This is not an easy post for me to write but it is one that I think won’t be so surprising for those who have followed me for a long time. I am not superwoman, although when the manic side of my bipolar disorder takes over it might look like I’m trying to be. An agoraphobic women who rarely left the house in the last couple of months I have joined a gym, gone back to church, and joined Weight Watchers, the latter of which is the best thing I have done for myself and I am deeply committed to continuing with it. However, jumping in the car and driving nearly 30 minutes in bad traffic to the gym one way has finally done me in. So much so that I haven’t gone to church the last two weeks from the overwhelm of having to leave the house so much, and it has come to the point that imagining going to the gym has caused me to shut down so completely rather than go I have gone to sleep with the pugs and completely numbed out. I crashed big time and it wasn’t pretty. I had to make a hard decision today and I have decided to cancel my gym membership and exercise at home.

I am embarrassed and afraid because I have tried to exercise at home before to no avail because I couldn’t stay motivated to do it, but I am hoping that having gone to the gym thus far and with the inspiration I get at my Weight Watcher’s meetings, as well as seeing the weight come off — I have lost 15 pounds so far — will be my impetus to exercise, and I have ordered a dvd to exercise with called “Older and Wiser” specifically for those of use who are older and have body concerns that the young and fit don’t have to worry about. I am committed to my wellness and as I was also diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes in the fall I have to lose weight and take care of myself and I intend to. The shame, however, of quitting the gym does not sit easy with me.

This is something that I deal with all the time, this bipolar dance of getting excited and believing that, well, if I can’t jump buildings with a single bound I can at least commit to several things outside my comfort zone and manage them with ease. You are not agoraphobic one day and then dive headlong into leaving the house 5 or 6 days a week and with church on Sundays it was 6 days a week. When I didn’t go to church 2 weeks ago and then again this Sunday I knew I had hit a wall. Going to church is important for my spirit and I have really enjoyed going, but two Sundays in a row I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep with a sigh of relief. I wouldn’t have to go out one more time. This is not okay with me, I have really missed going and I want to go back, in fact I believe I need to go back. This Sunday I intend to.

Agoraphobia is a sticky widget. I have managed, with vigilant therapy and medication to leave my house a little more easily to do a handful of things I need to do, get to therapy itself for one thing, and going to Weight Watchers is another, but to go to a gym that is large and full of people when I am overweight and shy about it puts me in a very vulnerable position and the long drive in bad traffic there and back is the nail in the coffin. I arrive home in such a state I am not good for anything else, and when I go back to sleep 2 hours after I have gotten up for the day because I am in such a panic about having to get dressed in my gym clothes and drive to the gym my life has left the realm of manageable. I am self-medicating with sleep when I do that and I have gone back to sleep at 1:00 and slept off and on until the day was safely over around 5 or 6 and I could face the evening. This is a terrifying, paralyzing way to live, and writing about it is embarrassing and beyond hard.

I write about these things because I know that there are others out there who suffer from these same kinds of things in whatever way they manifest and I know what its like to feel alone and afraid and like you are the only one in the world to ever _____________ and end up feeling so poorly about yourself that it is hard to go on. It has been getting harder and harder for me to go on. That’s where I stop and draw a line in the sand and say, “No more.”

I felt so ashamed over having told everyone about joining the gym and writing about how important it has been to me and then realizing that I was going to have to quit that I could barely breathe, and I know there will be people who will say, “There she goes again, saying she is going to do something and then not following through,” but I can’t live my life worried about that. I am, first and foremost, accountable to myself, and I will have to face myself in the mirror as I go through the days ahead and talk to myself about what I need to do to take care of myself by exercising at home. And to that end I have talked to a dear friend who has agreed to be an accountability partner for me as I work out my exercise at home regimen, and it was she who told me that her word for the last year was “Permission.” I have to give myself permission to do what I know I need to do. I am doing just that.

I feel all shy and trembly, yes, embarrassed, and ashamed that I could not continue with going to the gym, but going to the gym opened up many things for me including returning to church and joining Weight Watchers, both of which I will continue with, and it showed me that I am able to do many things that I heretofore had not known I could do. It helped me start to make friends with my body and showed me that I can move and that it feels good to do so. Having gone to the gym for almost two months I am hoping will be the thing that will help me commit to exercise at home now. I shall continue on and find my way.

If you are struggling know that there is no shame in honestly examining where you are and what you really need to do, and not do, in your life to be okay. And if you are bipolar please be gentle with yourself. We will have these swings between the poles that take us to places that we cannot sustain or maintain and that’s alright. Coming back to center and reorienting ourselves to what is possible and right for us in the moment is what we need to do, it is what I am doing, and I am flooded with relief as I write these words. I tried, I did not fail, I simply found that for me there needs to be another way. And so it is.