In February I was shocked when I checked to see the last time I posted – November 2021. I hadn’t realized so much time had passed. 2021 almost feels like a completely different life.

Now that it’s 2023, I feel like I’m finally starting to regain my energy and focus. Along with that, I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf with Kim on a Limb.

What I Did

2022 was a year of healing. I took that entire year to focus on living. I’m not talking about the kind of living where people traverse the world and cross off half their bucket list and do things. The type of living I’m talking about is living with a mental illness.

This kind of living mainly consisted of:

• taking and adjusting to medication
• attending counseling and psychiatry appointments
• resting
• learning about bipolar disorder
• working at a new job to provide for myself
• figuring out how life works with bipolar disorder
• resting
• rediscovering my love for writing
• learning what tools I need to help manage life with bipolar disorder
• did I mention resting?

With the kind of massive mental breakdown I had in the summer of 2021, you can’t bounce back from it in a few weeks or months. In fact, it hasn’t been until now – eighteen months later (the amount of time I spent serving my church mission!) – that I’m starting to feel like my old self.

There’s been a lot of growth and reflection. I’ve learned that I need to take things at a slower pace. I can’t have stressful jobs because I spin out of control. My memory is completely shot now (I’m convinced I got some sort of brain damage during my mixed episode that affected my memory). Whenever I get upset or angry, I’m able to recognize what triggered it and that it’s my bipolar coming out. It’s been frustrating to admit that I have real, honest-to-goodness limitations because of the bipolar disorder. On the other hand, I’ve also recognized that there’s so much I can do despite the bipolar.

It almost felt a little selfish to work on just myself in 2022, but taking time for oneself is so important. I really started learning the beauty of resting and just being.

So What Now?

I’m working on a lot of the passion projects I haven’t been able to over the last year and a half. One of the main things I want to work on is this blog.

I know I’ve said this time and time again, so most people might be thinking, “Oh, let’s see how long it lasts this time.” Honestly, that’s a very valid response. Ever since I started Kim on a Limb back in 2014 (has it really been 9 years?!), it’s gone from a personal blog to trying to be a book blog to a very messy mental health blog.

Change and growth is constant. I’ve put a lot of study and research into blogging because I want this to help people. That’s always been my main goal: I want to help others see light in their life again.

Moving Forward

While solidifying what I want Kim on a Limb to be, I:

• figured out my branding
• picked my colors
• learned how to make printables that I hope are useful to others
• bought my domain name!

I really, really want to help those with bipolar disorder – or any type of chronic illness – get organized and alleviate some stress in their life. It’s already hard trying to keep up with medication and doctor’s appointments, and then with the added daily life needs like cleaning and eating and finances … things get overwhelming.

From now on, posts will focus on four main areas:

• Cleaning
• Finances
• Health
• Organization/Productivity

Over the last year and a half, I’ve realized that if I’m able to set routines and processes in these four areas, life and my mental illness are easier to manage. Not only will I talk about tips that have helped me, I’ll also provide links to other professionals whose books, videos, posts, etc. have helped me form the routines that I’m working on implementing.

Plus, I ‘ll be having a shop with printables (and maybe some physical products in the future) that will hopefully be really good resources of keeping important information organized! With a chronic illness, keeping all of the medical stuff – doctor names, offices, phone numbers, medications, pharmacies – in order is a lot. My goal is to offer a way to keep everything together so you don’t have to stress.

I’m still working on this journey, too, but I hope I can impart some of my advice to help at least one person feel better.

There are some old posts I’ve saved that are relevant to the topics I’ll be focusing on moving forward, or I feel like they are good examples of finding hope, encouragement, and light – or I’m just really sentimental and think it would be fun for readers to get to know me a bit better. The rest, though, I’ve gotten rid of because they don’t offer the kind of value I’d like for this blog to have.

Thank you so much for joining me (and also being patient if you’ve been a long-time reader!) in this adventure. I hope that we can share our light with each other.