular Heartbeat Fatigue Mental Confusion Irritability Abnormally Dry Skin Insatiable Thirst Chills Depression Nausea and Vomiting Nervousness Insomnia Diarrhea Low Blood Pressure Periodic Headaches Salt Retention Constipation High Cholesterol Levels Glucose Intolerance Impaired Growth Edema Extreme cases, cardiac arres

`So thinking back to my previous post as to why I went to into IOPT, it makes a lot of sense and I am beginning to see how everything played into everything else.

Intensive Out Patient Therapy,and how I got there.

I have mentioned before, as always, I am dealing with anxiety and depression but I've not mentioned how I am dealing with it. Currently, I am going through intensive out patient therapy to help me learn better coping skills in dealing with the reasons I went into IOPT in the first place.

So why did I go into intensive outpatient therapy?

 I have a very stressful job as a public school educator and I belong to one of the states with race to the top money I was under extra pressure and I was unfortunately gifted a very huge bully of a boss. My boss was the driving force behind me going into therapy. They created a very toxic environment at work for the teachers. It seems a group of us never did the right thing, and could never measure up with the new evaluation system with the addendums being ignored for certain subjects. It was negative comment after negative comment towards myself and my co-workers but of course this boss had her clique of people she loved and measured everyone else up to every day. I heard some horrible things towards people I had come to know well at work.

It didn't stop even after myself and other teachers wrote letters to our local teachers' association and even human resources. 

Yes, I tried to cope with it, I went to individual therapy for a few sessions and got better but it got worse when the school I teach at this year has been placed into the running to be taken over the state government if the school doesn't improve.

So how do you improve a school? Why you fire all of the staff and make them reapply for their jobs with a much more competitive process! Its Genius! (Okay it is far from it and borders insanity).

Added pressures, changing of the guard, and constant bullying from the boss can create chronic stress.

So here I am, on one of my days off, blogging, and making my story known about going into intensive out patient therapy and how I got there.

Looking into Yoga

I've already mentioned before that I'm working through anxiety and depression and I know yoga has helped several people I know with their problems. I'm also a very inactive person because of my work and graduate course load, oh yeah and there's this mother and wife thing I do on a daily basis. Okay, so I'm not really inactive, just not active in the right ways.  Here are some ways I know Yoga can help me:

• Reduce Stress ans Anxiety 
• Improve my Immune System
• Enhance psychological and emotional health 
• Help Concentration 

There are many other benefits to doing yoga out there but I'm concentrating on these four at the moment because these are the parts of my life that need the most improvement. 

My biggest problem with finding a yoga class or group is cost. I'm looking into several local places in my area but they all charge more then I can afford at the moment. Now my quest is looking for a free or close to free group that meets in the basement of some place once a week, hopefully on a weekend. My quest continues ...

I'm such a Pill

I am Amoxelle, a married mother of one, public school educator, and the owner of one dysfunctional body. I like to make art about my dysfunctional body from my tumors, down to my current battle with anxiety and depression. But I'll admit that I don't just talk about my body art, but food, how disease and medication is used in the media, education, and different methods for helping my dysfunctional self.

So welcome to my dysfunctional self on the cellular level.