Since this weekend, I have:
a) Actually been able to live for some hours, consecutively, in my living room, even when it gets dark, thanks to full-spectrum lighting (more is coming). It’s so convenient to be next to the kitchen to get foods for dinner and water for general drinking.
b) Not had nightmares. I stay nestled in cows, having learned my lesson that I still need them, very much.
c) Slept my full hours, mostly due to eventually losing fear of having nightmares.
Yesterday I learned (again) that not taking the Buspar on time makes the screaming inside my head start. The fact that the screaming is starting up at all means that the holiday PTSD hell is on.
This weekend, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to cook very much. Life is freaking me out a bit, but hopefully the increased dose of Buspar (slowly, slowly increasing to double the amount I’m taking right now) will help. Lamictal is still at a high dose, and does keep the bipolar at bay.
Today I was able to wake up at 6am. It gives me time to make bento, eat breakfast, and shower. The full-spectrum lighting and cows are helping me deal with the fucking dark, rainy mornings better.
I resolve to:
1) Take my medication much more regularly. This means filling a pillbox and keeping it in my Timbuk2, and keeping my Timbuk2 with me at all times, and keeping at least one cow in the Timbuk2 at all times.
2) Other stuff here. I forget which.
By the way, some people are under the impression that I am a totally broken person who can’t work or do anything with nightmares, when asleep or awake, pressing down on me. Which isn’t true; if anything, I guess I’m about as broken as Lord Peter Wimsey—i.e., I have a rather interesting job that requires brainpower and guts to do, there are occasions when I’m not up to it, sometimes really not up to it with worse seasons than others, and all the while there is a kind of private hell that other people don’t get to see on the outside. Unless you’re my friend or read this blog.
This blog, point of fact, a rather skewed view of me. It’s a truthful view, but it’s not the whole truth.
On the other hand, some people will never listen, so why I’m writing this addendum, I don’t know.
Spontaneous ∂erivation 
Some people do listen. Hug. Sound like this holiday improved all the way to being only miserable.
*hugs* I have hope, at least.
I understand you need to focus on the PTSD stuff here. You have explained very clearly elsewhere that this is an effort to chart the ups and downs (ins and outs) over a long period of time, so you can better cope with the yearly cycle. You are very brave to do this, because putting so much attention to something like this can make it loom larger in the short run. Thank you for making your journal public.
*hugs*