A Pathway Through the Wilderness & Rivers in a Dry Wasteland: Walking My Way to Sanity: A Photo Journal

Hi, my name is Claudia. I have Bipolar II disorder, I'm obese, and I battle my mind and body everyday in order to survive. After a lifetime of dealing with severe depression, with unexpected and uncontrollable crying, thoughts of suicide, then periods of extreme happiness, paralyzing anxiety, and raging anger, I finally decided a few years ago that enough was enough and went into therapy. During the therapy sessions, we came to the conclusion that I was experiencing symptoms that were typical of Bipolar II disorder. I'm on medication now and it helps keep things regulated, but not always - sometimes I still cycle between depression and hypomania. Everyone knows what depression is, but not everyone knows what hypomania is, so here a definition from http://www.medicinenet.com:

Hypomania: A condition similar to mania but less severe. The symptoms are similar with elevated mood, increased activity, decreased need for sleep, grandiosity, racing thoughts, and the like. However, hypomanic episodes differ in that they do not cause significant distress or impair one's work, family, or social life in an obvious way while manic episodes do. Hypomanic people tend to be unusually cheerful, have more than ample energy, and need little sleep. Hypomania is a pleasurable state. It may confer a heightened sense of creativity and power. However, hypomania can subtly impair a person's judgment. Too much confidence can conceal the consequences of decisions. Hypomania can be difficult to diagnose because it may masquerade as mere happiness. It is important to diagnose hypomania because, as an expression of bipolar disorder, it can cycle into depression and carry an increased risk of suicide.

One of the best things you can do for your mind is take care of your body. Since I have started the Better U Challenge, I have not been on a diet, but I have been learning to change how I live. That's a key word there is LIVE - I don't want to just SURVIVE - I want to LIVE. I eat healthier, cut out a lot (not all) sugars and salt, eat fish a couple of times a week, eat at least 4-5 servings of fruits & veggies most days, I pack my lunch and snacks for the day to take to work, I track my calories and exercise using MyFitnessPal app, and I move more - walking around the office instead of sitting all day, parking far away, going to the YMCA, trying new group exercise classes - but the exercise that has helped me the most psychically and mentally is walking. Good, old fashioned, lace-up the shoes, put the ear-buds in, crank up the music, walking.

For the past week or so, I've been in a hypomanic cycle, after experiencing a pretty bad depression for about a month. My brain doesn't want to shut down (yea insomnia!) and I have a lot of creative thoughts in my head - so tonight instead of going to the YMCA to workout and be around a lot of stinky, not sharing the weight machines, hogging the treadmill, get on my last nerve, people, I decided to go for a walk alone. We have a beautiful park behind our trailer-hood with great walking trails. As I started out walking, listening to Led Zeppelin (which all of their songs are awesome to walk to, but Immigrant Song is killer for getting in fast step rhythm) I was looking at the flowers and the sun and all God's beauty around me and I decided to start taking pictures with my phone. I then realized I was putting a photo journal together of my journey through the wilderness and I found the river in the dry wasteland. Not just my journey to be healthy physically, but my journey to have a healthy mind and to grow closer to God. Hypomania makes me creative and gives me energy, it's really not all that bad. Maybe this is God's way of making me my own unique self, and helping me learn to love myself, and be kind to myself, and realize just how special I am to Him . . . and to the people that love me now and have loved me throughout my lifetime. Oh and by the way, I've lost 30 pounds so far! Below are the pictures I took . . .