Happy Anniversary bpnurse!

That’s right, folks, today marks my one-year anniversary of blogging here at bpnurse. It’s been a year of learning, a year of ups and downs (metaphorically as well as psychologically), and a year of developing a writing style that’s all my own.

Though I haven’t yet become rich and famous on account of my blog <insert sarcasm here>, I’ve managed to build a community of over 150 followers and a readership that has literally gone international. That makes me proud, and I think of my audience every time I sit down to write. Yes, my work is basically about living with a serious mental illness, and being a niche-market blog it will probably never reach the heights that Natasha Tracy’s and Kat Dawkins’ blogs have attained. But I’m happy with it, and as my statistics climb slowly but surely, I can see that a growing number of visitors are too.

Today also marks the beginning of yet another challenge: WordCount Freelancing in the Digital Age’s 2014 blogathon. It was the contest that launched bpnurse last June 1, and to be eligible for prizes one must write 30 posts in 30 days. Normally I have no problem coming up with something to write about, but lately I’ve been slacking because there’s been a serious lack of drama in my life (thank you, Big Pharma and Dr. Awesomesauce). So it truly will be a challenge to write something fresh and interesting each day of this month, but I think I’m equal to the task.

For those of you who are joining bpnurse for the first time, either because of the WordCount contest or because you happened to stumble over my blog on your way to something else, I’m a 55-year-old registered nurse, wife, mother, and grandmother who is literally in the fight of my life as I battle the highs and lows of bipolar disorder. It’s taken a little over two years, a lot of med changes, and many, many hours logged on the aforementioned psychiatrist’s couch, but I’ve finally achieved remission from my symptoms, which range from debilitating sadness to insensible rages to manic delusions.

Will it last? Given the nature of the disease, probably not. But it’s wonderful to feel the way I imagine normal people feel and still be able to experience life in the inimitable way of the bipolar: to see the world and everything in it as poetry—the highs, the lows, the wonder, the pain, the sheer intensity of it all, sometimes overwhelming but almost always worthwhile. 🙂