I got punted to this site from another bipolar site…  I have been there for over a year and the drama and silliness is a bit over the top so I have been pretty reluctant to try another site.  Also I fell in love pretty hard.  You know how it goes.

So who is Grace?

I am a Bored Housepet.  Married to a slob I can’t stand but at the moment fiscally unrealistic to leave as I own two horses and I have just restarted my former business (petsitting, farm work and dog obedience).  Until business picks up and I can afford farrier and vet and grain and board and training bills on my own… LOL… well, I’m shit out of luck.

I get to see the man I love about every six weeks.  He is also BP and also sort of tied by finances to his marriage but honestly if one of us won the lottery, that would be THAT.

I used to run animal rescue but it’s too expensive now.  I just found a home for my St. Bernard and hence am down to three dogs and four cats, although there may be a new kitten arriving tomorrow.  I also have some pet mice and an american blue rat, and a bearded dragon lizard.  My budgies recently passed away from some sort of respiratory failure.  I have a zillion houseplants.  I love life and being surrounded by it.

One of my dogs is a German Shepherd and I am working with her to train her to be my personal psychiatric service dog.  Her vest and patches are actually in the mail since she passed Obedience I and is on her way to passing her CGC (Canine Good Citizen exam).  Then we go into private training for her to learn how to be a Depression Service Dog.  I decided that I really only need her for that Half of The Illness as really there isn’t much she can do for me when I get manicky.

I have extremely rampant BPI.  My pdoc calls it UberBipolar, higher up on the scale than plain old BPI, as I tend to have violent reactions to meds and I have ultradian cycling that can toss me into psychotic mania from "normal" in half an hour with no warning at all.  Recently the addition of Lamictal to my arsenal of pills has slowed this process and we were able to do away with the Effexor, which I think was aiding the rapid cycling.  Of course going off Effexor is like going off heroin.

I have been hospitalized 13 times in the 7 years I have been correctly diagnosed.  I have been ill probably since I was about 11 years old, but I had my first Bad Bad Depression when I was 17.  My family didn’t really come to terms with any of this until fall of 2007, when I was home with them and needed to be hospitalized for a sudden, severe dysphoric mania and had to be put inpatient up there (in New Jersey, I live in Virginia).

The most important thing in my life is my horses.  I am an eventer-in-training, but have so far only done stadium jumping and dressage.  Dagny T. is a big beautiful Belgian lady.  A Pirate Ship is a spunky Arab/QH cross, and she is small and zippy and fun. (and the first horse I have ever trained!).  Without them I KNOW I would be miserable (I was plenty miserable before I had them) and so this is why I have not proceeded with my divorce yet.  My trainer, my psychiatrist, and my therapist all agree that if Medicare would just kick in for the horse expenses as therapy, I’d be all set.

Right now I have a terrible cold so I am flopped on my couch and three of my cats are flopped on me.  I really hate being inactive.  It’s too much like being depressed.

Goodnight everyone.