Post 106

I read somewhere that the 100th post is supposed to be that 100 things about me thing so many blogs have. My 100th post came right in the middle of ending my job and so I glossed over it. But I had been working on this for a while, so instead we are celebrating post 106.

I am not into trends and would ignore this, except that I realized I've been writing this blog for quite some time now and talk about many personal things and yet share very few of the mundane things that make me myself. Some of you very faithfully come here every day and yet have no idea about anything in my life except my illness. And yet the whole point I want to make by writing is that I am so much more than bipolar disorder. So, we'll see how many of these things I can come up with without giving too much away.

1. I love animals. When I was a kid I had up to 14 pets at a time.
2. Now I only have 3 cats.
3. Almost everyone in my family is a teacher.
4. I've had laser surgery to remove a birthmark twice. It didn't work.
5. I have a talent for home repair although I know my limits due to size and strength
6. I can often eat an entire can of vegetables in one day
7. I have listened to a radio in over a year and have no idea what music is popular
8. I listen to so many books on tape the library has to order new ones for me
9. I was a camp counselor for three years. My campers are all grown up now.
10. I grew up 45 minutes away from any fast food restaurant.
11. When I am depressed I crave tomato products, especially tomato soup.
12. I work in such a rural county that sometimes I drive past more Amish buggies than cars.
13. I have wild, curly hair that I can't control. I love it.
14. I kept this hidden until I was 25.
15. I attended a "stone cold sober college" and 2 "top 10 party schools" in the same year.
16. I hate wearing shoes. They come off as soon as I am home.
17. In college I was a vegetarian because I worked in the cafeteria and was digusted by the huge slabs of greasy meat.
18. I was a camp counselor at a camp for children with disabilities. They called me the "bug lady".
19. I have never smoked a cigarette. Or anything else.
20. One of my cats is scared of people. He is 4 years old and I have held him in my lap 4 times.
21. One of those times was today and I feel so special.
22. I haven't watched a current primetime network TV show in 2 years.
23. I didn't miss a single episode of the first 10 years of ER.
24. I often spend more per month on medications than I do on groceries.
25. I haven't seen my father in 10 years. It only bothers me when I fill out medical histories with "don't know". Except bipolar. Definetely bipolar.....
26. Since this blog started I feel like I am a totally different person.
27. I define myself and my illness very differently. That will be my anniversary post.
28. My "about" section is about to change dramatically.
29. I've never been further west than Iowa but I've been to northern Canada.
30. I've also been to Florida several times. I can't really enjoy warm vacations anymore because of meds.
31. I've never been out of the US and Canada.
32. Once I wanted to travel to many places and hoped to do it professionally. Now that's not realistic.
33. I really wanted to spend time in Alaska. My sickness will likely prevent that.
34. Reading is by far my favorite thing to do in the world.
35. I'm having fun re-reading books from when I had lithium toxicity because I don't remember a word of them. Double my money!
36. I don't have a favorite food. I live by cravings. Right now my favorite are veggie burgers.
37. I loved to be covered up. The more clothes or blankets I have, the happier I am.
38. When I was first a therapist I surprised myself with a talent for mechanical work.
39. I anger slowly but when I am angry I am unpleasant.
40. I love gardening. This year I did my whole garden without help for the first time.
41. I can't whistle.
42. I had to fight to do a thesis in my graduate program because it was too much work for the professors.
43. My grad school program had strange priorities regarding our learning.
44. Sometimes I still need to know things they insisted weren't important.
45. I don't wear makeup. I think it is itchy, no matter what kind I try.
46. When I get sick I usually have a mixed episode.
47. I have tiny veins and only one is easy to draw blood from. Between being in a clinical trial with constant blood draws, years of med levels, and my toxicity this year I appear to have track marks, but only on one vein.
48. I've known since I was 16 that I'd need a knee replacement someday, probably sooner than later although I have no problems now aside from the previous damage.
49. For some reason if I tell patients recovering from knee replacements this it makes them feel better, sort of like it helps to know I'll be in that pain someday too.
50. I love to suck on ice and eat popsicles.
51. I'm not a big fan of ice cream though.
52. In fact I don't eat many sweets.
53. One of my favorite things to do is to visit zoos. I've been to a lot of them.
54. I've had patients say they wanted to kill themselves twice. It taught me a lot about paperwork.
55. Working with psychiatric patients and secretly being one myself has taught me to think very differently about why patients might choose to do the things they do.
56. I have also learned to stand up for my rights as a patient because I have seen how often a psychiatric diagnosis results in poor care.
57. I have eaten a jar and a half of pickles this week.
58. I am not pregnant.
59. Today I hugged someone while she cried because she knows her husband of 69 years may die soon.
60. Nothing describes that.
61. I once went on a "Skyblaster" on a dare. This is a chair shot into the air on a bungee cord system.
62. I was extremely manic at the time but not yet diagnosed bipolar. It is how I know I'm bipolar though, that I did something so stupid (I'm terrified of heights!).
63. I earned an undergraduate degree in biology even though I hated much of it and it was far too difficult for me because I was too proud to quit.
64. I get a lot of hits for people who seem to want to prove that bipolar makes people evil. This annoys me.
65. I babysat triplets while in grad school. It was the best job I ever had; I was paid to play at a time when I really needed to play.
66. Until then I hadn't babysat in a long time because my last babysitting job the kids picked the lock on a gun cabinet and I stopped them just in time. I was scared out of wanting to be with kids.
67. I've had to learn to accept and forgive child molesters during my years working with quite a few of them. It was not easy but I learned some are not as evil as others.
68. I've been spelunking in a fairly small, easy cave. It was a lot of fun and I learned I'm less claustrophobic than most people.
69. Sometimes I run out of things to say and give up.....
70. This is one of them.