#3) like I said I’m lucky to have found a combo of meds and other strategies that help me function as well as I can

[stuber45188020]

How to get rid of lice with tea tree oil (instead of insecticide)

I thought perhaps lice would not be such a problem right now because of COVID-19, but a reader just let me know today that she’s been fighting a persistent case with her daughter who is doing in-person classes. So, here’s a reminder about how you can effectively (and cheaply) get rid of lice without using RID or NIX.

I know lice are a super unpleasant subject, but if you’ve got school-age kids, pin this for future use.

As you may remember, in the summer of 2014, all four of my kids got head lice.

It was, um, not my favorite thing ever.

At first when it happened, I was all, “OH MY GOSH THE SKY IS FALLING! MY CHILDREN HAVE BUGS LIVING ON THEIR HEADS. GIVE ME THE DRUGS.”

So, as my pediatrician directed, the day the infestation was discovered, I:

bought eleventy-kazillion dollars worth of Nix

treated the kids and Mr. FG and myself

washed everything in the house

put stuffed animals in the freezer

generally ran myself ragged

I might have cried too.

(No, I definitely cried.)

The pediatrician said that Nix would kill the bugs, and we’d just be left with nits to pick.

(Haha.  I put “just” and nit-picking together in a sentence.  There is no “just” about nit-picking!)

But a few days of nit-picking later, straggler bugs remained.  They seemed a bit dazed, to be sure (not lightning fast like healthy lice), but still.

Live bugs.

Gah!

So then my ped called in a prescription for Sklice, a newer and super effective med that truly does kill not only the lice but the eggs (nits) as well.

This stuff is amazing, but awfully expensive, especially when you have multiple heads to treat ($50 x 4 adds up fast.)

I applied the Sklice, but kept nit-picking all of my kids for two weeks, just in case the Sklice somehow missed zapping an egg.

This was exhausting, tedious work, and I wished dearly that I could just give all my kids buzz cuts.

(More crying may have happened.)

Anyway, eventually everyone was clear, thanks to the Sklice and my nit-picking.

But then one of my girls got lice again, I think from some friends accidentally passing it around.

This time, I was much more calm.

(Basically, no caps lock is necessary to describe the second infestation version of me.)

I knew I could call the pediatrician and get some Sklice, but since I knew more about how lice worked by then, I felt pretty confident that I could get rid of them without the heavy duty stuff.

So, here’s how we got rid of lice with tea tree oil and conditioner.

1. Cover hair in conditioner/tea tree oil mixture.

I took cheap conditioner (Suave is fine), mixed a little tea tree oil in, and saturated the wet hair with it.

The idea here is to completely cover every strand of hair with this so that the lice are immobilized.

Use a liberal hand and then some.

2. Comb through hair with a nit comb.

Next, you take your nit comb and comb through all of the hair, small sections at a time, while the conditioner/tea tree oil is still in the hair.

This way you will easily catch any live bugs and remove them from the scalp.  They are very, very easy to see against the white conditioner.

An additional benefit is that the conditioner and oil make the nits much more likely to come off onto the nit comb.

(The lice glue their eggs to the hair strands, which is why they are so hard to remove.)

Basically, you just run the comb through a small section, and the comb will pull a bunch of conditioner off the hair.

Scrape the conditioner off into a small bowl (you can wipe it between every sections if you are really devoted. I was not.), check it for bugs/nits, and keep repeating until you have the whole head combed.

3. Rinse and repeat every other day.

Then you can rinse the hair off and repeat the process every other day until you’re consistently seeing no nits in the conditioner.

I ended up with two types of combs, and between these two, the purple one worked way better.  I hear that the best thing is a high-quality metal nit comb, but the purple plastic one was definitely the best of these two.

The first time I did this treatment, I snagged all of the live bugs and most of the nits.

The next time, I got more nits and also a nymph, and from then on, I found just a few more nits and no more hatchlings, and then finally, we had a nice string of clean combing sessions.

It IS slightly scary to not be putting any lice-killer on the hair, but I felt less nervous once I realized how well this worked.

This is really important to understand:

Even if I did miss a nit or two, and those nits hatched, it was going to be quite a simple matter to catch any of them before they reached reproductive age.

Why?

The conditioner/oil immobilizes them and that pretty much guarantees that they’ll get caught in the comb.

Also!

This is SUCH an easy way to tell if any other kids in the house are infested.  If you have a fresh infestation, there will be live bugs, and they are super super easy to see when you do the conditioner/comb combo.

The first go-round with lice, I treated everyone in the house blindly without actually knowing if everyone had lice.

(SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!! mode, and all that.)

But the second time around, I did the conditioner/tea tree oil thing on all of the kids and was able to confirm that only one kid actually had lice.

It has now been 9 months since I used this combo on my kid’s lice-infested head, and there has been absolutely no recurrence, so I know this really did work!

4 Reasons This is Superior to Commercial Treatments

1. It’s cheap.

Nix, Rid, and Sklice are all pretty pricey, and the priciness really adds up if you have a bunch of heads to treat.

But conditioner is only a few dollars, as is tea tree oil, and you can do tons of treatments with just a bottle of each.

2. There’s nothing iffy in it.

Sklice is supposed to be quite safe, and some of the other treatments are a synthetic concoction made to imitate a substance from chysanthemums, so it’s probably not the worst thing in the world.

Still, the directions on Rid and Lice say not to do too many treatments in a row, which gives me pause.

Plus, that stuff is awfully hard on scalps…when we used it on our heads, even those of us with no lice had itchy heads for a good week.

(This will freak you out no end when there are lice in the house.)

I felt much better about putting conditioner and tea tree oil on my child’s head, that’s for sure.

3. It works better than Rid and NIX.

Unfortunately, some lice have become resistant to these classic insecticides, which means you can put all of that on your kiddos’ heads and still be dealing with live bugs like we were.

Once I did the initial comb-through with the conditioner/tea tree oil, though, I got all of the mature bugs in one fell swoop, which is WAY more than I can say for Rid and Nix.

4. It’s WAY easier than dry-hair nit-picking/combing.

Trying to find each nit by hand in a headful of dry hair is so tedious. And nits cling to hair like crazy.

I found it to be far simpler to use the comb in a head of conditioned/oiled hair, and since the oil/conditioner loosens the nits, they come off so much more easily.

Downsides

There are just a few downsides to the conditioner/oil method, but they are not enough to sway me back into the insecticide camp, especially because they are only downsides when comparing my way to Sklice.

1. You have to keep doing this every other day until the head is clear.

This isn’t EXACTLY a downside, because unless you’re using Sklice, which does kill nits, you are supposed to keep nit-picking every day until the nits are all gone.

I did dry nit-combing and picking during our first go-round and I am here to tell you that the conditioner/comb method is way, way, way less frustrating, and I found it to be more effective.

So, given the choice between nit-picking every day and conditioner/tea tree oil combing every other day, I would pick the latter every single time.

2. This method doesn’t kill anything.

I don’t consider this to be a downside, given that some of the insecticides we tried didn’t kill the bugs either!

And unless you have Sklice, the insecticide you use isn’t going to kill the nits anyway (only the live bugs, and that if you’re lucky), so you still have to get them out of the hair somehow.

So, this, “Oh no! I’m not zapping any of the bugs!” thing is really more of a mental block to get over, I think.

__________________________

Well.

I dearly hope that none of you ever need this information, but I’m putting it out there because it really was a lifesaver for me.

I mean, I’m not at all hoping for another lice infestation, but armed with this method, I’m not nearly as terrified as I used to be.

Supplies

Here’s a highly recommended nit comb.

Here’s the Suave conditioner we used, but any inexpensive conditioner should do the trick.  Just get a lot of it so that you can generously cover the hair.

Here’s a tea tree oil similar to what we used. You don’t need a super expensive variety.

__________________________

P.S. Sonia would like you to know that she merely modeled for these pictures, and that she does not have lice.

P.P.S. If you found this post via a google search and your kids currently have lice, ALL OF THE SYMPATHY to you.  Hang in there, and give this method a try!  It’s gonna be ok.

P.P.P.S.  If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t drive myself nuts by washing/freezing/disinfecting my whole house.  The important thing is to get the children’s heads treated.  If you do that, you should be good to go.

P.P.P.P.S. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments!

P.P.P.P.P.S. Here’s why you don’t need to panic about super lice.

The post How to get rid of lice with tea tree oil (instead of insecticide) appeared first on The Frugal Girl.

[vampyrechick]

My Mental Health Story

*****WARNING: This post contains self harm and suicide attempts and ideation*****

When I finally accepted my diagnosis of bipolar II, it sounds cheesy, but my whole life made sense. Me as a little girl isolating, being paranoid, getting fixated on things, moods changing quick, the self harm. The self harm... first it was digging my long fingernails into the back of my hands till it bled, banging my head against the wall, pulling out my hair. Later as i grew up, the self harm turned into punching large bruises into my legs, raking my nails down my forehead, and eventually cutting my wrists. It was punishment. Punishment for being me.

I was picked on all through school- too fat, too skinny, fake boobs, etc. None of which was true. I was right in my BMI and there was nothing in my bras but my boobs. I got made fun of for having freckles and moles and I even got picked on for needing a rolling backpack when I broke my clavicle and was unable to lift heavy things.

I started college and started dating my now husband. I’d had a few huge panic attacks here and there, but never really knew what they were. He knew something was wrong with me, but didn’t quite know what. He had a suspicion on bipolar and after working with a bipolar person, so did my dad.

I’d been working at a well known lingerie store for 7 years when my boyfriend and I got married, had a kid, and bought a house with my brother. Having a baby was hard especially not knowing she was lactose intolerant so my moods were everywhere. We fixed up the house for a year and finally moved in in late 2013. I’d been getting mentally abused at that store the whole time- getting passed up for promotions, blamed for things getting stolen, yelled at, etc. It was time for a new job and more money. My brother was out a job for a while, so we needed to pay for the house somehow. I got a job at a well known insurance company. I didn’t know it, but I’d been having panic attacks all through 6 months of training. It felt like I was being crushed and I couldn’t breathe and I’d been throwing up every morning while getting ready. At the age of 4, my daughter even came in to comfort me while I was nauseous and said I’d be ok and just needed food and brought me a bucket to throw up in. Being on the phones was the worst for me. I did get my promotion and moved out of training though. I was there almost a whole year and almost to my next promotion and I had the biggest panic attack I’d ever had. It was the start of my shift and I couldn’t get on the phone. All those mornings of throwing up in the shower getting ready for this job blew up into this huge 2 hour long panic attack. My friend had to talk to managers over the phone after trying to calm me down, I had to talk to the nurse, my brother and husband had to come pick up me and my car. That was the last day in the office for me. HR was horrible. The lady I got didn’t care about mental heath and constantly needed dr notes. I eventually had to quit. A lot of people quit that job because of the stress.

I had been going to the dr while at the insurance job trying to find out why I was throwing up every morning and why I couldn’t breathe. I got checked for gall stone, ulcers, crohns, everything. Ultra sounds, endoscopy, colonoscopy, etc. My dr finally told me it was mental. I refused to believe it, but I went up a floor to psych anyway. I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. I was put on so many different combinations and saw so many different doctors and none were working. After I quit, I of course lost health insurance and had to go through the state. Again many different pills, but less often as the dr wanted to slowly try combos. My husband somewhere in there lost his job, my brother got one, and then my husband found one making road signs. I got insurance again.

My friends mom got me a job filing paperwork at a well known car dealership. I did well filing, but I started having to greet customers in service and move cars into the smallest of parking spots. I started fixating on things, arguing with my boss, and getting lonely in the back room. I even tried to open a vein in my wrist in the bathroom at work with a wire hanger. I got really depressed in the back and the anxiety while moving cars was great. I crashed 1,2,3 cars and I was out. I was put on a 3 day suspension (which afterward turned into being fired). That day I went home and took over a full bottle of prescribed medication. I wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to exist. Just sleep forever. I was tired. Tired of my brain and stress and not knowing how to fix what i was going through. Just so tired. I text my husband to pick up our daughter from school and said goodbye. He called 911 and they came in and walked me downstairs, strapped me to the bed in the ambulance and took me to the nearest hospital in late September 2017.

They didn’t have to pump my stomach, but I did end up having a seizure. My husband, mom, and dad all came to see me and my aunt and uncle watched my daughter after school. I got put on a 5150 which is a 3 day hold in the psych ward of the hospital. I begged to be let out for the first two days. I was diagnosed bipolar II and placed on a handful of medication to take while there. I eventually gave in and participated so I could go home. The meds they gave me made me hungrier. I got out in 3 days time and still had to take those meds. and 3 months later on those meds I was 60 lbs heavier. I looked and looked for someone to help me lose the weight. Eventually I found a psych at the health insurance place that changed my medication, but after a little, they weren’t cutting it. I’ve changed meds and doses a bit. I kept asking my psych and my regular dr and my therapist for a way to help me lose weight. Nothing. I got into a bipolar group after taking IOP. A handful of them had to get surgery to lose the weight they gained on bipolar meds.

May 2019 I had an episode and landed back in the hospital under 5150 this time just for ideation. I begged again the first 2 days to be let out. My husband came every night to visit and my parents at least once since my dad works out of town. I participated when I could and got out in 3 days. I went into IOP again for 12 weeks. Then last 2 weeks of October come and I’m back in the ideation stage. I need the hospital, but the insurance policy changed and I don’t know if it’s covered. I go like that until mid November. I get put on new medications and have to cold turkey off one drug and slowly go on one and whatnot. In the beginning I can’t tell what’s real and what is a dream. For a week I live like that. Then I have a day or two of being ok, and switch to being angry. Cold turkeying that drug made me lose touch with reality for a whole week then adding that new drug made me angry. I had to stop one of the new drugs (the one that made me angry).

I’ve had trouble sleeping off and on my whole life probably due to episodes. It got worse when my grandma on my dads side passed away and lately seem to have trouble often even on meds to help.

My resting heart rate is always above 100. Often around 120 and has gotten as high as 153 (resting).

On the combo I’m on now I’ve thought about giving myself a labottomy when I used to want to drill open my head and try to fix whatever is wrong with me.

April 2020 and I haven’t had a job since about July of 2018. Before COVID-19, I was getting panic attacks every day having to take my daughter to school. In fact she missed the day school closed (March 16,2020). The panic was bad and I couldn’t get myself to drive. I’ve been fighting to get on social security disability and I have a lawyer. I had a hearing in January 2020, but needed a court ordered psych appt. The appt was scheduled for late March and was canceled because of COVID-19. Since we are a 1 income family in San Diego, it’s hard to afford our house.

I’ve had meds make me talk slow, think slow, fall fast asleep at work, hungry 24/7, thirsty 24/7, have to tinkle every 45 mins, make me tense all my muscles 24/7 for weeks. I’ve had them effect my memory. Even my memory of what everyday words are.

May 2020 I’m so stressed about everything that I’m getting massive heartburn again. I don’t know what medication to help aleviate it because lithium reacts with everything.

July 2020 stress got to me. The stress of possibly not being able to stay in my house, the stress of my backyard being so full of weeds that my husky had to get fully shaved and get over 300 foxtails pulled from his skin (and of course the bill that came with it), the stress of my husband having a kidney stone in each kidney, the stress of my husbands car not having ac and his drive to and from work is 1 hour each way (and of course not being able to afford to fix it), the stress of my car leaking oil (and again not being able to afford fixing it), and I’m sure there is more. I went out with my parents and they asked me to be friends with someone who stopped being my friend because of my disorder in order to make my brother happy. That hurt. I texted them and wanted them to know how that made me feel especially while I’m dealing with all this other stuff and got some crappy replies. I then realized that I was being stigmatized by family and they weren’t the only ones and I lost it. I got put on another 5150 July 1st. I felt like I had lost a huge part of my support team. I wanted to stab myself in the throat and make a special note to my dad as to why he, my mom, and my brother made me kill myself. While in the hospital I realized that my husband and his father (when he is able to visit) are sympathetic to what I am going through and my husband does everything he can to make things easier on me. I am very lucky to have him. Later in July I had another instance where I couldn’t tell what was real and what was not. I hope that isn’t a regular thing again.

July still and I found out my brother had invited my bipolar best friend over for a bbq and made advances and was shut down. He text her dirty texts and she told me she still shut him down and I was upset because never once did anyone in my family reach out to see if I was ok after getting out of the hospital, but my brother would text my friend he’s hung out with less than 5 times? So I message him and he gets defensive and I decide to cut him from my life. I’m upset the couple days after and my husband tells me my daughter is showing more signs of bipolar (she’s 10 and there’s a 10% chance of passing it down). I get more upset and miscommunication leads to my husband calling my parents who I am still mad at for stigmatizing me. The first thing my dad does when he gets here? Tries to fix the door handle to the bathroom because my mom couldn’t open the door when there was another one she could have used instead of check on me like my husband had asked. Things get heated and I tell them they were the reason I was hospitalized on July 1st and they then said they were calling the police. More things were said about how upset and how they don’t even try to learn or read a book to learn and they said “no book can teach me about bipolar.” And I said the whole family stigmatizes me by not saying anything when I say I can babysit and my dad said “well no wonder they think they are a danger to their kids look at you!” I told them to get out and my mom had to be forced out due to refusing to leave without my child. She then called my daughters phone and tried to talk her into walking outside to them so they could take her from me. A therapist called and deemed me ok to not go to the hospital and wait until my regular appointment (in a few minutes from then). My regular therapist then called and talked to me and came to the same conclusion as the therapist before her. My husband came home to my parents on the porch. My father then told him that I was in rage and that it was just a seizure. I was not. I am hurt and sad and upset and misunderstood. I don’t understand why people don’t get that mental illness is a real thing. Why can’t you learn about bipolar from a book? How do doctors learn? You learn how it works and what the symptoms are and then you learn the specifics of the person you love. How is that a difficult concept?

I have been having seizures at night now though. Multiple a night. Just small few second ones. Haven’t been able to sleep for a few nights unless I get so tired I pass out.

As a kid I’ve never felt like I fit in with my family and it transferred into adulthood even before I found out I was bipolar. I didn’t feel happy when I felt I should have been. I felt left out from the girls group because I didn’t like the same things they did, but I didn’t fit into the boys group either. Then adulthood. I was the first out of all the cousins to have a child and get married and buy a house, but I’m not the oldest. I just never fit. I see how the oldest and second youngest (of the girl group) go out to bingo together and of course the oldest and youngest are sisters so they are close, but me? I had 2 brothers. Where did I fit? They hung with the boy cousins. I didn’t have anything in common with either group. Again adulthood I still don’t fit because I don’t have a job and my kid is over 5 years older than the age of the babies everyone else just had. Now we add bipolar to the group and no one else has a mental disorder. None diagnosed at least.

More about my childhood, but first I’ve been having trouble sleeping. Insomnia due to stress, seizures which I’ve never had before (due to stress), and things I should have grown out of (thanks genetics... due to stress). I���ve never been happy with myself because of it and I’ve always had trouble sleeping. Most of my sleeping issues came after my grandma died. All I could think about was death. Burning alive in a house fire, drowning, being creamated alive, being buried alive, etc. I got more depressed.

Growing up at family functions I would ask to “play in the car” which meant sit and wait to go home. Now looking back I know I was sad and overwhelmed with the loud noises and not fitting in. I’d throw up every Easter. I was told it was because I ate to much candy. Now I see it was anxiety. Anxiety to find all my eggs because my family is competitive. Anxiety because my family is loud. Anxiety because I didn’t fit in.

I didn’t fit in at school either. I said earlier I was always made fun of. I forgot about how the kids would always dare different boys to ask me out and then laugh about it. My husband has learned not to tell me I’m pretty or beautiful because it makes me cry. I don’t believe him. I don’t believe any compliments ever and never have. They upset me. I’ve taken lipstick or eyeliner and written “fat, ugly, useless” ect on my mirror. I gave up on wearing make up because to me, it’s not to make you look pretty, it’s to enhance your beauty and i don’t feel I have any. First it was my cystic acne and now it’s my weight. I’ll never be how I want to look again because doctors don’t care. I was literally told “would you rather be alive and fat or dead?” I want to be happy. What’s the point of a life if you aren’t happy?

Growing up I didn’t feel like I got much attention. I tried to come up with ways to break a bone at school 1-5 grade. Lotion on my hands then go on the monkey bars, play the tougher games like red rover where people did try to break your arms while running over, ect. Nothing worked.

It’s been a hell of a ride. Paranoia, obsession, fixation, anger, hypomania, depression. It’s hard. It’s really hard to live this way. I finally got someone to help me with my weight loss early April 2020 after getting to be 110lbs over what I was. I still struggle with mood swings because obviously there is no cure and I can’t remember things and often forget what everyday things are called. Some times I feel like I am putting on a face for others. Like a “happy face”, so they don’t have to ask “what’s wrong”. I do know (when I’m in my wise mind) that I have help and a small amount of people who love me who will be there for me when I need it.

It’s August now and my parents are lying to my husband about what happened just like they lied about why they asked me to be friends with someone for my brothers sake. First it was because the wedding. I pointed out they asked it was after they broke up. They stated it was just to be in the same room. I stated no that’s what was said after I told them why she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Why am I wrong? Why lie? Why not admit it?! You fucked up! Just because my brain doesn’t produce chemicals to make me happy doesn’t mean it makes me stupid. “We called our granddaughter to come outside to the porch.” Ok. Then what? You were under the impression someone was going to take me away which in turn means you thought you would get my daughter. That’s stealing. I didn’t want her outside and you knew that.

Still beginning of August. I guess July was too rough with me not sleeping that since August came along and I fall asleep all the time and I can’t wake up. You’d think sleep would be a good thing, but the sleep I get is nothing but nightmares that I can’t wake up from. I went to the doctor the other day and found out that a small lump I’ve had on my shoulder since 4th grade is a cyst brought on by stress. I also have psoriasis... brought on by stress. I have been shaking a lot lately due to anxiety and money problems keep getting worse. My stomach won’t stop hurting.

Wow it’s the first Saturday in August. How much has happened. That girl my parents asked if I would be friend with for my brother btw is married. I had asked my friend of like 25 years when the incident happened if she would take her off things like Instagram and Facebook and stuff and she had a fit, but half took her off Instagram. You know where you unfollow them but they still follow you? So yea I was still mad but she claimed she didn’t know how to not have her on Instagram. You know that “block” button. Yea I guess that doesn’t exist. So recently after my parents thing I see she adds the new Facebook page (I blocked one so this is a new one) and I lose me shit). She text me asking me how I am doing and I not word for word say “don’t ask how I am if you don’t give a shit. I see you added that bitch recently and I don’t know if you’ve done reading or not on mental health, but triggers are things that set back forward progress. I don’t get why I fight for you to be in my life when you don’t fight for me to be in yours. Don’t text me again” and I blocked her. She then had her daughter (who’s always grounded from her phone) bombard my daughters phone with “can my brother and I sleep over? Auntie has to answer my moms texts though” like what the fuck?! She’s always been a “user.” And when I say “user” I mean “drive me here and I’ll ignore you the whole concert” “give me money and I’ll say I’ll pay you back and never actually will” “ watch my kids every weekend for like 2 months and I’ll never return the favor.” Shit like that. I’m out. Done. To quote my favorite movie in a time of pain this Katelynn “chick must have beer flavored nipples.”

August is the month that just keeps giving. I am non stop nauseous. I threw up the other day and it caused me to have a nose bleed. Mental health drug withdrawals are no joke. Hopefully I’m on a good mix again for another year or whatever. Once the withdrawals stop, I need to stop the stress and anxiety. My husband says my dad is trying to make an effort to learn now, but I don’t know if it’s too late. He and my mom have already triggered me many times by asking me to be friends with that girl who didn’t want to be my friend because my illness to make my brother happy. My dad also told me I’m a danger to children when I’ve only ever hurt myself whereas his oldest has gotten expelled from high school for fighting and has a track record for punching holes in walls and hitting cabinet doors off hinges, but because I have a label, I’m dangerous. There’s just some things you just can’t take back.

I don’t know if I’ve already stated, but I forget what things are called and the stress to get my thoughts and what I’m trying to say out is huge because I don’t want to hear “what?” “I missed that” “I didn’t hear what you said.” It’s cause I didn’t get to finish! I stopped to figure out what the word was now I forgot the whole sentence! Colored pencils are colored sticks. Elote is elbow. Ice is grass. Posture is prosper. I HATE this! I come up with ANY word that will come out to avoid a pause so I can avoid “what?” I truely cannot remember the word either until someone tells me.

It’s the end of August and my parents and I are slowly starting to talk. First about small things like video games, but yesterday I called my mom and told her I was sorry for how I expressed my feeling. I said I never should have acted out in anger and should have come to them calmly (though now thinking about it, I did and it didn’t work, but what’s done is done). My dad is reading the book and really taking it in. The book being from a bipolar persons perspective is nice for him. My mom is also doing internet research. My brother has been asking how I have been doing which is nice though I still don’t know how I feel about him and how he treated my friend. My oldest brother has been silent. We’ve never been close. It hurts, but he’s got two little girls to deal with I guess. I would have been asking about him, but oh well I’ll take what I get. I’ve did the distance thing I realized because I was afraid of losing them again. Afraid the anger and fighting would come back and it would just be a never ending cycle. I hope this book opens eyes. On other notes, I’ve upgraded to nocturnal panic disorder. I’ve been waking up in a panic from sleep. Still having nightmares, but the times I don’t, PANIC!

My parents and I are doing better since my dad is reading the book. I appologized for how I said things in anger to both of them because it wasn’t fair to them for my to have done that even if I did try calmly. I should have kept trying. My dad said the book is really eye opening and he didn’t need the apology, but appreciated it. He said reading it made him realize I couldn’t help it. I can’t explain right now what he meant, but it’s just like loss of control (I posted the book in another post). I text my brother to tell him I love him because I do and I understand why he would ask my friend out, but I’m still upset because I know I was a rebound and he didn’t have good thoughts. I know he knows it was a mistake and in time we will be ok. On another note, I found out why I was having nocturnal panic attacks. I stopped my sleeping pills that is also for anxiety. I started a medication that I haven’t been on for a little and I took my on the spot anxiety med the other day and i had a few psychotic breaks again (a few in one day). So now I won’t take my on the spots anymore.

My primary care doctor has put me on a medication to help with weight loss in addition to the others I am on. Its also supposed to help with full body pain and swelling which I have. In just three days I have already noticed reduced swelling and pain. Dieting is still hard, but less hard. I am couting calories safely to lose 1 pound a week and eating at least 80 grams of protein. Thats it. Thats my diet I am following. Nothing special or fancy or hard to do. Simple.

Took almost 2 years on the dot, but I finally got on SSDI as of early Sept. and early Oct. I got my award letter. I didnt fully win my case (only 16 months out of 2 years, but I will take it). Also, I don’t get paid for the first 5 months of that 16 months which I don’t fully understand, plus I have to pay the lawyers, but still, I won. We also got a notice saying that since I have a child, I can apply to get money to pay for her as well. That was easy to apply for and only takes a month to hear back for, so I should hear back early Nov.

;

[aucklandmed]

How I study

A lot of people having been asking me how I study and how I prepared for exams during my degree, so here is a summary post. Please message me if you have any questions.

In summary, my advice is

1. Focus

2. De-stress

3. Make good notes that you understand

4. Plan your exam prep

5. Study by teaching

Focus

A big part of procrastination is losing focus and wanting to do something else OR not really wanting to study. Losing focus is due to a combination of lack of motivation to study and being easily distracted. It can be a 50:50 combo of those two or a different combination. Maybe you really do want to study but you just can’t focus. For that situation I’ve found a really good solution: the pomodoro technique. It’s a step by step process which encourages a really good productivity habit. This video is going to explain it much better than I could.

https://www.focusboosterapp.com/the-pomodoro-technique

This is the technique I use during exams, not during the year. The website I use it http://www.marinaratimer.com/ where you can pick your own sound etc and it’s free.

Stress (and de-stress)

Maybe you’re really good at committing to study but you’ve got other things on your mind. You’re worried about your results, an upcoming test, assignments etc. It’s all very well to be super focus on what you’re doing but if you’re also stressed, you’re not gonna be very efficient and ultimately, it’s not very good for you.

Learning how to “let go” of things that worry you is a good strategy to dealing with stress and becoming more focused and thereby more efficient. The theory is VERY simple but putting it into practice.. not so much. However, if you do manage it, it’s amazing. It took me a whole semester to master it (S1, 2nd year) but by the start of S2, I was pretty much stress free (for the most part). I became much more efficient (did 5 papers in a semester and did really well in all of them) and I was just having a much better time. Life suddenly wasn’t so dull and stressful anymore.

The basis of this technique can be explained in 2 ways: the simple way and the arrow metaphor. The simple explanation is “If you can change something, then change it. If you can’t, don’t worry about it”. So, putting that into practice: you’re trying to study and you keep thinking about UMAT and how stressful it was, but then you realise you can’t affect your UMAT grades anymore so you think “hey, I can’t change this so let’s not worry about it and instead I’ll focus on things I CAN change, such as the MEDSCI test”. This is, of course, very easy to say and much harder to do. I much more prefer the arrow metaphor. Everything that hurts or stresses you in life is an arrow that hits you. This causes some bleeding and you’re hurt and stressed and you don’t like it. This can be a bad grade, a break up, anything. But then you can hit yourself with another arrow. The 2nd arrow is you punishing yourself for the 1st arrow. You’re angry at yourself for not getting a better grade, angry/upset with yourself for the breakup. But you don’t need to endure the pain of the 2nd arrow if you never shoot it at yourself. Forgive yourself. You’re doing better than you think and you need to be nicer to yourself.

Let me ask you a question. If you treated your friends and family the way you treat yourself when you get a bad grade/something doesn’t go well for you, would they still want to talk to you? If you can be compassionate to others, then you can be compassionate to yourself.

You need to also identify the source of stress. Of course, the “ultimate” stressor is usually the main goal we are heading towards. For me that was not getting into med school. But then, when broken don, there were smaller parts to it such as the upcoming test, the interview etc. Breaking it down and identifying WHY each of those things stressed me out helped me not be stressed about them.

“The test is stressing me. Why? Don’t feel like I’ll do well. Ok, I’ll go do some more practice papers. I see I’m getting a lot of answers right. Oh, I must be doing alright. I am now less stressed” Ultimately, becoming less stressed will result in becoming more efficient at studying/doing anything you’re trying to do.

Progressive studying (how I study)

Alright. I think there is a difference between memorising every single little detail months before the test and actually understanding the concepts (months ahead). I also think that people get these two confused.. a lot. In 1st year I memorised everything ages ahead and then when I got to the test… I forgot it. What I did remember were the general concepts and I also remembered everything I understood.

So, progressive studying is definitely good. A simple google search will show you 100s of studies proving that. But one study technique is not like the other.

What I did in 2nd and 3rd year (and actually still do today) is that I make notes for the lecture. Now this is different for 1st year and for everyone else. In 1st year, the notes are already pretty good, you probably don’t need to make extra notes. In every other year, you do. Make your own notes because the notes in the book just won’t be useful for you. Then, you make sure you understand everything in that lecture. Don’t let a lecture go by unnoticed if you don’t understand it because it will be much more difficult to understand a week before the test, I guarantee it.

Notes and lecture preparation

What I did was that I went to these lectures and I usually came prepared: I had other people's notes/slides because they don't upload them before the lectures (for some physiology papers) and the course guides are crap. Lucky all of you who message me for them (in a polite and respectful manner). I will happily provide you with my notes. I will only send you notes written by me so there is no copyright issue. So now I’m at a lecture with my pre-printed notes/notes on my laptop, I can easily keep up with the lecture. Edit the notes

From here I would never be done with a lecture until the notes are done. That is, they're edited and ready to be printed, they're not missing anything the lecturer said, they're nicely formatted so that I don't hate studying from them AND MOST IMPORTANTLY I UNDERSTAND everything in the notes. Not remember but understand. So that when I need to memorise everything from them in a few days or weeks, I can and I don't have to go back and re-do them. This is a very important step.

Exams (how I prepare before exams)

I cram. But beware.. there are different kinds of cramming. I’ve never crammed overnight and I’ve never started studying a day before an exam. That’s just… not smart. When people say cramming they think of learning the whole semester’s worth of content in one day and that's just downright impossible.

What I do is I usually allocate about ~2 weeks before a test that is reserved just for that test. I take all of my notes that I prepared during the semester (previous paragraph) and I’ll start planning and preparing. I would write out approx.. how many days I have, leave ~1 day purely for revision and past exams, divide the number of lectures by the number of days. I would then do MINIMUM that number of lectures and always try to do a few more per day if I can.

Study by teaching

For the actual study, I would read the whole lecture notes. I would make sure I understand everything there and then I would re-write everything from that lecture that I didn't automatically remember (some stuff is really obvious and it just sticks in your mind). Ideally I would try to fit that summary onto 1 page. Then you're left with your notes and ~30 one page summaries of everything.

Now I’ve read through your notes and I’ve summarised everything I didn't know. Now I move onto more intense study.

I had a few friends in undergrad who were usually a bit behind on stuff and I think they really benefited from me teaching her stuff. When I taught them stuff (even just reading it from the page) I learnt it REALLY well. It was crazy how much I remembered just by explaining it to someone else, even if I didn’t remember it myself and I was reading it from my book. Teaching is a really really good way of learning.

So find someone you can teach. Big groups never really worked for me, we all ended up procrastinating. Find one other person and take turns teaching. Divide the lectures into 2 halves and each of you will teach one half to the other. You can also correct each other. This is the best study technique I've ever had and it's so effective. If you can't find someone to teach, get a teddy bear and lock yourself in your room and explain everything out loud to your teddy bear. NOT in your head - that's bad and doesn't work. Explain it out loud. I spent about 50% of my study this way because I couldn’t be bothered going to uni to find someone to explain it to.

Good luck for the rest of the year :)