The Reality of a Bipolar Kitchen

I decided to make a video to make sure I’m not adding to the negative talk in your head. Maybe I will anyway but I want to be real with you and not come off as all the perfect online people who let’s be honest aren’t real and make us all, bipolar or not, feel like failures. I don’t want to be a source of further depression. Quite the opposite I would like to be a source of balance and understanding.

So here is my kitchen in all its horrifying glory. I wanted to start video posts for recipes like all the ones you see on Facebook. But I wanted a cute new background instead of my ugly pink tiles. So enter Miss Madi a cute online shop. She sells the cutest decor. She also sells strips and washi tape. You can check them out here.

So first I had to clean my entire kitchen. Luckily I’m not in the depths of depression although I’m not sky high either I’m definitely in some form of hypomania. I’m irritable and wanting to go all the time whether mentally or physically or both. So it took me a number of hours to get it clean. You can see that process here. (Click on the photo to see the video).

Now it is all clean including those darn tiles and I can start laying out the entire decor. It is a nine tile pattern so you have to vary it a little to make it look cute but I am loving the results. I ran out ⅔ of the way through but luckily it is easy to get more here.

So I had enough for the place I want my background to be and I’m ready to go. I’m so excited to share my recipes with you that I have found. I love cooking but unfortunately only when I’m hypomanic. I am pretty good at choosing tasty recipes but unfortunately, my texture preferences and needs change dramatically from when I’m manic and get depressed.

One time a few months ago I made a white chicken lasagna and I loved it! So cheesy and delicious I was in heaven. However, I had been making freezer meals for days and going much faster than I should have. I think over the course of three days I had made 6 chicken enchilada casseroles 60  bacon cheddar meatballs 2 pepperoni pizza penne casseroles and 30 or so keto breakfast burritos and then I made these 2 chicken lasagnas. I cleaned up the best I could as I went but it definitely got out of hand and I crashed.

So the next day I go to heat up the lasagna for lunch and I couldn’t only gag down about 5 bites before I just tossed it. Luckily my parents came to my house the next day (they come once a week)  and they had no problems with the lasagna, which is a relief that it didn’t suck and sad and frustrating that things change so quickly for me.

So this is where my recipes come in. Often when I’m depressed and hate cooking I resort to things like corn dogs, taquitos, chimichangas, and pizzas to survive those times. It is unhealthy and I have guilt over that since I know proper diet is so essential for balancing my bipolar. However, I am the type that if I don’t eat something easy and simple I wouldn’t eat at all and something is better than nothing.

Enter my solution, homemade freezer meals. This serves as a three fold solution:

1. It allows me to heat up easy healthy meals when I’m depressed and have zero desire to cook.
2. It allows me to release some of that anxious energy when I’m hypomanic and obsessed with cooking and consumption. Instead of having a fridge full of leftovers that my young family of 5 can’t eat before they go bad, I am able to stock my freezer and double cook (cook some for now and freeze some for later).
3. It ensures I have meals on hand so if I am called on to serve my neighbors I can take a meal easily even if I am depressed and feel good about myself while serving others.

I will be making these videos of my favorite go-to freezer meals that always taste good to me. You can also find a board on Pinterest with a few ideas if your tastes are different from mine with ideas for other similar meals that could work.

I am in love with the background. Don’t you just love how it turned out? If you love the look you can duplicate it here.

If you have found strategies that work for you with this shift in textures or had a different experience, please let me know in the comments or shoot me an email :).

Blythe

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

 

Advertisement