Yesterday, I showered for the first time in a few days, which was good.  The dogs wouldn’t come near me.  I also did my hair. That’s a big deal.  I haven’t done my hair since before I went into the hospital this last time.  My psychiatrist (whom I saw yesterday) did not understand what it means to “do my hair”.  I found that kinda funny.  He said, “you didn’t wash your hair in the hospital?”  So I had to explain to the 50-ish year-old guy, who apparently hasn’t been around women too much that “no, I washed it, I just didn’t do it, meaning, I didn’t blow it dry or curl it.  See, it’s curled.”  He looked at my hair and went “oh.”

Sometimes I wonder about that man, but he’s a good doc.  He said that the reason that I am so emotional right now, and having so many ups and downs is because I am still titrating back up on my Lamictal.  The good news is that we don’t have to take the whole 5 weeks just to get to 100 mg, since I was only off the medication for six days.  Lamictal sucks when you have to “get up to speed” on it.  It takes five weeks to get to 100 mg.  Most people take about 200 mg.  I take 400 mg as my therapeutic strength.

So, today, I finally am getting my schedule back in order.  I went to bed at 9:30 p.m., but still couldn’t sleep until about 11 p.m.  I woke up at 7 a.m.  Still, not where I want to be, but much better than before.  I was sleeping 11-13 hours a night, and now I am back to 8 hours a night.  I am very anal about my schedule.  I am usually asleep around 9:30 p.m. and up around 5:30 a.m.  So I am getting a lot better.

Also, yesterday, I didn’t have any mixed episodic-type things going on.  That’s the first since I got out of the hospital (or even before I went into the hospital).  Yesterday, I was just mildly depressed.

I got my books on DBT, and started reading them.  I started the exercises in one of the book, and re-read the stuff on mindfulness (or at least, started) in the other book.  Very good stuff, even though it’s for people with Borderline Personality Disorder.  DBT should be mandatory for all bipolars, since it deals with emotional extremes.  I will do a write up on the books later.

This morning, I got up and did my face routine without any issues.  I didn’t have to push myself.  That’s good.  I put on deoderant (and I hate to say it, but that’s a big deal even from weeks and weeks before I went into the hospital), and I plan to go to Walgreens and the grocery store today, and work on my backlog of job listings that I get via email.

Well, that’s all I have for now.