Learning the effects of Stress on managing my Bipolar Disorder

I have been away for 5 weeks now. Away from my life in Toronto, my family, my friends, my therapists, my doctors, away from everything. Essentially away from stress. What I have come to understand is that the lack of stress in my life has meant that I have felt better. I have slept better. I have been more calm. I have had less anxiety. I have been happier. As the time ticks down to my return to Toronto, I am starting to freak out. My mood is a wonky. I am depressed again. I am not sleeping. I am anxious. I am a mess
A week ago I couldn’t figure out what was happening. I started to not want to leave the apartment. I did not want to go out and meet new people without the security of someone else. I started to eat more. I was scared to go out in Buenos Aires on my own, unless I knew exactly where I was going and had been there before. I was sad all the time. For the first time in a while I was weepy. I found myself crying at an episode of “Criminal Minds” on tv. I was at a loss for what was happening. My drugs were the same. The same amount of mood altering and anti depressant drugs that I had been taking for the last few months cursing through my veins, so WTF???
Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was coming home soon. My body was beginning the process of acquiring and processing stress again. The mitigating factor in this whole thing, the thing that changed, that made my mood, my body, my mind change, was the thought of stress when I went home and then build up of stress to that return.
This is not a good result of a test for my big return in January to work and to “real life”. I am supposed to get a job, be better, be a “normal” member of society, return to be an active friend in the relationships that I have let fall this year, be a member of my family who is happy and active in that unit and please do that all with a smile, I’ve had a year off, haven’t I???

I know that there are a lot of “should’s” in that paragraph, but that is how I feel. It is my truth. It is what I feel the expectations are for me and they are slowly making me sick again.