Tag: bipolar II

Undiagnosed

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Sitting in a light, breezy office with a polite, middle-aged healthcare professional. Her manner is clipped, yet understanding and we cover a range of topics as if we were discussing public transport options.

We talk about my childhood (normal), if I have any repressed memories (none), was I subject to abuse (negative), do I Indulge in substance use (minimal).

We’re not talking about these issues for fun, and despite the warmth of our surroundings and the friendly demeanor, there’s the scent of chill in the air.

See, I was there because I acted out. Badly. I said things and did things that felt right and justified at the time, but it turns out they had no correlation with the circumstances around them.

The nice professional explained that the feelings are very real, and I shouldn’t feel guilty for having them. But I need to be aware of them.

I told her I didn’t feel guilty for saying the things I said – feelings are feelings, and our society values self expression, even if it comes in the form of broken furniture – but I did feel ashamed because it turns out that there’s no obvious external source for the strength of my emotional outbursts.

I didn’t have something to blame.

I told her that I almost wish there was some history of story that would give me license to rage and pout and go on spending sprees and just generally behave like an unintelligent dick. I told her that would be sort of welcome – that it would slightly reduce the weight of blame I place on my soul – and her eyes told me that’s kind of a horrible thing to contemplate.

I now know that this is completely not okay. There’s no need to wish such things. But it gives you an idea of the depths of shame these outbursts would produce.

Besides, as it turns out, I was just undiagnosed bipolar.

Wood-chipper

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Loud. Fast. Impossible to argue against.

People open their mouths to get a word in and they get filled with unrelenting rhetoric.

You want sass? You want sarcasm or witty comments? Sure, you can have these things. Along with a rough diatribe of pulped metaphors flying at you too fast for comfort.

Seriously, there’s a reason woopdchippers have a hood over the business end. Its to keep the splintered spray away from the general public.

And anyone dumb enough to get in the way of an operating  woodchipper gets what they deserve – a stinging face and uncomfortable splinters.

Introvert

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“You’re a what?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Not you. No way!”

But it’s true. I have a sensitive physiology that experiences stimulus at a heightened rate when compared to them normal people (whatever normal is).

So I often pick reading alone over partying. I choose writing with my headphones on over drinks with mates (sorry mates).Or a documentary or sketch session over beer-pong and battleshots. It has happened.

It’s just hard to believe. Because I’m also bipolar. And the high times? They give me the courage and confidence to be the kind of person who starts the party. To get excited and make things happen. Not always intelligent things, granted, but at the time it beats standing still.

The high times helped me work manically in high-pressure environments. Without the high times, I would have struggled way more than I did.

The high times have made it easy to say yes to knew experiences. To go to new places, experience new things.

Without the high times I would have stared at my shoes instead of smiling at the cutie in the cafe that one time.

But it comes at a cost, and that cost is exhaustion. I can’t always keep up with the high times. And I need to be okay with that.

It’s time to acknowledge my introvert tendencies for what they are. Not as a weakness or a handicap, but as a physical predisposition, same as being bipolar.

Anxiety Party

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It’s a three-day festival like mardi gras! Except instead of beers and beads and boobs there’s anxiety and headaches and frustration! And instead of floats there’s bouts of crippling doubt that make it hard to get out of bed or leave the house! And this metaphor has kind of gone off track, except that the time frame is still accurate! I can’t believe I’ve been like this for three days already!

WOOHOO

Self-Slaughter

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You don’t know me and I don’t know you. We may never meet. Or there’s a slight, slim chance—one in one hundred billion— that we’ve shared a class, a bus, a train, or even a glance on a street corner. Doesn’t matter.

You may have lots of pressing, urgent reasons to feel the way you do. Or a few really large ones. Or even huge volumes of large ones that feel like they’re crushing the life out of you. Doesn’t matter.

Because right here, right now, I am thinking of you.

Yes, as an abstract concept. Yes, as a projection of myself onto the idea of a person I don’t know and can never hope to understand as complexly as I’d like. And yes, in the hope that maybe you are capable of looking and listening to this point of view.

I am thinking of you kindly, without pity or reservation. And I am thinking this thing at you so hard:

Self-slaughter does not stop life from getting worse. It only ever stops life from having the chance to getting better.

Self-harm doesn’t improve life. Not for you, not for anyone. Everything in life is repairable, mutable, changeable. Everything can be overcome. Everything is manageable, given time. But self-slaughter removes that opportunity.

Doing harm to ones self feels like an escape, a way of exerting control. But self-destructive behaviour is not a way forward. It is, by definition, a step back.

It is a cage. And as I write this and think of you, dear reader, I hope you can see this for what it is – an opportunity to sit and think and take stock and just maybe consider things from this viewpoint.

Thank you for reading.

Infernal Combustion

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My dad used to say all cars ran on infernal combustion engines. A good pun, but there’s something there. The image of a solid core of black that roars and drips searing metal flame – an engine of hate captured and directed by fine engineering. A machine that puts dark energy to use.

That’s an image I cling to now. It’s not the worst feeling, the sensation of mindless animal rage tempered only by training, awareness and willpower. It’s good to feel. But it’s a feeling I fear nonetheless.

See, at this stage I could go either way:

  • The engine could still sputter out, bereft of the loathing of living that is its fuel before it does any real damage. When it stops, I can resume normality, possessing a mind clear free of the misanthropic fumes.
  • Or it could have fuel enough to bore a hole in my psyche into the vacuum of true depression, sucking emotion and motivation out into the darkness before it too is silenced.

I fear it because I have no control over it. Even with all the mindfulness exercises and CBT, I’m still barely in the driver’s seat. I’m just going through the motions and trying to keep things on track. Politeness isn’t always an option, but nobody’s getting hurt.

So maybe that’s enough.

Working Out

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Neuroplasticity is a wonderful thing. It means that thought patterns are changeable, and brain-parts are programmable.

It means that brain-training works. There’s a growing draft of research that literally shows the brain changing itself in response to new stimulus. Every thought and every action literally shapes your brain. Even the way you think about how you think can train your brain to change.

For me, the key to managing bipolar is knowing when a mental state-change is happening, and preparing to deal with it. Like an athlete training for a grueling event, you can train your brain to become resilient, flexible, tough.

Music, reading, eating, talking, listening, being physically active, thinking, and thinking about thinking are all part of my mental gym. Done right, you can build a brain that’s tough enough to withstand the bad times, and agile enough to think through rash decisions before a compulsion becomes an act.

But just like a gym session, it takes commitment. This isn’t something you can sign up to at the start of the year and quit after a month. This is for life.

Working out your brain is far tougher than any New Years resolution. Quitting smoking? Losing weight? Climbing Everest? Easy.

But it’s also ten- no a hundred- no FIVE MILLION TIMES as rewarding. Because you have a chance of building a mind that works the way you want it to, and you get to enjoy the benefits every single day, regardless of where you are.

You won’t get that kind of rewards program out of a gym membership, I don’t care how generous their terms are.

So get up! Read that CBT lit you got in the doctors office. Call the therapist you’ve been holding back from. Book a fresh round of appointments and be honest about the meds. Go for that walk in the greenery. Listen to music that makes you feel. And think. Think about what’s happening. Give yourself the time and permission to examine your environment, to study every piece of stimulus.

And then, think about what you’re thinking about! Notice the changes in mood for what they are, and decide if the stimulus is causing it or if it comes from within. Use neuroplasticity to make mental workouts an automatic habit. Build the strength you need in your head to live life on your terms.

Make it part of your brain.

Affliction

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Caught in the crushing grips of a depressive episode, one thought haunts me above the rest. I am a burden on those around me, and the more I struggle, the more they are contaminated.

Look at how the look at me with pity in their eyes, regret and resignation just beneath the surface. They know I am nothing more than a fake, diseased excuse for a human being. They have read my file somehow, they know my disease, and they know I know it as well.

They put up with me the way they’d put up with a pimple on a strangers face—a disease that everyone’s too polite to make into a thing, but everyone would wish would just go away.

Headphones

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Every day at work I listen to music through a pair of top-notch headphones, and the sound they deliver is crisp and deep.

If you wear these noisemakers, you hear music so clear that you’d swear the band is in the same room. You have a private concert, front row, but without the crowd, and it’s hard to not start jiving there at the desk.

But outside? Nobody notices. Which is weird and not-weird.

NOT WEIRD
Technically speaking, the sounds are real. The headphones create pressure waves in the air, which moves my ear drums and oscillates the little hammer, anvil and stirrup bones in my inner ear. This vibrates the perilymph in my cochlea, which stimulates nerves. And just like that, sound happens. It’s real. I can hear it.

BUT NOBODY ELSE CAN

WEIRD
My mental disorder is like that, except instead of music, I have emotions.  My neurons fire out of sync with reality and I get slammed with massive walls of feelings that no one else experiences.

Outside, without the headphones, they can’t hear the music. They just see me dancing to a foreign tune.

Free Shrugs

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Look, I’m fresh outta fucks to give. No, it’s not you or the thing we’re talking about. It’s just that – well, let me put it like this. I can’t see a future right now. Like,any future, good or bad. I can’t plan anything beyond the next five minutes. So I can’t really take in what you’re saying. Instead I’m just gonna shrug and hope I go back to normal real quick. That’s the plan.