I needed a break.

Sometimes you just need to get your shit together and figure out your life, and how it’s affecting you.

This was one of those times.

Between my psychologist and my nurse practitioner, I’ve been trying to assess what is really bothering me, and what really needs to be taken care of.

Last year, when I was put on to an anti-depressant, I didn’t really think to question why because everything was happening so fast. (More about that in a future post.) Right now, I don’t feel sad, grief, depressed, or anything that would cause me to have some sort of reasoning for me to take an anti-depressant, which means one of two things — A) the meds are working, or B) I’m not really depressed. I hope it is the latter, but something tells me that it might be the former. I say that because they have not taken me off the medication yet. But, what do I know? I’m just the patient who has to take the medications like a good boy, because the absence of the medication would be unfortunate for me and everything I’ve strived for so far to fix and/or get control of.

Secondly, my psychologist and I have been working on my anger, because I was under the impression that my bipolar disorder was causing my lashing out. Turns out, I was causing my anger because I was letting those situations get control of me and I was allowing myself to react poorly to it. I can happily say that having that mindset, over the last 20+ days since I last saw my psychologist, I have only had four instances where I became angry at my family, and I was able to stop (unfortunately not soon enough!) and reassess the situation and realize that I was making myself upset, and dial back the “Hulk” as I have thought of it at times and calmly either get my point across, or just let the problem go because it really was not that big of a deal. So, I’m pretty happy about that, and feel much more stronger as a person than I was a month ago.

Third, I have founded Saturday World, a multi genre fiction site that I have been wanting to do for a long time, but was not maybe mentally prepared for or just couldn’t get the guts to actually work on. I am working with some talented “unknowns” that I hope can bring entertaining stories in a format that I feel best suits “our” styles. I had at one time posted a survey on Facebook, and checked to see if people would like to see me continue to write blog posts like these, my own online journal for the world to see and hopefully relate to, or if they would like to see my creative side. It was close, but most people wanted to see me blog instead of doing fiction.

So, I said “fuck ’em.”

I took it upon myself to do what I wanted and not what the world wanted (which is how it is supposed to be!), and create something that I can be proud of, and maybe eventually turn it into a career, because dammit, “life” starts at 40, and I need to grab it with both hands and do something with it, rather than constantly telling myself that I can’t do it.

If anyone is interested in signing up for my mailing list on Saturday World and keep up to date on when the creators post their work, please, PLEASE sign up! It’s a great morale booster, and I can promise you that we will not spam or anything like that. Just updates to the site and notifications when a writer posts their work.

Lastly, my presence on social media has dwindled quite a bit. Usually, most of you would see how much of a drunk I am (not!). I was realizing that a few things were happening when it came to social media and apps on my phone and other devices — 1) I was getting distracted quickly. There would be nights that I would come home and check email, then get on YouTube and check my subscriptions, then watch other videos, then get onto Facebook, and read and click on advertisements for things I liked, and then get on whatever other social media apps I was currently using at the time, and then playing Marvel Strike Force, which, goddamn, what an addicting time suck that was! So, as you can see, LOTS of distractions. Then, 2) Facebook (yes, only Facebook) was becoming very toxic for me. Some of the people I follow on there were aggressively posting or posting hateful things or things that I am very uncomfortable with. I felt worse about the world after being on it then I already had with having to hear news stories about all the horrible things in the world. I just couldn’t do it any longer. I had to do something.

I went through my phone and deleted all the major distractions that were stopping me from getting things done. Then, I deleted the social media apps that were having an influence on me. So, yay, I freed up space on my phone! BUUUUT, there was a catch. You can still access most of that content online. So, because I lack the willpower right now to stop myself from going to those sites, I downloaded a content blocker to block certain websites that I would frequent. Since I installed that app, I have stopped going to those sites. Unfortunately, I had to re-access Facebook to get to my beta reading team, but aside from a few posts that I got distracted by, I have limited my time on there by 80%. YouTube I will re-block and just access it from my television once a week just to watch certain videos, but I will make time for it so that I can still get things done.

So, yeah. That’s where I’m standing right now. I’m happier, I feel more creative, and I’m ready to tackle those projects that I have been saying that I can’t get done or that I don’t have time for or that I am afraid to do.

So, now, let’s get started.