Tag: reverse the bipolarities

The Good Fight

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Today was not the right day for things to go wrong. It felt like fighting an uphill battle. Against giants. While armed with waterpistols.

I missed out on saying goodbye to a food friend by mere minutes. Then the taxi went to the wrong address. I lost money through carelessness. Got mad and tried to drink my feelings away. Turned up late to a dinner with friends. Yelled about my crap life in front of strangers. Got lost on the way home. The air conditioner broke down and it hot as hell.

Yeah it was a tough day. Made worse by the fact that I know it’s actually not that bad. Everything on the list is annoying, sure. But in the real world it’s recoverable. I know I’m durable. And I will survive. Which makes the guilt at feeling bad even worse.

How to beat it.
There’s no simple solution. When the monster wants me it comes and takes me. Repressing or refusing to acknowledge an episode – no matter how minor – just makes it worse.

So the best thing for me is to stand up (or at least sit a bit higher on my bed) and declare loudly (mumble into my pillow) “I am experiencing a bout of depression. It’s not me, I am not the cause. Anymore than I’m the cause of rainy weather. Bad things happen. But I will be smart about this and stay out of the rain as much as I can.”

I will fight the good fight. And it becomes a good fight when I stop fighting by taking the blame away from the circumstance.

No Measure

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There is no such thing as “sick enough”.

As I write this I am several hundred thousand kilometres and quite a few air-hours from home. No support, no back-up. Just me and my condition.

And this one truth hits home – I am responsible for managing myself.

If I need help, then I get help. I may not feel like I deserve assistance. I may loathe the idea of asking for help – I usually do – but in this case no one else is going to do it for me. Because they can’t.

They don’t know.

And why not? Because there’s no measure for when someone is “sick enough” to get help. If you saw someone bleeding, you wouldn’t stop to measure how much blood they had lost before deciding to lend a hand. That’s counterproductive – you would help, or get them help, as fast as possible. Assess their needs, sure, but not dismiss them out of hand. Because there’s no such thing as bleeding enough, is there?

And it’s the same for mental health. If I am depressive or hypomanic, then that’s reality. It is happening – it is fact. Except in my case, no one can see the medical emergency going on. It’s all internal.

It’s up to me to act.

So if you are struggling, if you feel the need for assistance, do not listen to the thought that you are not “sick enough” because that definition does not exist.

Grenade

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I love my family. My friends are a constant source of amusement and joy. My work and colleagues are fulfilling and distracting in equal measure. Life is good.

But like a certain character in a certain movie book (and now a movie), I feel like I’m a grenade. Like my only purpose is to go off, to hurl shrapnel and pain into the ones I love. And I know this is possible because I’ve done it before.

This is not an ideal way to live. Waking every day being unsure what I’ll say, how I’ll act, what events lie in wait that could pull my pin.

But there is a way forward. Yes, the feelings of inevitability and the need for vigilance are valid, real. But so is the fact that almost everything – everything – is recoverable. There may be hard work, hard words, hard times, but nothing insurmountable.

Because people are resilient. Not just me – I’m tough, and I know I’m tough – but the people around me. The people I care about, they know what I am – know about the shrapnel and the chemical forces behind it all – and they choose to stay of their own free will.

Because to them I am worth it. Plus, they’re tough too.

And if – no, when – when I go off, they are smart enough to keep their distance. And also kind enough to help pick up the pieces.

Change of pace

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So this blog is about the tings I feel, summed up into a word or phrase. The aim? Name that feel, and by naming it give it form and look at it with fresh eyes. But I think I can do more.

Reverse the Bipolarities has more followers than I thought it would ever get. It feels good. I’ve read your stories. And I’d like to give something back.

What would you say if I changed the format a bit? Like maybe list how I dealt with it, or didn’t deal with it, or whatever insight I can get that is worth sharing?

That way the blog can live up to its name – reversing the negatives of bipolar. Maybe give back some of the support you’ve already shown.

Would you like that?

Soundtrack

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My family tells me they can tell when I’m going hypo because I start listening to songs, albums or playlists on repeat.

Heady beats, driving bass, ecstatic drops – whatever. I don’t know anything about music. I don’t even know I’m doing it. I just know what I like at the time. I know it makes me feel.

It’s weird to think that something so personal as taste in music changes depending on mood-state, as predicated by a mental illness. Being bipolar literally changes what you like – it doesn’t enhance you, it changes you.

Now I’m wondering if there’s actually a specific set of tunes that triggers hypomania, or if hypomania itself has a playlist.

Is music therapy a thing?

What about you? Do you have a soundtrack?

19 Steps

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  1. Endure a number of episodes unnoticed
  2. Act out and destroy things/people
  3. Retreat
  4. Avoid everything
  5. Get confronted by family and friends
  6. Get hospitalised
  7. Self assess
  8. Decide you need to see a GP
  9. See a GP, get referred to psychologist
  10. See a psychologist, get referred to psychiatrist
  11. Argue with the psychiatrist, because they’re shit at their job
  12. Get a better psychiatrist who gets you
  13. Do the sessions/take the meds
  14. Eat/sleep/exercise/meditate
  15. Manage your self better, and learn the signs
  16. Build a safety net of family and friends
  17. Get continually better
  18. When an episode is coming, let people know
  19. Repeat

+++++

[shirt]

The Screw-you Genie

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I have this voice inside my head. No, okay, not a voice, not in the “hearing voices” kind of way. A personality? No, that’s MPD. It’s more like a splinter of personality?

Anyway, I like to think of it as a genie that lives in a lamp in my head. It’s quiet most of the time, but when I’m in a position where I am expected to comply – with anything – the expectation rubs the lamp and the genie comes out and starts jumping and yelling and throwing things.

“YOU WANT THIS GUY TO DO A THING I DON’T THINK SO BUDDY YOU AIN’T THE BOSS OF MY PAL FUCK YOUR EXPECTATIONS WE DO WHAT WE WANT WE AIN’T SIGNING SHIT”

I call it the “screw-you” genie, because the only wish it grants is the capacity to flip people the bird without giving a shit.

And, you know, I’ll sign the damn paper or whatever, because it needs doing, and I just tell the genie to shut up and get back in its box/lamp/whatever.

But when I’m too weak to control it – when I’m dead-tired or angsty or I’ve been drinking or I’m heading towards depression – it gets loose. And just like the trickster djinns of old, it starts causing trouble by granting wishes I didn’t even know I had. And all the noise usually makes in my cranium suddenly comes spilling out of my mouth.

And I’m finally beginning to realise that this stupid genie has been responsible for oh-so-many incidents where I’ve lost friends and gained nothing but regrets in return – where I’ve suddenly flipped out and said things or done things that are out of character.

At least, I’d like to think they are. Stupid genie. Stop granting wishes I don’t even want.