Edited the Mood Tracker a bit to match up with the med box. I think it will make my life a little easier to have this going out and starting a new one the same day I’m refilling the box. Just trying to give myself a better rhythm and flow here. A little more routine. Honestly I truly did believe that I was a chaotic, disorganized person. It’s what I’ve been told for years.

Odd thing though… I came across a notebook with charts with checklists from middle school and high school that are essentially mood trackers and routine schedule charts like what I have now for my boys before I knew what they were and before I was diagnosed. Before I knew what Autism was. These are hand written by me in a journal I was keeping. And it’s occurring to me that I have this… thing/obsession(?)/need/desire/drive for data collection. I don’t seem to particularly care what’s done with it after. What time do I go to bed on Fridays? On Mondays? What time do I get up on those days? Is it different? Doesn’t matter to me and I have no desire to change it, but it appears that I have felt the need to document these kinds of things for YEARS. In fact this particular journal I was documenting showering among other things in fact. Too bad I can’t remember why and I didn’t make note of why in the journal either. If I had to guess, I’m willing to bet I had a concern that I was forgetting it and in that age group while going to public school that’s a crisis. Only other thing it could have been was skin problems. Acne is the bane of all existence for that age group too. Maybe I wanted the data to see if there was an improvement? Problem is all I have is the checklists with nothing to explain them.

So it looks like I am far more regimented in the mind than I believed. I just feel chaotic. Just makes me wonder now why I’m told I’m disorganized. I was the one that set up my parents’ VHS tapes (the collection is HUGE) with a catalogue card system so that you could look through a box of index cards to find the movie you wanted and see which tape it was on and then go find it on the shelf. That system has since been wrecked after I moved out and had kids and they started buying DVDs. Now you can’t find a movie. They have two floor to ceiling book cases with double rows of VHS tapes on each shelf, plus tapes slipped in on top of those rows, and DVDs mixed in with all that. There used to be another bookcase like that but I don’t know what happened to it. They also have a couple of those storage drawers for VHS tapes filled right full. They get upset now trying to find an old movie of theirs. “I know we have it.”

Well… I’m not fixing that. As much as it pisses me off every time someone wants a movie, I am not going to fix that. To this day I still remember that it was a week long project to set that catalogue system up the first time. I do not have the energy or the time for that dive now, knowing it will not be taken care of and maintained.

And if the reason people call me disorganized is because I’m not doing it their way or they’re trying to goad me into doing it for them, then fine. I will own that. I’m not doing all that work just so someone else can fuck it up. I feel that way about my boys. I didn’t bother with the catalogue system in my home after the boys came along because they mess it up too. I only make them stack the clean plastic cups in the cupboard by color and by fours because come dinner time I can grab a stack, set the table, and everyone has the same damn color. No fighting over cups. Fuck that shit. I guess now my organization skills have become focused on making my life easier, not “prettier” or “perfect” for the outside world. I never cared if the seams in my shirt lined up or not with my damn pants when I put them on. Who cares, I’m dressed so let’s move on to the next damn thing.

There is so much life to live that I want to live. I’m not wasting it on keeping appearances that are all just lies and in the end never mattered. And I’m hoping that I can use my mood trackers now not just for collecting data for its own sake, but to also make the changes that I need to when I need to so I can live the life I want. Very soon here I need to rebuild the routine charts for me and my boys once we get fully moved and settled into my parents’ house. I’ll keep you posted on that because I do plan to share in detail my process on that since I will need to more or less build from scratch.

---

Mood Score Key:

Sliding into Hypomania = 1  ~ Hypomania = 2 ~  Mania = 3  ~  Baseline (My Normal) = 0

Sliding into Depression = -1  ~  Depression = -2  ~  Severe Depression = -3

Energy Score Key:

Low = -1  ~  Normal = 0  ~  High = 1

Irritation Score Key:

None = 0  ~  Mild = 1  ~  Moderate = 2  ~  Severe = 3

Anxiety Score Key:

None = 0  ~  Mild = 1  ~  Moderate = 2  ~  Severe = 3

Migraine Score Key:

None = 0  ~  Mild = 1  ~  Moderate = 2  ~  Severe = 3 ~ Extreme = 4 ~ Aura Present = A

Sleep Quality Score Key:

Bad = -1  ~  Normal = 0  ~  Great = 1

---

Special Notes for the Week

Menses Start Date: ~

Weigh-In at Med Clinic: ~

---

Saturday ~ November 19, 2016

Mood: 1 ~ Energy: 0 ~ Irritation: 0 ~ Anxiety: 0 ~ Migraine: 1

Hours of Sleep: bed at 1am, up at 6am – 5 hours total

Sleep Quality: 0

Exercise Activity: ~ Exercise Time:

Meds Taken

• 75mg Topamax @ 8am
• 600mg Ibuprophen @ 10am (sinuses just quit already please)
• 600mg Ibuprophen @ 4pm
• 75mg Topamax @ 7pm

Meals

• 5 Cups of Coffee
• 20oz Dr. Pepper
• 4 slices of pizza (yea, I know after bitching about heart attack inducing food yesterday I buy pizza for dinner because I was too tired to deal with cooking)

Notes

• 11 days left to move
• claiming the storage unit today and starting loading it
• ended up buying 2 high end weather proof locks because the first one was too big so now I have an extra one for … I don’t know yet, but I already threw out the package for it so I guess I’ll invent a use for it
• moving shit with a dinky ass economy car sucks by the way

NaNo Word Count: 2095

---

Sunday ~ November 20, 2016

Mood: 1 ~ Energy: 0 ~ Irritation: 1 ~ Anxiety: 0 ~ Migraine: 1

Hours of Sleep: bed at 11:30 pm night before, up at 6:30am – 7 hours total

Sleep Quality: 0

Exercise Activity: ~ Exercise Time:

Meds Taken

• 75mg Topamax @ 7am
• 600mg Ibuprophen @ 9am
• 1 Zyrtec OTC @ 9am
• 2 tsp. Hyland’s Cough Syrup @ 9am
• 600mg Ibuprophen @ 2pm
• 75mg Topamax @ 9pm (almost forgot)

Meals

• 4 Cups of Coffee
• 20oz. Dr. Pepper
• 2 slices pizza for lunch
• Baked Chicken, Boiled Potatoes, Corn for supper

Notes

• 10 days left to move
• NaNoWriMo Word Count Validation Begins
• Lots of packing, hauling, and moving today – too bad it doesn’t look like it

NaNo Word Count: 2165

---

Monday ~ November 21, 2016

Mood: 1 ~ Energy: 0 ~ Irritation: 1 ~ Anxiety: 0 ~ Migraine: 0

Hours of Sleep: bed at 1m, up at 6am – 5 hours total

Sleep Quality: 0

Exercise Activity: ~ Exercise Time:

Meds Taken

• 75mg Topamax @ 7am
• 75mg Topamax @ 7pm

Meals

• 4 Cups of Coffee
• 1 Large Coffee from Gas Station
• Cinnamon Roll from Gas Station
• Chicken and Fries for dinner

Notes

• 9 days left to move
• Won NaNo at midnight!

NaNo Word Count: 2376

---

Tuesday ~ November 22, 2016

Mood: 1 ~ Energy: 0 ~ Irritation: 0 ~ Anxiety: 1 ~ Migraine: 0

Hours of Sleep: bed at 3:30am, up at 7:30am – 4 hours total

Sleep Quality: 0

Exercise Activity: ~ Exercise Time:

Meds Taken

• 75mg Topamax @ 8am
• 75mg Topamax @ 7pm

Meals

• 6 Cups of Coffee
• smoked mozz. cheese wrapped in meat – lots of it
• Twizzlers – too bad Little Bear ate most of them *sigh*
• veggie stir fry on rice – homemade

Notes

• 8 days left to move
• slept through 2 wake up alarms, the morning med alarm, and the bus alarm so had to drive Little Bear to school this morning since Tuxedo Cat is home with an ear ache and a head/chest cold today
• my therapy appointment – hard session for me, just dealing with shit about the money, the husband and other past things like Scholar Owl’s father
• no packing done

NaNo Word Count: 1410

---

Wednesday ~ November 23, 2016

Mood: 1 ~ Energy: 0 ~ Irritation: 2 ~ Anxiety: 2 ~ Migraine: 0

Hours of Sleep: bed at 2am, up at 6:30am – 4.5 hours total

Sleep Quality: 0

Exercise Activity: ~ Exercise Time:

Meds Taken

Meals

• 6 Cups of Coffee
• Leftover Stir Fry on Noodles

Notes

• 7 days left to move
• Ended up trying to take the boys to the apartment this morning to get packing and cleaning done since tomorrow is Thanksgiving and my brother’s family is at the house, the boys are slow and whiny about this
• Oh and funny thing… interesting how my Xbox 360 Kinect Sensor Bar just magically appeared in the toolbox in my kitchen closet today after not being at the apartment all day yesterday – I’ve been in and out of that closet this entire process for cleaning supplies and tools to take down shelves and things – already packed away all the other electronics… yet today this bar was just practically right on top of my screwdrivers? Like I’m supposed to believe that it’s been there all along? Please… I’m not stupid. At least she fucking gave it back. Wish the games would magically reappear too. That would be ultra nice.
• I just think the downstairs neighbor must have heard me tell Scholar Owl that I had half a mind to give the actual landlord a written list of all the shit that’s gone missing from the apartment and that because his business partner’s wife told me and my dad that she’s been in here doing shit she didn’t have the legal right to do, she and their business is now liable for all of it. I bet that neighbor told her that and the only reason the sensor bar showed back up is because she hadn’t pawned it off yet.
• I’ve also found a small hole in the bathroom closet too that wasn’t there when I emptied it when I went in there to check on things and to clean. This is fucking pissing me off because I know this is all so she can say they won’t give back the security deposit. Why would I have thought to take photos before all this had started? Now I can’t prove that any of those damages weren’t there before September.
• Did something to my back again with all the lifting. This time I had pins and needles sensation from fingertips all the way up to my elbows for about an hour or so.
• Ended up making the pudding pies for tomorrow after dinner, Scholar Owl was upset that I wanted him to help me since I did have him learn how to cook last year. Things kind of got ugly.
• Dad understands why I’m uptight, on edge, and pissed – it’s because I’m running out of time and everyone seems to want me to do other things besides pack my stuff. And yeah I do see Dad in the same damn boat. Mom said she was going to do all the pre-cooking today but here we were, Dad and I, doing it after Mom went to work for the night. I have no idea what she did this morning or this afternoon because I went packing. I know she seemed a little miffed that I left with the boys. It’s why I took them with me because I thought they would be busy cooking today. Nope. I gathered from Dad that she basically pulled a “Fuck It” and dumped it on us.
• I have 7 days left to get my shit out of the apartment as of today and from the way things look right now, I don’t know how that’s going to happen.

NaNo Word Count: 1959

---

Thursday ~ November 24, 2016

Mood: 1 ~ Energy: 0 ~ Irritation: 0 ~ Anxiety: 0 ~ Migraine: 0

Hours of Sleep: bed at 11pm night before, up at 6m – 7 hours total

Sleep Quality: 0

Exercise Activity: ~ Exercise Time:

Meds Taken

• 75mg Topamax @ 7:30am
• 75mg Topamax @ 7am

Meals

• 5 Cups of Coffee
• Cranberry Ginger Ale
• Thanksgiving Dinner

Notes

• 6 days left to move
• Thanksgiving

NaNo Word Count: 1531

---

Friday ~ November 25, 2016

Mood: 1 ~ Energy: 0 ~ Irritation: 1 ~ Anxiety: 0 ~ Migraine: 0

Hours of Sleep: bed at 2am, up at 6:30am – 4.5 hours total

Sleep Quality: 0

Exercise Activity: ~ Exercise Time:

Meds Taken

Meals

• 6 Cups of Coffee
• 1 slice of chocolate pudding pie
• Seriously don’t remember eating anything else

Notes

• 5 days left to move
• father-in-law and sister-in-law visiting – wants to take the boys out to the movie theater, says they need me to go with them because they need my car (something is wrong with his) but I keep telling him I need to pack and move my shit, this man keeps calling me to tell me this – I AM NOT FUCKING GOING AND I DON’T CARE IF THIS FUCKS UP HIS PLANS, I need to get this shit done, tired of his attitude that it’s everyone else’s responsibility to take care of him and that he always comes first, I’m done with being plowed over by people
• actually the day went better than I expected, they took the boys out to lunch (still don’t understand why they needed/wanted my car, but whatever) and I got more done all by myself than I have even with just Scholar Owl there, Tuxedo Cat’s room is now fully packed, kitchen is pretty much done save the curtains and dishes (and a few things on the table that came from my desk, my desk is completely emptied, and half the living room got cleaned – no I didn’t touch Scholar Owl’s room
• I just may actually get this done on time after all

NaNo Word Count: 1896

---

Saturday ~ November 26, 2016

Mood: 1 ~ Energy: -2 ~ Irritation: 2 ~ Anxiety: 1 ~ Migraine: 0

Hours of Sleep: bed at 11:30pm, up at 6am – 6.5 hours total

Sleep Quality: 0

Exercise Activity: ~ Exercise Time:

Meds Taken

• 75mg Topamax @ 7am
• 75mg Topamax @ 7pm

Meals

• 5 Cups of Coffee
• 1.5 Grilled Cheese (Tuxedo Cat didn’t like the cheddar cheese my dad used, but hey! He TRIED IT – total win in my book, and I scored a sandwich and a half on the run!)
• a bunch of leftover turkey

Notes

• 4 days left to move
• Woke up tired with no “get up and go” and feeling like there is not enough coffee in the world to save me from the lack of energy my body has even though my brain is driving 90 some odd miles an hour, this is going to be an interesting day
• Need to make a phone call this Monday to find out what happened with the boys’ refills, they are low and the refills haven’t showed up – willing to bet that the husband didn’t straighten out the insurance shit like he said he did (received a letter saying we moved out of the region and that we would be dropped from coverage on the 20th if he didn’t call them to address it – we’re moving 5 minutes up the road and it’s not official yet and they only listed 3 out of the 4 of us, and Little Bear was on the list, so I’m not sure how any of this came about – in any case, Little Bear had a med clinic appointment last week and they put in his med order which means his meds should have come in DAYS ago – as for Scholar Owl, things just got screwed up, his next appointment got scheduled farther out then it should have been so he’s running out a month early *sigh* – I guess this means I can’t let him tell them how much meds he has left and base the scheduling on that because he’s the one that sets up his med box, he never misses his pills because of the OCD-like traits, but apparently he isn’t good at guessing/counting how much left he has when they mail us 3 months worth at a time, so they scheduled him 3 months out when they should have scheduled him 2 months out.
• Stressed doesn’t even begin to describe what I feel this morning
• Ended up bringing the boys over in the afternoon, got more done than I expected but less than I wanted (if that makes sense) – we brought the mattresses over to the house, Scholar Owl’s mattress was beyond wrecked, turns out it wasn’t just molded but it had six holes in it underneath where it was laying on the box spring so we assume a mouse got to it, checked the box spring and it looked like it tried to chew into the box spring but not far into it – like something about the foam inside it was unsavory to the mouse or something? we’re talking less than a quarter of an inch into the box spring but the mattress looks like the insides got chewed up pretty bad. Like how do you sleep on this an not notice? I don’t know what upsets me more, the fact that I rarely checked his room in the three years that lived there, the fact that he wrecked that room the way he had so that it attracted mice, or the fact I bought this mattress the day we moved into this apartment. Then on top of it, the frame has taken some damage too. This frame is made of solid pine and was bought when I was in the 4th grade. My sister and I got a matching set as twin bunk beds. The ladder for it is in storage somewhere. I still even have the matching dresser and my sister let me have her matching bed so I now have the whole set. So here the foot of the bed is wrenched on one side and my dad and I are hoping it’s not cracked and the headboard is seriously scratched up in one spot from something.
• So yes, I ripped into him about how he needs to take better care of things. I’m tired of watching too many people in my life not owning their shit. My children will NOT be one of those people. Yes, we are sick but that does not give us license to quit, not try, and act like assholes. If we fuck up, and we will, we own it and fix it and do what we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This is what it means to be functional, not perfect. Welcome to chaos (aka LIFE). *end rant*

NaNo Word Count: 1875

---