Tag: mental health

Virtual Reality

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Emotions are real. You can feel them, see how they change things, hear them alter your voice.

Their existence is not a matter of question – it is fact. But they come with some big fucking caveats.

  1. NOBODY ELSE CAN FEEL THEM – all they can see is someone moving in response to stimuli they cannot sense
  2. YOUR FEELINGS ARE VALID – with Bipolar (and other mental health issues) there is no point in judging the merit of an emotion. It is what it is, and examining it for validity will not resolve its intensity. Yes, you feel what you feel for a reason – that reason is chemicals in your brain doing a weird dance.
  3. YOU CANNOT CONTROL THEM – mindfulness practices may help you identify what you are feeling. This is good. But they cannot give you control over your emotions. Nothing can. But this doesn’t mean you don’t have a choice
  4. YOU CAN CONTROL YOUR REACTIONS – you may have no control over what you’re feeling, or why you are feeling it, but you can control how you react.

THIS IS SUPER TOUGH – because you are up against forces that literally part of you, and that no one else can see.Just like someone wear a VR headset, the people around you cannot experience what the wearer sees and hears – they can only observe the wearer’s reactions.

SO BE KIND TO YOURSELF – because the truth is that control is not always possible, and almost never desirable. You can’t take the headset off, but you can learn that this is your own reality. So be nice to yourself when you fall, and give yourself the space to fix things when you need it.

Bubbles On A Stream

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Emotions are not collectable things. They are more like bubbles on a stream – you can examine them closely, but eventually you have to watch them float by. At which point they will be replaced by new bubbles.

For me, my bipolar moods are like these bubbles.These feelings (or lack of feelings) are things that are happening in my world . They are present, but passing – and I do not have to do anything about them, other than examine them.

This does not mean that my bipolar moods are in any way less real or less powerful than those experienced by other people – or by myself when I’m not involved in an episode. They are real. The are present.

But they are circumstantial.

This is important to note, because for bipolaroids like me, it becomes necessary to dissociate feelings from action.

My moods are not my choice. The stream doesn’t get to choose the size or frequency of the bubbles. They just happen.

Likewise,I am not responsible for my feelings. I am only responsible for how I respond. Just like everyone else.

Manageably Abnormal

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Being diagnosed with a mental illness is terrifying because you are essentially told that your reality is abnormal.

But for me, diagnosis is less scary than not knowing why.

Because without the why, I would have no hope of effective management. And my reality would become unmanageably abnormal.

Instead, my reality is now manageably abnormal – and I’ll take that diagnosis any day.

Umbrellas on the inside

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It’s raining. Do you decide to cancel your activities? Not see your friends, stay away from your job? Sometimes. But more likely, you’ll do the intelligent thing and grab an umbrella.

Will you get wet? Sure, a little. But you’ve done the smart thing, so the damage is minimal, and when the rain clears you can be happy with the results of your efforts.

Now, let’s liken depression and hypomania to weather. It’s not a straight-up comparison – none of that sunlight-for-happiness-and-clouds-for-sad bullshit. No. I mean:

  1. you just can’t control any of them
  2. they will impact on how you choose to spend your day
  3. you can only choose how to respond

Knowing this, you can still choose to do the intelligent thing.

Grab an umbrella. Even if all your doing is sitting in a park. Or sitting in your room reading the internet on a laptop. Grab an umbrella for the inside – talk to your doc, the therapist, your family – let them know what’s happening. Do the exercises, eat good, be kind to your meat-suit.

You will still feel the effects – you will still get wet – but I think it’s better than being drenched.

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.

Autoclave

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There’s a small space in the centre of my chest, just to the right of my heart. It is inconspicuous most of the time, but when feelings of confused anger and uncertainty get too much, it activates.

Suddenly my chest cavity gets blasted with super-heated doubt and self loathing. This high-pressure scalding is no less painful than the rage and disappointment that bubbled and schlorped around before,but it’s different. It is a change from before, and I welcome this difference.

At least for a while. Even autoclaves have safety valves.

Limerent

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What is this feeling, welling up inside of me?

I wonder how much we share, what we have in common, and if that’s enough to start a conversation.

I must know more about you—your wants, your likes, your interests.What you think of me, if you think of me.

My hands shake a bit as I think about that, echoing the slight tremor in my heart as you turn my way.

Is this it? Do I tell you how I feel? And will you do me the sublime honor of reciprocating this glowing, effervescent fixation I have for you?

Also, what’s your name?

This Is A Game Worth Losing

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I just lost The Game. And so did you. Oh you don’t know about The Game? To learn about The Game, click here.

Put simply, The Game is impossible to win.

I could view playing The Game as a negative scenario, a reflection of the inevitable futility of the human condition. I mean, in the grand scheme, everything we struggle for means nothing, and in 100 years our names will be as dust.

BUt when winning isn’t an option, the outcome doesn’t matter. And that makes s the games we play matter a hundred times more than the outcome.

So, which games are worth losing?

Today, I choose living. I will lose, eventually . But I’ll play because I enjoy it.