Wallowing

Well, here I am. I’m in a mood today. I just feel like wallowing. I can feel that my emotions are quite raw at the moment, and it seems every sound I hear, and every sight I see is just like a heavy putrid syrup pouring over my heart and mind, coating it with stickiness I can’t get rid of. I could try to fight it and put on the fake smile but I just don’t want to right now. All I want is to sit and ruminate for awhile. And just let it be. I want to look at the white sky and the snow and float off. Listen to this melancholy music and watch the parade of images that dance in slow motion across the backdrop of my skull. Allow it all to occur, all the words that I don’t want to make sense of…just let them come. Lie around and do absolutely nothing of any worth. Wallow and bathe myself in these feelings that engulf me. Let them be and do not try to fight them.

It’s ok, because deep down I know it will not last forever. In a couple days, I will rise again. I will come up, I will get back on the horse and live again. I’ll keep striving toward the light. But not today.

I don't need fixing

I’m a roll with my blogging again. You know, I don’t think I’ve been this active on my blog since I first started it! I got really busy with my vlogging on YouTube and didn’t write much. I stopped journaling then also. Now I’m back into both and it is really fulfilling. I know YouTube reaches a wider audience, and I will still make videos but there is just something special about the written word…I don’t know why.

BEWARE!!! This post may be pretty triggering and upsetting to some. So, you have been warned.

So I’m going through a transition period. I’ve changed my YouTube channel name from Bipolar State of Being to Nicole For Real. Why? Because there is more to me than bipolar. Because honestly, I’m not sure I even view myself as “mentally ill” anyway. I don’t think I do. Being mentally ill implies that I have a disease, a “sickness”. Does having more intense moods than an average person qualify me as “sick”? Actually, in this country, yes. Sadly, I bought into it for a long time. I think I’ve gotten a lot of crap messages from people and society that told me I was defective and needed fixing. And I believed them. I thought I needed to fix myself, and I tried REEEEAAAAAAALLLLY hard to do that, to do all the things those people asked.

Grow a thicker skin and stop being so sensitive.

Quit being melodramatic.

Deal with it.

Quit complaining.

Take your meds.

Try harder!!!

Wow, so there is a lot to address there. Let me make a little list.

1)     Sensitivity. Sensitivity is not a character flaw, like many people try to make it seem. It is actually in many cases as asset. People who are sensitive, well, SENSE more. We feel more deeply, love more passionately, empathize wholeheartedly. I think most of this country at least, could benefit from a large helping of sensitivity. In ways it can be painful to feel such heightened emotions but it ways it is like enlightenment. So, do I believe I am flawed and need to “quit it”? Errrrrr, no. At times it causes me pain but at times it causes me intense joy.

2)     The med issue. Ok, this is huge and too big to get into it all now. But in short, I used to believe what everyone said, that I NEEEEED meds, that meds will make me better, that to be “responsible” I HAD to take them, etc. etc. etc. Never mind that they all had horrible side effects and a lot of the time, no real positive effects. But, you NEED them, “that’s what the doctors say!!!!” And we all know, the only people who are capable of making choices, being intelligent, or using their God given reasoning ablilites are doctors *insert sarcasm*. Certainly, “mentally ill” people have no right to challenge THE DOCTORS!!! Ok, so I didn’t. I deferred to them, the “professionals” I sucked it up, I ate the little white pills like a good girl should. Hmmm, those didn’t work. Try these. Now these. Now these. Now these. Oh, come on, one of these is bound to work!!! But…but…wait. Four years later, I wasn’t any better off than when I started! HUH????????

3)     Societal expectations. Alright so this is sort of a combination of the above two. Here’s how it works. We (the patient, the person, the one experiencing the moods, however you would like to describe it) have some difficulties functioning. We become depressed, or anxious, or Maybe suicidal. We, or others we know, insist that we seek help. What do we need help with? The terrible feelings we feel, learning how to deal with these feelings, trying to figure out what exactly we can do to STOP feeling these terrible feelings. We fit the criteria, and so we have a “disorder”. Now that we know we aren’t normal, and everyone else becomes aware that we aren’t normal, we have to do something. We have to fix it. We treat disorders by medicating them, right? 

So forgive me, I didn’t mean this to sound as scathing as it does (upon rereading) but it comes from a real anger.

So let me simmer down a bit and address in a more calming manner. What is my point here? My point is that people with bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, BPD, (indeed, most mental illnesses) just WANT TO FEEL BETTER WHEN WE ARE DOWN. At times, we are grasping at straws, just trying to keep our heads afloat (yeah, I’m mixing metaphors there.) Many of us are actually relieved to GET the diagnosis of the disorder because now we are validated, our pain has been validated. All those people who told us to suck it up have been thwarted, they don’t have a leg to stand on because the medical community tells them it is “real”. You know what the saddest thing is? That people, as a whole, are so insensitive, that they need the medical community to TELL THEM that depression/anxiety/intense moods are real!!! I guess that is the really staggering thing to me.

Our society seems to be shining the spotlight on mental illness more, and in previous times, it was helpful. After all, anyone dealing with any sort of mental issue knows that what we really want is validation, acceptance, love, caring, empathy, NOT to be turned into somebody else. And often (depending on the issue), this can help more than medication. Some medications have been shown to be almost totally ineffective, yet they are still prescribed and touted as the way to treat certain mental illness. DOUBLE HUH??? Why??? Because that is the current idea in society. Take the little white (or blue, or red) pills and your life will get better. That’s the message we all hear, and we have to believe because we are offered no alternative. And don’t even think about mentioning God or spirituality. You will be labeled as even more severely ill than before. Because no mentally sane person could believe in God! *insert more sarcasm* Here, take more white pills, quick!!!

Now, back to my harping on society, and how we want validation, acceptance, love and empathy. It is because WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS not because WE ARE “DEFECTIVE” “SICK” OR “ILL”. Every single person on earth wants those things, especially when they are going through hardships! I personally am really tired of the patronizing labels. Many people with mental illness are intelligent, talented, charismatic, witty, outgoing, sensitive, or a host of other positive attributes. It’s anecdotally known (and I’m sure that I could dig up research as well) that people tend to seek help when they are in low periods. During these periods we describe our lives in the blackest of terms because that is how we truly feel. But when the period passes, our energy comes back to us, we may be positive and cheerful and going about our daily lives as usual. Some things may be long lasting, but virtually no mind is paid to any sort of social factors in our lives that could be affecting us (Are we having marital problems? Job issues? Money troubles? Kids suspended from school?) No, it’s just because we are sick. If we took enough white pills, we could cope with our cheating spouses and being laid off and having insane debts and kids acting out. Darn it, we are weak, we have diseased brains, that’s why we have problems and we need those pills!!! (Oh, and by the way, here is half my salary to pay for the pills that run $600 for a month supply. I just paid $20 a pill to feel crappier!!! TRIPLE HUH???)

People really seem to fall into two camps when it comes to the mental illness issue. They think either A) it isn’t real and that people are exaggerating or making things up or B) it is extremely serious and that you must treat any “mentally ill” person with kid gloves, or like they are a child or invalid. Now, neither one of these is really correct. Granted, I’m sure there are some people who exaggerate (not just illness but anything) and I’m sure there are people who are incapacitated or unable to function independently most of the time. But I believe many “mentally ill” folks like myself fall somewhere in the middle.

So let’s take me as an example. I’m not even sure how “severe” I would be classified as. It’s like the saying “When I’m good, I’m REALLY good, and when I’m bad, I’m REALLY bad.” Is that an indicator of severity? Does having more “severe” moods warrant special treatment above and beyond a “normal” mentally ill person? Now we’re getting into weird semantic categories that just get murky and confused and have people battling within their own communities over who is “worse off”. Holy cow, that is not one I want to win (although, to my chagrin, I at once believed I needed to!)

I am in no way demeaning anyone who has a mental illness (as it is currently called). When I first started moving away from all these negative messages that society is meting out, I was met by hostility by many in the mental health community, which saddened me. I think they perceived me as blaming people with mental illness or as attacking them and saying “Man up!” But I’m not. I’m doing the opposite. I’m saying, by golly, we have been sold a lie and we deserve MORE than that. We deserve more than hollow promises by medical professionals, more than patronizing pats on the back. We want UNDERSTANDING. We truly want to FEEL GOOD and not BAD. I am tired of being DEFINED by an “illness”. We even are guilty of propagating it ourselves. Look at what I titled my blog for Pete’s sake! We call ourselves “bipolar people” “depressed people” “borderline people” “anxious people”. We are human beings. Bipolar is not me. I am not bipolar. I am Nicole. I have ups and I have downs. Maybe I'm a bit eccentric. I am creative and loving and yes, intense. But I am not broken. And I don’t need fixing.

(And if you don’t agree with me, and you think I am a wackjob, that is your preprogative. If you are happy with your meds and doctors, you have my full support. I’m not criticizing anyone who chooses to take this path or continue on it. It is a personal choice for each individual and up to them to decide whether it is worthwhile or helpful. If it is, I encourage you to continue and do not listen to me. I’m speaking my own personal thoughts and experiences, and what I have seen and heard within the online mental health community for several years.)

Memory Lapses, Time Distortion and Cognitive Impairment in Bipolar/BPD & Mental Illness

As I mentioned, I’ve been in an altered state for a while, having all the multitude of things that go along with it. It’s like your world gets flipped and stretched every which way. A couple posts back I mentioned the artistic wordless video I made of what the internal feelings are like, sensory wise. The shifting colors, time speeding/slowing, blackness, erratic moods. If you’re interested, you can view it HERE.

So, I’ve been having quite a few cognitive difficulties as well as memory issues currently. This occurs with both bipolar and BPD (which I have) but also other disorders such as schizophrenia and schizoaffective.

Some might describe it as forgetfulness, which is common, but it is more than that. It’s more like a complete blank, almost like a form of amnesia. I often find myself lately walking from point A to point B and standing there without a clue as to why I am there. Just this morning I went from the kitchen to the bathroom to get something. I stood in front of my robe thinking, is this what I needed? I couldn’t figure it out. I reached in the pocket. Was it chap stick I needed? I couldn’t remember. I just stood there with a total black backdrop in my head. I couldn’t for the life of me remember at all. I decided to just go back to the kitchen. Then I remembered what I needed and went back and got it. The ironic this is, writing this now, it’s only a couple hours later and I CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS :/ That’s how bad it is! It happens dozens of times a day, over and over and over and is incredibly frustrating.It's as if once I get to where I'm going, I have no memory or reference point at all.

Similarly related is the feeling of having time distortion. It generally goes along with the memory lapses. I know that I have had conversations with people the last few days but I don’t remember them at all or I remember just bits randomly. I just talked to someone on the phone yesterday and said “Did I already text you that?” I was sure I hadn’t. They said I did. I didn’t remember it at all even though it apparently was a few minutes prior. Later that night I thought about that conversation. I was looking through my phone, and many of the numbers I couldn’t remember even getting the calls, whether they were missed calls or had messages on them. I found the phone call of that conversation. I had thought we only talked maybe 4 or 5 minutes, just quickly in passing. The record said 19 minutes. 19 minutes? What on earth did we say for 19 minutes? I honestly don’t know. It weirds me out so much knowing there is no memory of it. I only recall maybe 2 or 3 sentences that were said. I’ve been puzzling over it but there is no answer, just a strange sort of amnesia there, like the blackness I mentioned before.

I know this all has to do with our limbic system and the complex way that structures like the amygdala and hippocampus work together. Often, outsiders (meaning people without these types of mental issues) will say things like “Oh everyone has that sometimes.” I know what they mean, because yes, everyone is forgetful at times. But not everyone has amnesia for their day to day events, and I have enough insight to realize that this is a distortion of time, place and memory, again, related to happenings within the limbic system and likely other parts of the brain as well.

People often believe that “mood disorders” like bipolar are simply emotion related, but that is untrue. They also involve, as I mentioned: sensation, perception, memory, behavior. Just goes to show how complex our brain is and how many structures interact to form what we consider “normal” or “abnormal” manifestations of behavior and consciousness.

People have mentioned that when they are altered time can seem to speed up or slow down. It is the same for me. I lose track of the day and time completely sometimes. Yesterday, the day of the above mentioned call, I know I was at home with my son for hours but can’t recall if I did anything. I know I watched him playing for a good 3 hours. But the rest of the hours somehow passed without me really being able to recall what events occurred. The things themselves become blurry or disappear and sometimes even the chronological order in which things happen seems to become muddled. I sometimes find I do not know what day it is (Monday, Wednesday, etc.) or even what month it is! I find myself looking outside puzzling over whether it’s June or October despite the fact there is snow on the ground.

The perception of things shifts. A few days back when putting my son to bed, I sat outside his room while he fell asleep (we’re working on getting him to fall asleep alone, without me sitting with him.) I was looking at the carpet and recall how it was almost like a strange hallucination. The carpet appeared to be shimmering, like someone had sprinkled glitter all over it, even though I was sitting in dim lighting. It also appeared to be shaking slightly, a light “quivering” motion like waves of static on a TV or small waves on the ocean (the motion, not the color or appearance.)

It really stinks because we all need an “anchor” to keep us rooted just in our day to day lives. Date/time/place/events, these things give us a reference point for other things. When the reference points become mixed or start disappearing it can make it difficult to make sense of anything.

Mania/Altered Mood and Compulsions in Bipolar and Mental Illness

I would definitely say that strong urges and compulsions are a part of highly altered mood. I will refer to it as altered since involves more than just elevation in a “happy” sense. The textbooks and the DSM refer to it as “impulsive behavior” but I don’t think that is entirely accurate. Impulsive, yes, it indeed can be. But an impulse is described as “an impelling action or force, driving onward or inducing motion.” while a compulsion is described as “a strong, usually irresistible impulse to perform an act, especially one that is irrational or contrary to one's will” (dictionary.com). So what is the difference?

I see being impulsive as simply not always looking ahead or seeing the consequences of your behavior. For example, having an impulse to eat chocolate cake when you’re on a diet might be because you’re thinking of the joy of eating it and not the consequences of gaining weight.

Compulsions, in my view, are not the same as impulses. Impulses can be controlled to an extent. Everyone has impulses to some degree. We wouldn’t eat, drink, talk to other people or in general do anything unless we had an impulse to do it.

I would say a compulsion is a very extreme form of an impulse, that is stronger in intensity and at times cannot be controlled either with mental or physical means. What I mean is, when you have a compulsion, simply telling yourself, “Don’t do it! It’s bad for you!” likely does nothing to curb the compulsion or make it go away. At times it can ruminate excessively within the mind to the point it becomes the sole focal point. If you are able to replace the compulsive thought with something else as a distraction, often the compulsion will simply return, but stronger.

With the cake example, a person can have a strong desire to eat cake but may be able to hold themselves back from the impulse to do so by telling themselves of the bad consequences. Compulsions often involve carrying out acts that a person may not even want to do yet feels compelled or pushed by some force to do so. If the person knew the cake was bad for their diet truly did not want to eat it, and tried to resist the urge to do it, yet was still overcome and ate the cake anyway, it would more likely be a compulsion rather than simply an impulse. People think of it as an issue of simple self-control. “Just don’t do it!” They say. But more is going on than that. Often the person is actively trying to control the impulse or compulsion. It’s more an inability to control the compulsion rather than a willingness to complete the act. Compulsive feelings are horrible because you do feel like you are out of control of your own body and mind, not that what you are doing is so awesome and incredible.

It seems that often compulsions are sensory in nature. In what is currently described as mania, what doctors call “impulsive behavior” generally refer to compulsions that involve sensory seeking/pleasure sensory input. The stereotypical example of a person being promiscuous is used often. However it usually is not elaborated on. I myself have never been a promiscuous person in my “normal” life. I can easily dismiss a temptation to do something wrong or what I would consider immoral in my NORMAL state. However when in an extreme altered state, I have realized that sexual compulsions begin to manifest. Many times it is unspecific – it is simply a form of sensory seeking, in any way or means available.

I believe that is why in bipolar disorder or people with extreme mood disturbance, these sexual pleasure seeking behaviors can run the gamut. A person may seek out pleasure by having a risqué conversation with a friend or stranger, they may dress provocatively to draw attention to themselves, they may have sex multiple times a day, either with their committed partner or with random partners, they may experiment with any number of things, people, or experiences. I personally have done some things that I never would have under normal circumstances. But looking back, the compulsions were like an obsessive drive that could not be curbed. And it did incite guilt for having been unable to control the compulsion.

Compulsions that result in pleasure seeking also relate to things like drugs and alcohol. I would describe it as an insane craving, much like the sexual pleasure seeking compulsion. It is another form of sensory seeking. A person may use/abuse any number of drugs or alcohol or other substances. Food can become an object of compulsion as well.

Much of this is well documented in bipolar disorder. However people seem to only discuss sexually related “impulses” or again the stereotypical “reckless driving” etc.

However, often the compulsions I have had are just random or nonsensical in nature. I would still consider them to be sensory seeking, but in a non-pleasure centered way.  They tended to center around the sensory components of taste and touch mainly, scent to a lesser degree.

For example, in my early altered periods years ago I spoke of having some very strange compulsions – the compulsion to eat garbage was particularly weird and gross when revealed to other people (thankfully I never went through with that one). I had compulsions relating to just about everything – compulsions to lick or taste things that are non-food objects (soap, engine oil, the walls of the house, etc.) Compulsions to touch things like people’s skin. I had self-harm compulsions but they weren’t purposeful self-harm (meaning, I didn’t consciously use it as a way to relieve anxiety or cope with pain). I recall walking around my backyard in a circular motion, scratching my arms repetitively with the sharp end of a cigarette lighter. This went on for awhile and my arms became red and raw in some places. It wasn’t a purposeful self-harm, but as I mentioned, a sheer compulsion, an uncontrollable urge. I felt that I needed to scratch myself and I did so continually.

I also had compulsions that involved repetition which I spoke of before. They mainly related to organizing things or movement. For example I would compulsively arrange things in rows or patterns, walk in patterns or speak in patterns. There was absolutely no sound reason for why I did this, other than the overwhelming and uncontrollable urge to do so. It served no real purpose other than to carry out the compulsion that was plaguing my mind and therefore “rid” myself of the compulsion.

However ridding myself of the compulsion only lasted a short while and it would return again, sometimes the same one, sometimes multiple or different ones. The result was, to an outsider onlooker, completely bizarre and nonsensical  behavior overall.

Only now after close to 5 years have I come to more of an insight and understanding about some of these things that I experience. I always tried to lump everything I experience under the heading of “bipolar” since my initial diagnosis. However, I currently believe that almost all mental illnesses are related. Just in this description alone one could say I had symptoms of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, autism and more. And that is just talking about the compulsive aspect of mental illness without regard to the host of other factors that occur.

In my current altered state I have been experiencing some compulsions yet again along with a whole host of other manifestations, which I plan to write about. Right now I am in a coherent enough state to describe it but later today, who knows.

External triggers are huge in bipolar and mental illness

So I finally after all these years realized that my outside environment triggers me constantly. There is this misconception in the mental health field I think that certain mental disorders are “all in the mind” or “biologically based” meaning not much influenced by outside factors. Well, that is just WRONG. Saying something is biologically based is kind of nonsense. If you want to break it down literally EVERYTHING we do is biologically based. Eating, drinking, talking, our personality traits, behavior, perceptions, sensations, every single thing about us originates in our brain and nervous system. So yes, everything can be found to have a biological basis. But that discounts the fact that we are indeed influenced by outside factors regardless of whatever our particular biology may be, whether we have this illness or that illness or NO illness. One thing that is really irking me lately is this argument about “bipolar depression” vs. “unipolar depression”. There really is no distinction. Both are influenced by internal and external factors. But instead of digressing, I wanted to talk about triggers, meaning external sources that influence mood or mental state.

I’ve noticed that I’m incredibly sensitive to outside stimuli. Lights, noise, textures, anything that relates to the senses or sensory processing affects me in a huge way. In fact, so much so that it can bring on altered mood state where there were none previously occurring.

Let me give you an example. I’ve been in the throes of some pretty extreme rollercoaster “episodes” if you will for a while. Yesterday I woke up the feeling OK – neither up nor down. I felt slightly bored as I was going through the motions of getting kids off to school, picking up the house etc. I decided to put on some upbeat music. I almost never watch TV but was in the mood for something “poppy” so I turned on MTV. Seeing people dancing and hearing the beats made my mood start rising. Well it rose a little too much, pretty fast. I got up to the edge where excitement and agitation combine.

My heart was racing non-stop, I was short of breath. I felt like I was going to have a pleasure explosion and anxiety attack at the same time. This went on for hours. I was jumping all around and just had to talk to someone, just HAD TO. I started texting random people, a couple that I barely know or don’t know at all. I was really impatient when some didn’t respond immediately and then began to feel irritated that they DIDN’T respond. Why didn’t they respond? I’M FUN!!!! LET’S TALK!!! NOW!!!

So after some people responded I was laughing and LOL’ing non-stop over my phone for a couple of hours, music still playing in the background. I’d dance and laugh and totally just surrender to the feeling of pleasure spreading through my body, sexual surges pulsing in and out.

Then some slow songs would come on and the texting would slow down. FLIP. I’d sit and start drifting off. My heartbeat would go down, and I felt tired and bored yet again. I’d go to some calm activity to try to keep from being bored. Then it would get annoying. On comes my iPod, different peppy songs. FLIP.

Back to sensation overload. I really didn’t want to feel either extreme…I didn’t want to be blah and bored and I didn’t want to be so overly excited or agitated. I was completely influenced by the music and the conversations.

Eventually the day went on and I did my chores. I showered. My husband got home from work. I immediately dragged him into the bedroom for wild sex. I got dressed, we ate dinner. He watched the kids so I could get out of the house. I got in my truck and listened to some music and found myself giddily driving and completely distracted. I went to run some errands. I got to the store and wandered aimlessly, thoughts drifting. Texted some people to “come play hide and seek”. There was nothing to fuel my mind or body in the half dead store at night, no real stimulation or interaction, save with the cashier. I got into my car with a slight headache, went home. Was tired and blah when I got back. Hyperactivity = gone. I picked up a tiny bit and just went to sleep.

I see how everything around me was a trigger. Either a trigger to go up or a trigger to come down. The more stimulation I had, the higher I rose and the less I had the more I drifted down.

It’s an interesting observation, one that I have noted consistently over the course of the last year. So, if you’re reading this and have the same issues, keep an eye on the stuff around you. Beware that you aren’t unduly causing (or severely exacerbating) your own moods. Yeah I know, easier said than done, ha.