This is going up a day late because I did not feel like getting on the computer yesterday. I had a pretty quiet week, but I did have a quick dinner with Suzanne on Friday and lunch/movie with Kim on Saturday.
My psychiatrist and I are still trying to figure out the new med I am on. I was taking a small dose twice during the day and a bit larger dose at bedtime. I was experiencing a lot of tiredness during the day, to the point where I was falling asleep at my desk. After reducing the daytime dose a bit didn’t help, we switched to me only taking the nighttime dose.
I thought it was getting better, but this morning I fell asleep at my desk again. I am going to give it a few more days and then contact her again to see what we can do. If this doesn’t change, I would like to get off the medication altogether. I already struggle with sleepiness due to diabetes and staying up too late sometimes; I don’t want to compound it with meds.
This week I started taking the new medication my psychiatrist prescribed for my anxiety, and it has been a struggle. It can be quite sedating for the first couple of weeks, and I am definitely experiencing that. It got to the point on Friday that I couldn’t keep my eyes open at my desk and I had to log off work to lie down. I really hope this effect goes away soon!
On Tuesday, I had a meeting with my son’s new therapist so that he could get some background information before starting therapy with him. I really liked him. I felt like we covered all the important topics and that he seemed to understand a lot about autism. Michael will start meeting with him this coming week, and I’m hopeful that it will go well.
In other news, I won a $50 gift card to Puzzledly from an Instagram giveaway! I was able to order two regular puzzles and one mini puzzle. It was so exciting! I’ll post the puzzles when I get them; they are new releases so they won’t be shipping for a couple of weeks.
I have still been puzzling a lot more than reading. I am only on my fifth book this month. I am currently reading Christmas Island by Natalie Normann.
This was a busy week. Last Sunday Michael and I had lunch with our friends Mike and Sherry. It was nice to see them as it had been a while since we got together. I also needed to get their house key since I had agreed to feed their cats while they went on a trip. Mike also asked if I could tape the back of a puzzle he had done because he wanted to frame it, so I did that on Saturday.
Here is the puzzle he did and what it looks like with puzzle glue sheets on it.
On Wednesday, my friend Suzanne came over. We ordered pizza and she helped me finish a puzzle I was working on that had gotten to the challenging spots. I was very glad for her help and her company. Then on Friday, my friend Renee came up and we went together to see Shakespeare in the Park. This theater group has been doing free plays every summer for thirty-three years! Renee and I have gone the last three years, and we really enjoy it. The play this year was As You Like It, and it was a lot of fun.
I had orthodontist and eye doctor appointments this week, and both went well. I also helped Michael fill out paperwork for a new therapist and coached him on how to tell his current therapist he wanted to stop seeing him. Michael felt like the conversation went well, and I am so proud of him.
I still get overwhelmed when I am busy or things are very loud, but I’m glad to be better able to handle social things better than I had been.
This week has been pretty eventful. I am still in the process of switching the meds that the psychiatrist changed for me. The new one was delayed by insurance. It normally comes in a capsule, but I have trouble swallowing those, so she prescribed a tablet. They wouldn’t approve it, but they said if I have swallowing issues I could get the liquid. That seems kind of stupid to me, but I’m just hoping it doesn’t taste terrible. I have been feeling better just with the lowered dose of the original med, so that’s progress at least.
My friend Renee and her boyfriend Chris (pictured above) came over on Friday to hang out, and we had a really good time. I overdid it on the carbs and afterwards I was feeling a bit off. It felt different from when I have high blood sugar, so I checked my sugar and it was only 75! I looked it up and it sounds like it was reactive hypoglycemia, which is when your body keeps making insulin longer than is needed after a high amount of carbs. I ate some candy and checked again in 15 minutes and it was up to 130. Later on it started getting low again, so I had some more candy.
The whole incident was pretty scary, but the really interesting thing was that my cat was climbing all over me and nudging me until I woke up fully and got up to check my blood sugar. I had heard about dogs that can smell low blood sugar, but I didn’t realize that cats sometimes do that too. I am so thankful that he was persistent!
I have been puzzling a lot. My follower count on Instagram has been slowly growing, and I just hit 2000 followers, which I am happy about. I took a screenshot to commemorate it:
On Saturday, I went to the puzzling group at a local library – the one I tried out last month. There were about 7 of us there, so we split into 2 groups. Our group did two 500 piece puzzles in the time we were there.
Here are the puzzles we did at the library:
Musical Mermaids by Bonnie White, Bits and Pieces, 500 pieces
Niagara Falls by Eric Dowdle, Dowdle, 500 pieces
Sunday I am planning to go to church and then in the evening Renee is coming again so we can go to Shakespeare in the Park. This year they are doing As You Like It. I am looking forward to both outings, which is a big improvement for me. Hopefully, I will enjoy them both and not be overstimulated.
As Mental Health Awareness month comes to a close, I wanted to share an update on my own mental health. For those who do not know, I have Bipolar 2 and I am also autistic.
I have been going through a difficult time the last few months. I started to feel easily overstimulated by social events and to feel restless when working or even sometimes relaxing. It got to the point where it took all of my energy to get through my workday, and I had to force myself to keep appointments for myself and my son. I stopped doing anything outside of what was absolutely required, even switching to watching church online.
After some research, it seemed I might have been experiencing autistic burnout, which is usually the result of spending years masking to fit in with neurotypical people. Not everything fit this explanation, but a lot of it did. After allowing myself a lot of time to rest, I started feeling like I wanted to be involved in social activities again, but I still had the sense that it would be too much for me.
Earlier this week, I met with my psychiatrist and I shared with her what I have been dealing with. She asked a lot of questions that didn’t make sense to me at first, but then she shared her suspicion that my symptoms might be related to a medication I was taking. We talked about some options and decided to gradually switch over to a different one and see how that helps.
I am still tapering off the first med, but I do feel a glimmer of hope that things could get better. I am thankful for a mental health professional that understands autism as well as mental health issues and can help figure out what is going on and offer a path forward.
I love this pic of Peanut Butter. I had folded a blanket and left it on the floor, and he partly wormed his way underneath the top layer. So cute!
This week was a pretty good one. I am starting to feel a little bit more like myself again. although some days I have been really tired from staying up too late the night before. Work is going well, and Michael seems to be doing okay at his job, which I am thankful for. I got a much-needed haircut on Friday evening, and I saw my friend Kim on Saturday after a few weeks of us being busy with other things.
I have been doing a lot of puzzling and TV watching lately and not as much reading. I did sit down and write a few book reviews, though, so I will be posting those soon.
My biggest struggle lately has been with impulse control. This affects me in a number of areas and I am looking forward to talking with my psychiatrist in a couple of weeks. I think I may need to adjust some of my meds to help me stay more centered.
The Mother to Mother Autism Luncheon that I am helping to planning is coming up in just three weeks, so now it’s time for me to get working on the program and the items that will be included in the folders and bags we hand out. Thankfully, a lot of the heavy lifting is done by the team at the main site, and I just have to tweak things for our location.
I had some unfortunate dental news this week. On Tuesday, I noticed that one of my teeth was pretty loose. The orthodontist had said my teeth might be a bit wobbly as they moved, but this one was really moving. It turned out to be one of my implants (I have two implants right next to each other). My dentist looked at it and said she believed the implant had failed and that an oral surgeon should evaluate both of them. The oral surgeon said that it has definitely failed, and that the other one would fail as well, due to too much bone loss, which is most likely because the implants were placed too close together.
So now I have to organize getting the implant crowns off and then getting the implants removed and a bone graft done. I need a driver for the appointment, and I need to make sure Michael can get to and from work, and it’s going to cost $3600. I’m also stuck eating soft food for the foreseeable future so I don’t fracture it before it can get taken care of. Ugh!
On a positive note, I took Friday off work to watch the first day of the USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association Nationals. Friday was the individual prelims, Saturday was the pairs and teams prelims, and Sunday is the finals for all three categories. I had purchased a 1500 piece puzzle to do while I was watching, and I ended up staying up until 3 AM on Saturday morning finishing it! I haven’t taken pictures of the puzzle yet, but here’s a picture of the box:
I did get all caught up on laundry on Friday as well, which was good, but I was definitely avoiding a bunch of admin stuff I really need to do. There are a few things on my list which I am anxious about, so it’s really hard to make myself tackle them.
This has been a pretty good week. Peanut Butter turned 13 on Monday. He is still pretty healthy, despite his age, which I am thankful for.
In health news, I had my three-month check-in with the orthodontist, and he was pleased at how much movement has happened with my teeth so far. He gave me trays 13-25, so I will see him again in another three months.
I got to spend time with two good friends this week. Renee came over Friday evening and we ate together and played a bit of puzzle chess and then watched a few episodes of Best Medicine. She is a fan of Doc Martin, so I wanted her to see the new American version of the show, and she liked it. Then Kim came over Saturday for lunch and a movie. We get together every other weekend and take turns hosting. We had a nice time.
I haven’t been reading as much lately as I usually do. I have only finished two books in March, both of which were mysteries. I was about 80% done with a third one and then it automatically returned to Libby and I had to put it on hold again! I am currently about 40% done with another one; this one is on my Kindle so I don’t have to worry about it going away, lol.
Michael seems to be doing pretty well at his job. He feels like he has a good handle on the daily tasks. He has had a few awkward interactions with people, but we talk through them and I try to give him suggestions on how to handle them in the future. I know I have my own share of social issues, but I do have the benefit of a few more years of experiences to draw on.
I have been feeling more stressed this week. I think I could use some of these stress balls! Work is super busy as I am helping out another department, and in my personal finances, I am trying to get some information I need to finalize how to handle something. After several attempts, I think I found someone who might be able to answer my questions (fingers crossed). There is also no news on the job front for Michael.
On Monday, I had a combination endoscopy/colonoscopy. The procedures went well and the results from both were good. I am especially happy about the endoscopy because there were no eosinophils found in the biopsies, which means that my condition is under control with the medication I am on. That is a welcome change from the first 50 years of my life, with a lot of that being before I even had an accurate diagnosis.
Today, I was invited to go to a performance of Hadestown: Teen Edtion. The performance was incredibly good; it was hard to believe some of the cast were really teenagers! I did find the event quite draining, however, especially sitting in the loud, crowded auditorium before the play and during the intermission. I would have loved to have some noise canceling headphones at those times.
I have to go into the office Monday and Tuesday to do some training, so those days are going to be quite busy for me. I’m hoping things will quiet down a bit after that.
Peanut Butter has been enjoying the winter sun when he can, and he seems to really like my soft winter blanket.
This has been an interesting week. Michael’s dad is retired now and is trying to figure out everything with insurance, which affects us because Michael will be on his insurance until he turns 26. He did get the health insurance squared away, but we are still waiting to hear on prescription, dental, and vision. Michael did see the dentist this week, but it was to get his permanent crown, so the cost was already covered under the initial crown appointment last month, thankfully!
I am on tray #3 of my Invisalign, and that seems to be going well. They said I could leave the trays on an extra day if they still seem tight, but I’m not very good with vague instructions like that. I have taken it to mean that if I can’t get the new trays on, I should hold off on them. So far I have been able to use the new trays on time.
Below is a picture of the puzzles I purchased over the last few weeks of 2025. I am currently on a puzzle buying moratorium because I started the year with 71 puzzles waiting to be done and they no longer fit comfortably on the shelf I have set aside for that purpose. My goal is to not buy any new puzzles until I have my to do list at 50 or below. It will be a challenge for sure!
Yesterday was a busy day for me. I get together with a friend every other Saturday for lunch and a movie, and this time it was my turn to host. We watched People We Meet on Vacation and both really enjoyed it.
In the evening, I went with a friend from church to see comedian Josh Johnson in York. We had a good time. It was a powerful show that touched on some timely issues.
This morning I went to church, which was lovely. I connected with several friends and was very moved by the service. And now I am enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon!
In So Many Words 