Rapid cycling, depression, mania, mixed, it's everything! Blaughhhhh

My eyes are completely burning. I realized I haven’t posted much other than poetry for awhile now so here I am. I have a headache. It’s been a really long day. This may be partially incoherent. I’ve been prefacing a lot of my interactions with people that way lately. Oh well.

So I think it’s safe to say that I have been up for a large portion of the last 6 months. Which is all well and good with me, and in ways is enjoyable. But now, it’s starting to go into this rapid cycling/mixed type stuff, which is not so enjoyable. However, it is reality, so I figured I should document it.

A few months ago my husband and I separated again. Then in January, I started school again. So, there has been a lot of stress and just a lot of demands on me physically and mentally. So that’s just a quick background leading to today.

Stuff is sort of a big jumbled ball right now. One minute I’m bouncing around with the energy of 10 men (ok, women) and the next I’m tired and dazed. For a few days I’ll get very little sleep and be just fine and dandy, and then it switches and I will barely have the energy to get through the day without falling asleep, and on top of that, when I do sleep, it will feel like I could KEEP sleeping for a whole week or more. The constant energy fluctuations are hell on me.

One day I’ll be talking to everyone who crosses my path and listening to everyone’s stories and the next day (literally, the next day) I’ll be sullen and walk into class and not say one word to a soul. I’ll just want to sit and wallow and ruminate. But then hours later, or the next day, I pop up again, and will be laughing and jumping and all of that crazy stuff.

I go from being able to concentrate well in class and “get” the material to being completely distracted, unable to concentrate at all, finding the material confusing and getting bogged down by it, and then stuff just falls through the cracks.

Now the ups I certainly like. But I DON’T like the downs mixed in there. In fact, the fact they are even there at all is kind of starting to make me a bit angry. Also the constant flip/flip/flip like a metronome is starting to wear on me. On top of it, I think I’m starting to notice a few psychotic type things happening and so that is raising a red flag to me. In the past, when I have had longer periods of mania that have psychotic elements, it kind of has the same pattern. Things begin to rise and then I just become more erratic to the point where everything gets confused and meshed together and it becomes hard to distinguish. I visualize it as a ladder, and each day I go up and down the steps and can be at any height at any time not only day to day, but throughout the day as well.

So, lately, I have had the idea of meds on the brain off and on. I really really do not want to take them. So I’m holding out to see if I can manage another couple of months. Once May hits my stress load will lower dramatically because I will be out of school for the summer and I’m sure that will help some.

This wasn’t super detailed because I really just am too tired and headachy to think much. But, wanted to explain a bit of what’s been going on recently. I know my videos have been fluctuating between depressed/rambling/dejected and overly happy/hyper so this was just my quick explanation of recent events.

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.

What does bipolar FEEL like?

I’m going to try to get through this post, I wanted to write it last night but was so tired and had such a headache I just went to bed.

So, firstly, I really hate the mental health diagnostic system they have (i.e. the DSM). Even when you read about mental disorders in textbooks or other descriptions they simply read like a long list, and it really does no justice to the actual feelings and the actual experience of it. For example, a book might say,

“People with bipolar have the following symptoms: 

  Elated mood

  

 Irritability

         Distractability

         Impulsive behavior”

Ok, well, that can encompass a LOT. That’s like saying “I had a good day today.” Well, describe it! What made it good? How did it feel? It seems like the only people who talk about how it feels publicly are bloggers like myself. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a doctor really describe what a person with mental illness experiences other than the dry, bland stereotypical descriptions.

There are a couple bad things about this. 1) Everyone is constantly trying to lump themselves into these “categories”. And 2) No one really fits into those exact categories because so many people have multiple mental issues occurring simultaneously (such as bipolar and BPD, bipolar and OCD, etc.) You see the doctor and they want to figure out, are you having a manic episode? A mixed episode? Psychotic depression? Erratic mood swings from BPD? Dissociation?

The truth is there is no fine line, there is no real delineation between it all. My mood has been significantly altered lately and it has elements of all the things I’ve listed above. If I were to try to distinguish over the past week (or more) what “state” I was in I doubt I could. Maybe therein lies the problem. There really is no one “state”. Every state is simply a combination of many things you experience. I realize that we all must call it SOMEthing for the sake of clarity but in my view, I’d like to be as accurate as possible. So for now it involves just describing it all. Most would probably describe me as “manic” right now, but I think “altered” is more accurate.

Two nights ago I made an art video of what it FEELS like to live in this manner. I’d been wanting to make a professional movie like this for years and finally realized I could just use the programs I had on hand to at least give it a shot. I’d be going through all these mood states/mental disturbances and I wanted people to see not just the stereotypical list of symptoms but to see what it is like within our minds when these things occur, what the experience is like internally. If you’re interested in viewing, follow the link to watch ALTERED

Bipolar mania - misconceptions about symptoms

So, I’m going to describe a bit of what has been going on with me a little here and more in upcoming posts/videos, hopefully I can because I fully realize that my mind is not functioning as it should right now. It is very hard to concentrate.

I don’t know when this most recent period began. My moods have been fairly erratic the last few months, and I now realize they are often triggered by outside factors. I no longer see my bipolar/BPD/anxiety/depression as discrete “disorders”. I see them as a combined form of 1 thing where at times, one comes to the surface while others recede. However currently I’m literally experiencing almost everything a human can simultaneously.  So instead of referring to a particular disorder I’m simply going to address what I’m experiencing.

The textbooks always talk about those “stereotypical” behaviors – promiscuity, impulsive spending, reckless driving, yadda yadda yadda. It’s safe to say I’ve experienced most of those textbook things. But the thing I hate is they never describe what is going on internally when a person is doing those things – what drives them to do it, what their internal state is like. They generally just address outward behavior or “symptoms”.

I went off meds in January of this year. So it’s been almost a year without them. Like most people who have taken psychoactive meds, I don’t like doing it. (Post for another time). I was willing to accept the fluctuations and deal accordingly. In the last week my anxiety symptoms and mood fluctuations have become quite severe to the point that unfortunately, I have resorted to taking some medication again to try to tame it to the point that is manageable. I don’t mind going through the ups and downs. But when it gets to the point that my mind is so confused/erratic/discombobulated, I literally have a breakdown of mental functioning. I’m on my second day of resuming Zyprexa and waiting to see how that goes. It tends to work quickly. Here are a couple things I’ve noticed over this year (off meds).

        1) I have had far more elevated periods than depressed periods. Often, the feelings actually combine. I wouldn’t call that a “mixed” episode as doctors like to do, because it does not involve simply 2 mood states of elevation and depression. It literally involves every emotion possible. Yesterday a friend asked how I was feeling and I said “I feel like everything at the same time.” I was angry, happy, sad, anxious and excited ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY. I could not separate out one feeling and say “This is how I feel.” Needless to say, it can then cause a great deal of confusion within a person’s mind (as it did to me.)

                     2)  I’ve also noticed that I’m particularly sensitive to triggers in my environment. I’m far more affected by sensory input than I once realized. It is frustrating because it can cause a pretty serious dysregulation of mood. I have to try to find ways to mediate my surroundings which can be difficult. I cannot tune out all the triggers or become “immune” to them. Which sucks.

                  3)  Altered mood states for me involve just about everything. One misconception about bipolar or other similar mental illnesses are that they involve just MOOD or EMOTIONS. Not true. It involves a distortion of – time, memory, behavior, thought processing and others as well as emotion. So basically, it’s “the whole shebang.”

So I’ve been feeling a lot of – well, everything! It can be beautiful and horrible at the same time. Overwhelming feelings of pleasure mixed with intense feelings of agony, periods of confused elation, agitated elation, agitated anger. Periods of memory and time lapse, and dissociation from my mind and body, both heightening and depression of my nervous system. Well, it can make you an interesting person to be around or talk to, but it can be exhausting to experience it, both physically and mentally. It’s like living a constant paradox.

HIGH, low, UP, down and in between, CrAzY BrAiN!

Oh geez, where do I begin, where do I begin??? My mind is going all over the place right now and so instead of sitting here talking to myself (like I have been doing the last 15 minutes) I decided to post here and get it all out.

I think I pretty much captured what had been going on for awhile in my last post. My counselor thought I was having a mixed episode, and because of my suicidal thoughts, she has been checking up on me every few days by phone until I get in to see her next week. And I tell you, my moods are varying extremely from day to day and minute to minute. It's BAD. I don't know if it is a mixed episode or if now I am just rapid cycling, or maybe was all along? It's so f*^#ing confusing! AGHHHHHHHH!!!!

So a couple weeks ago, I remember going to a baseball game with my family. I was all done up, in a good mood. During the game, something happened that turned my mood somewhat sour. So I'm sitting there, "watching" the game (but not really paying attention) my mind being somewhere else. During this time I overhear my dad talking to a friend of his, the poor man has had a heart transplant and now needs a kidney transplant. I felt so bad for him. My mind got to racing with thoughts of "Why can't I just give him my kidney? I have 2...I don't need both...I could get tested and see if I'm a match...that would be such a great thing to do..." Hours later on the way home I told my husband some of my thoughts of organ donation. He said "You're probably having an episode...you need to wait a month or so and see how you feel then." I kind of thought, yeah, ok, whatever. I knew in my rational brain it made sense but didn't deter me from wanting to do it. I sat around thinking about it all for the next 2 days.

But anyways, back to what I was saying...I'm in one of those moods where I could just talk (type?) forever...hehehe...I have so much to say you see!!! Anyways, yes, so we got home and my mood was turning more and more sour and there was conflict in the house and I said I needed to get out. I went walking and was literally thinking of killing myself. I walked and walked, late at night, weighing the options...1) go home and overdose 2) call a friend and try to talk myself OUT of overdosing 3) tell my husband to take me to the hospital so I DON'T overdose...I didn't know what to do, I was so confused and really wanting to do myself in. So I went home, told my husband he may need to take me to the hospital. It was BAD for it to get to that point that I was telling him this, seriously on the verge of checking myself in. Oh yeah, I was drinking too. He said we would go for a drive, and we did, and afterward I felt a bit better. I knew I would be alright through the night and if I still was suicidal in the morning, I'd go to the ER.

But in the morning, I didn't feel suicidal. I was depressed but not as bad. That evening we all went 4wheeling and I was pondering it all and thinking, "Why was I suicidal? How stupid." It seemed absolutely ridiculous to me.

So since then I have been having a hell of a time! Trying to stay on some kind of stable path, but I dunno what to expect from day to day. I alternate, depressed, happy, depressed, happy, depressed, super happy, depressed, irritated, and so on and so on and so on...

One day last weekend we went out river boating and I remember sitting there being almost outside my body, it was so strange. I again was thinking morbid thoughts, of how I was a broken, defective person, how all was futile because nothing would ever change, how I knew I was destined to die by my own hand before the time I reach 40 years old, and I was DAMN SURE of it all. I didn't talk to my family and didn't engage them. I just sat there, not noticing anything around me.

Then I go back up again...and I come down again...

Then a couple days ago I was back to working on projects...I cleaned my house and I mean SCOURED it. I cleaned and washed my washing machine and dryer for God's sake. I washed my blinds. Stuff I NEVER do (well, let's face it, I hardly clean anything besides the dishes on a regular basis). I spent ALL DAY cleaning from the time I got up til about 3:30 PM. And it still wasn't completely finished but I had other things to do. Took the kids for a bike ride, made dinner, played outside in the sun with them. Then I made a scrapbook, and was up later drinking and working on it. I did get it finished though :)

And yesterday I felt so good, so happy, I was all done up, wearing some of my new clothes that I drunkenly/manically spent all that money on, styled up my hair (that I just paid $200 to have trimmed and highlighted) and went to town to run errands with my girls. Let me tell you, I was in my own f@#^ing world!!! I pushed the cart around with my brain going all over, splintering out in a million directions. I don't think I even noticed where I was pushing it. Luckily I only needed 1 thing in there and I got it and got out. I was so distracted (by what? I couldn't tell you) I was completely driving on autopilot, I don't think I was even looking at the road. It's a good thing I have driven that road a million times or I would have wrecked. I vaguely remember staring out at dots on the horizon, or following the edge of the trees with my eyes. I felt really batty. So we stopped one more place and went home. Then last night I was watching a movie and in some scenes I felt so overcome with intense emotion...I mean, it wasn't even a good movie, it was a terrible movie! But I remember a scene of the blue sky reducing me to tears, I just couldn't bear the beauty of it. And I gasped and held myself tight and floated away. I started thinking of just running away somewhere, me and my husband taking a random trip, just going, going, gone...

And tonight I've been sitting here for the past 2 hours looking up vacation information. What the heck am I doing?!?! We're going on vacation in 2 months. But I want to go NOW dammit, NOW! I looked through the Carnival Cruise site (we went on a cruise before and had a good time) and I'm like, it would be so easy, just book it and next week we could be on a plane and whisking away to some white sand beach, ahhhh, it would be wonderful...(now, this isn't the first time something like this happened...years ago before I was diagnosed, I did the same thing with my friend, I needed to GET AWAY and would have gone immediately had she not needed to save up cash, but we did go - not as soon as I wanted - but it was an awesome, albeit very impulsive, trip...) anyhow I digress again, I feel so excited at the prospect of going on this damn cruise, hahahaha. I know we don't have the money to go especially after my husband and I collectively blew through $3000 more than usual on our credit card last month....ahhhh f@#$.

So yeah that's where I am...I don't think it helps that I am drinking every night or every other night. I find myself waking up having memory lapses and not remembering parts of conversations, emails, movies, things I did the night before. The worst thing is it happens even when I don't drink! Even on sober days I wake up feeling like there are pieces missing and I don't know why or where they went. I find that this entire last month or month and a half is a jumble, because I am finding it hard to put things in chronological order. There are pieces of this and that, and what? who? when did I do that? What did I do? I don't know...hmmm...well...it must have been this! It sucks. I don't know if it's all my fault or only partially my fault.

I have been taking my meds though. LOW dose, 2.5 mg of Zyprexa. Needless to say I will probably have to increase. I see my psychiatrist tomorrow. Well, hmmm, it should be an interesting visit :P

Oh yeah and I just noticed, IT'S FRIDAY THE 13TH!!!!

*NOTE: It's 2 years later, and I have since been diagnosed with borderline in addition to bipolar. I can clearly see the BPD symptoms interspersed with the manic symptoms I was having reading this back. The happiness, impulsiveness, distraction = bipolar. The confusion, dissociation, suicidal ideation = BPD (or, I should say, bipolar and BPD as they are currently known/classified). Should be interesting to see a couple years from now, how much more I will have learned and come to understand about all these various mental states I experience.

Mixed Episode...a confusing bag of symptoms (updated with BPD commentary)

So today I saw my counselor, and she thinks I'm having a mixed episode right now. It's strange how sometimes we can be doing things but not even completely realize it until someone else points it out. I have known for awhile that I have been feeling depressed off and on. And by off and on I mean I'll be down for a day or two, then it passes. Some of it is situational depression, maybe most of it. But regardless the depression is there. She asked if I had been having suicidal thoughts...I said yes. In the past it used to take quite a bit for me to become suicidal, usually a LONG depression that I just couldn't see any way out of. Now, since my first full blown manic episode 2 years ago, it seems that the way my illness manifests itself has changed. I can be depressed for as little as a day and yet become extremely suicidal. That's how I've been the past month. I'll have a couple days where I feel fine and the next day, BAM...I'm ruminating on ways to do myself in, telling myself my family would be better off without me and that the only escape from my situation is to die. I'm not at the point of actually trying to follow through on these thoughts though, so that is good.

So then we got to talking about other stuff that has been going on and I realized that I have been having manic symptoms as well. I guess I didn't recognize what's been happening because generally, my hypomania/mania starts off as being happy/hyper and having racing thoughts. I haven't really felt that way, but I do have a bunch of the other manic symptoms: lack of sleep, excessive energy, impulsiveness, distractability.Add to that that I have been drinking nearly every night (mainly due to stress and the need to relax and forget about my problems.) But I'm sure it's not helping the situation.

So let me just describe what exactly has been happening, symptom-wise:

*Depression/suicidal thoughts (already talked about that one)

*Lack of sleep: I have been staying up til the wee hours, usually at least 3 am or later, and getting up in the mornings at 8 or 9 with my kids. I need about 10 hours of sleep usually so getting 5 hours of sleep or less is not good for me, personally. One night last week I did not go to sleep at all. I stayed up working on stuff. I felt a little tired the next morning but it passed. Then that afternoon/evening I felt fine, like I could go a whole night again without sleep. But I didn't. I made myself go to bed that night.

*Excessive energy: This time, this energy has come in the form of working on projects. I simply feel that I MUST be working on something. It does not matter what it is. The night I didn't sleep I was working on several big projects...finishing a scrapbook for my kids, sorting our photos in chronological order to make photo albums, sorting files on the computer. I have been obsessed with organizing. I made my husband help me clean the house all day last Monday. Besides what I just mentioned I've been working on outdoor projects for the house, doing a bunch more cooking and cleaning than usual (I admit I don't do either regularly in my normal state), planning outings (we went camping last weekend and before that we did a scavenger hunt for our kids), and shopping. Which leads me to my next item.

*Impulsiveness: Let me tell you, I have been spending money like crazy. All of this has been going on at least 3 weeks or a month now and I didn't even really see how crazy my spending has been until today. Basically every time I have gone into a store (which has been a lot this past month) I have bought stuff. Generally I am very good about spending because I budget our money and pay the bills so I know how much I can spend and on what. It's like all that went out the window. I'd buy stuff that we needed (but were limiting, since we couldn't afford it all at once), stuff that we wanted but were "luxury" items (like an outdoor fountain for $119) or sometimes just random things!!! I kept telling my husband, "I spent a lot of money today, I'd better stop" but the next time would roll around and it went out the window and I'd find something else I had to have. It all culminated last night when I spent almost $400 on clothes and shoes at 3 stores online. YIKES. I woke up this morning saying WTF did I do? So just now I totaled up how much I've spent in the past 3 weeks. On stuff for the house (flowers, pots, soil, a bench, a fountain, brick pavers for a garden pathway) $883. On miscellaneous items for myself/my kids (clothes, craft items, other stuff) $862. Granted, some of that stuff we needed, but did we need it all RIGHT THIS MINUTE? Probably not. Oh yeah and I bought a new computer. $464 there!

*Distractability:Mainly when dealing with other people. I at times find it extremely hard to listen to people, because I just can't concentrate on what they are saying. I find my brain going off on a million other paths and trying to focus on just one thing can be hard. Even now I am finding it difficult to write this and follow a coherent train of thought. It's like I have the energy to get things done but right now, I can't focus on anything long enough to do it!

*Appearance: Almost forgot to mention this. Both my counselor and my psychiatrist have told me in the past that they can tell when I am becoming manic because my appearance changes. I go from my regular casual wear with no makeup and glasses (why get done up to go to the doctor?) to wearing lots of makeup and dressier clothes. That's how I was dressed today, and I thought back and realized I have been dressing up quite a bit the last few weeks...putting a lot more effort into my looks than usual.

So anyways that is what is up. Now that I am aware of this I am going to have to keep an eye on it til my psychiatrist visit in a week or two. My counselor is a bit worried because she says being in a mixed state puts you at high risk, because you have suicidal thoughts and the will and energy to actually carry them out, which is dangerous. So she is going to check on me after the weekend and make sure things are going alright for now. I know that I can always call someone for help though, there are plenty of resources available to me. Anyways I am rambling. And it is 3 am. I better hit the sack for tonight.

*NOTE: It's been 2 years since I posted this, and I had to come back and re-read it in light of my current knowledge, knowing that people still read these older posts. I now looking back can see a lot of borderline related aspects happening during this episode. I think I was indeed manic but that it had BPD depressive symptoms mixed in. My manic symptoms many times seem to come on spontaneously, as in, I will simply wake up that way one day, whereas BPD symptoms are directly related to triggers or outside sources (disagreements, high stress level that day, etc.) Totally explains the random suicidal ideation in the midst of the mania. I'm glad I figured out more fully what was going on with me! Makes a lot more sense in retrospect.

Sinking into depression for the first time in years

I’ve been feeling for awhile now that I’m probably going into a depression. It’s been pretty confusing because for the past 6 months I have been up and down so frequently and sometimes “mixed” so that the up and down can’t totally be distinguished. But after my most recent episode where I had intervention from my doctors to keep me from being hospitalized (I wasn’t feeling depressed at all) my meds have gotten switched up a lot and I do think my current meds are keeping the manic portion of my illness at bay. I  haven’t had any weird thoughts or actions in a few weeks. However, my doctors warned me that depressed often follows mania, and so they are on the guard and want me to be aware too. And I can safely say that they are right, and in my case, depression is definitely following this manic or mixed period.

It’s weird, because the term depression gets thrown around so much now that it has no real meaning anymore. Anyone who has a bad day says “I’m depressed.” Those who actually suffer from depression as a mental/medical illness know that it can be unbearable. I hate the way that I feel right now for a lot of reasons. I hate it because I thought it was gone. I haven’t felt this way in many years which in itself, confounds me. In the past few years I’ve gone through a lot of rough times, situations that 95% of people never have to deal with. And through all of that, I was able to somehow stay strong, despite the fact that I had no real support system and I have been living with this illness all my life. I guess it was just in remission at the time. I remember even thinking to myself then, how every day was kind of the same…one went into the next…no real super highs or super lows. And it basically stayed that way for the bulk of two years. It was great, looking back in retrospect. Not the horrible things I went through of course, but having the stability to be ABLE to make it through and be no worse for wear, essentially.

Now, I’m here in this situation and I don’t know what to do. And I keep telling myself, I need to change something. I need to be proactive, I need, SOMEHOW, to thwart this depression, to quell these feelings. Yet I can’t. And I realize now, that is the worst thing at all in life. To have these feelings…for no reason at all…at to be unable to stop them from happening. The sense of helplessness and hopelessness only contributes to the feelings of despair. I want to sleep all day because I cannot bear the thought of muddling through the 12 hours until it’s time to go to sleep again. There is no joy in my life now. And I don’t know why. That’s the worst thing. I don’t know why. There is no reason. It is a feeling…it exists…no matter what I do, what I change, it persists. And I feel so sad…I feel sad just because that is the way of this illness. But I feel even sadder because I cannot do anything about it. It is my lot in life. It’s endless; cyclical; repetitive. It makes me want to give up completely. Because who wants to life a life so completely out control? A life where you are blown to and fro, and the actions you take are dictated by a cruel puppeteer that rules your mind totally? There is no out; no escape. At times the life I live seems worse than death. I admit that over the course of my life I have contemplated suicide countless times. After my one and only actual attempt, 5 years ago, I thought I would never think or feel that way again. Yet here I am, and the thoughts recur. I want to blot them out. I want to stop everything from happening. I don’t want to die…I’m not suicidal. I just want to go back to the time when I was happy…when I had stability. I want to go back to the time when I was satisfied…when I had control over my mind, my life, the things around me. I want to know a life that is different from this…this constant torturous merry-go-round that I ride.

Strange thoughts and behavior...is bipolar real?

Blah, where do I begin this…hmmm…I’ve been contemplating a lot recently and so much is on my mind I feel like it is going to implode. This may be long cause I’m just going to start writing and see when it all stops coming out.

So we’ve already established that I don’t really talk to anyone about my personal thoughts or feelings. That’s changing a little more with my counselor and psychiatrist, and Tim a little bit also. Well all this talking has me so confused. On the one hand there are professionals telling you “This is a legitimate problem, medication can help you,” and on the other hand you have people you know tell you, or act toward you, that there is nothing wrong, that it’s no big deal and everyone feels that way sometimes. So I am so confused, well moreso than usual lately. I don’t know who to believe or what to think. Are the doctors exaggerating what is going on? Or are the people I know minimizing it? It’s torturing me trying to figure it all out, reconcile who to believe with all my convoluted feelings.

So that has me thinking all about my thoughts and feelings in general. Ha that sounded kinda funny. I’m thinking about bipolar…about my diagnosis…what it means to me. In the past before I was hospitalized, I managed, somewhat, to keep my thoughts and feelings under control. Every once in awhile I’d have thoughts like “What would dirt taste like?” or “What if I just walked all night and didn’t come home tonight?” They may have been there but just a fleeting what if? The gone again. I told Tim about this and he said “Everyone thinks that way,” so I thought hmmm ok, I guess it’s not that weird at all.

So then it got me to thinking, ok, if it’s not so weird, why shouldn’t I just do them? Then Tim says “Well, not everyone feels things to the point where they feel they have to act on them.” And that is how I feel a lot lately, especially the last year. They aren’t just thoughts…well, they are, but instead of just dispearring, they sort of sit there and marinate in my mind to the point of really wanting to do them. Still, I manage to hold back most of the time. But it can be very, very hard. Like, right now I want a cigarette so so badly. I’ve been fighting it extremely. If it wasn’t for the bet Tim and I have I already would have given in. In ways I know it’s wrong. It’s unhealthy…it’s a really bad example for my kids…it’s an addiction…but even those rationales don’t curb the thought from my mind or the craving for it. I’ve been thinking about drugs so much lately, wanting it so badly, again a craving that is hard to fight. Or sometimes I see people and I just to talk to them, I just want to touch them. I’m managing to hold back but again it ruminates in my mind. I have no idea if this stuff is related to bipolar or if I am just strange, “eccentric” if you will, that my thoughts or behaviors fall outside of the socially condoned set of norms and therefore they are classified as a “disorder.”

And then after talking to Tim I got to thinking, why do I do some things and not others? Why is it when it do the majority of things I’m alone, yet when I’m with other people for the most part, I don’t? It has me wondering, do I do things for attention? Is it because I want to be noticed? Is it because, being diagnosed with bipolar, it now gives me a “license” to do things, if you will? Then I think, well I did these things and thought these things before I had a diagnosis so maybe not. Then I also think, well if I wanted attention wouldn’t that mean I would do it around people and not when I’m alone? Does this mean that I’m just holding things at bay when I am around others, or at least, others I know, so I am not viewed as strange, odd, or different, or that I’m not treated in a negative way? I don’t know. I am confused as to my own thoughts and motives.

In a way I definitely feel that societal rules hold me back from doing a lot of things…I may WANT to go home with that stranger…I may want to eat things off the ground…I may want to disappear and not return again. And then there are the rational thoughts afterward such as “If I go home with that stranger, I could get raped,” “If I eat that food, I could get sick,” “if I disappear it would hurt people that are close to me.” So all of that is not strange. That is how a normal person thinks. They may have thoughts of doing things, but rules, or their conscience, hold them back. And that is the way it should be. 

But then it still doesn’t curb my desire to do them. They still sit there, ruminating in my head to the point where I honestly feel one day I am GOING to do them. Like even thoughts of my kids or danger won't stop me at all. Like the other night, I went walking and thought “What would happen if walked down the middle of the road?” afterward there was the thought, “Maybe the person would honk…maybe they would go around…maybe they would hit me and I’d go to the hospital.”  This normally would deter a person from doing it. Yet I did it anyways. I thought “Well, who really cares what happens?” Incidentally, the person went around me and that was that.

I’m not sure if this falls under the category of “impulsiveness” which is a big criteria of bipolar. I always think of impulsiveness as someone just wildly and crazily does stuff without thinking and later goes “Uh oh, what did I do?” In that sense, no I don’t just run off down the street. It’s somewhat deliberate yet on the other hand I just don’t care what happens. I have no idea what to describe that as. Maybe I am just weak and I need to try harder to keep myself at bay. Maybe I am using bipolar as an excuse to get away with things that are unacceptable to others. Who knows.

Then, of course, my moods are all over. As I’ve been writing lately. At first I thought the Lamictal was working…for the first two months things seemed fine. The doctors said “You stabilized pretty quickly after your hospital stay.” Yet, I wasn’t thinking but I was also on Risperdal at the time, so that may very well have been the reason I did well. since going off  it seems my moods are a lot more variable and much more on extreme ends of the spectrum. A couple months ago I had a few rough days and that just spurred me into a depression so bad that I could barely face getting out of bed…I was drinking in the middle of the day…I was sitting around crying and cutting up my clothes and thinking about death. Because of just a couple rough days!!!

Then it went from that into this irritable, grouchy, hating everyone and everything mood, which I wasn’t depressed but just ambivalent. The last few days I’ve been feeling “up” and manic. Talking to people, dressing extremely, seeking a lot of attention, being flirty with people, which Tim got angry at me about. He seemed like “why are you acting this way?” But I really couldn’t help it. I didn’t go anywhere near doing all the things I felt like. I was so happy and excited, just out of the blue. I was so distracted but my own thoughts that I backed our Jeep into a telephone pole and scraped up the side of it bad. We had an argument last night and I thought “God my life sucks.” Now I am just sort of “there” today. I have barely spoken at all. I went walking but didn’t want to interact with a soul. My mind is plaguing me with all these thoughts. I hate it. I wish it would go away. I wish other people understood more, I wish I myself understood more. It is tiring being in a constant state of flux and confusion.