I’ve been horrendously depressed. That sort of catatonic depressed where reality shows hum before your eyes one after another because that’s all the stimulation your brain can take. Flashing images of substanceless people performing meaningless tasks on light box that removes you from reality.
A Mood is Never Just a Mood for a Bipolar
But I woke up this morning feeling better. This is always a warning sign of hypomania, or in this case, a mixed-mood. Because a mood is never just a mood to a bipolar. A mood is always a warning sign of a problem. Bipolars have to pay attention to moods because even good moods lead to bad things.
I watched my brain get stuck on a song because I heard three notes of it on the TV. I couldn’t get it to shut up. Over and over. Over and under. Fucking brain. A broken record.
I’m So Grateful for the Good, I’m Crying
And I find myself teary. I’m crying over everything. I actually feel better than yesterday but so much more emotional. My bipolar knob for catatonia has been turned down while the emotionally, specifically weepy, has been turned up. Yay. What a trade.
It’s OK. My smile is closer to genuine in spite of the tears. I do feel something through the tears. It’s a mixed episode I know. The meds dampen hypomania so I get mixed moods with a crazy mix of tears, laughter, smiles, sorrow, racing, anxiety, productive mood. Or at least today. Mixed moods are an emotional storm so the combinations change from time to time. Bipolar is like a box of chocolates.
I am thankful to be feeling any degree of better and am trying to focus on what little there is of the something-other-than-sadness. I close my eyes and look inside to something sort of almost shaped like happiness. It’s not happiness, there are too many knives stabbing at it, but it’s something sort of like it. Something in its colour family.
Vaguely Reminiscent Happiness is a Miracle for the Depressed
I’m grateful it’s there. Transient, labored, perforated it may be, it’s like taking a breath of mostly air and less water, instead of mostly water and less air. It is so much better than nothing.
I’m in that way right now as well. I’m all over the flipping place,and no place at all. I don’t know what to do but hang in there,and not let the torture over take me. I’ve bi-polar,Scitzophrenia,Asperger’s(or autism,mabe both)and I’m healing from abuse,so I’ve A little PTSD as well. A catatonic hellish episode has recently lifted mostly,now,and thankfully. I’ve probably more issues,such as sleep disorders,seisures,Tourette’s Syndrome,OCD,etc. I can’t believe I’m still alive. Peace.
Hi Shannon,
That was the longest, nicest comment I have seen in a long time.
Yes, I know, the articulation thing. To articulate is good. I just wish I had better things to articulate.
I’m not sure that a big IQ and a big vocabulary are the best things to be given. I wonder if in ignorance there truly is bliss and that is what I’m missing out on. People have told me this. Too smart for my own good. I think around solutions instead of into them. Complexities sprout from my multi-threaded brain. It’s a thing. I find it tormenting in its own right.
That being said, thank-you, you’re so sweet. I have conversations with invisible people all the time, I just had no idea someone was having a conversation with invisible me. That is terribly flattering.
You’re right, I’ve been having moments of doubt lately. I know I’m the _strong_professional_writer_authority_ type person but I get worn down too. It takes a lot of effort to be the strong, professional, writer, authority, calm, collected one all the time. And sometimes I feel like I’m doing it wrong.
But you, and others, have reminded me that I am not. I am just doing it. Some people love it, some people hate it, and some people don’t care. That’s all OK. I’m just plugging along anyway.
Feel free to come by and rant any time. I’ll be happy to oblige. And there’s a little part of me that twinkles at the thought that someone is jealous of me. It’s not a very nice part, or a very enlightened part, but it’s a tiny spec right down by my lower femur. Thanks for that.
– Natasha
Natasha Dear,
You would not think it possible for someone to be jealous of you, in states such as you so eloquently describe, but hear I am. Jealous.
I was lying in bed beating myself up because while I am not so depressed today, I, too find myself weepy and not altogether here. I was beating myself up for watching too much TV and being a blob wondering what on earth my effing problem was and I decided to take a break and check my FB where I found your wrting waiting for me. A little light clicked on and I said, ahha!….mixed states! I have been so busy being depressed I had not even come to understand what this looks like in my weird little world.
I have been having conversations (because that is what i do) with you in my head that go something like this: Natasha, I know it sucks to be us but at least you are smart enough to sort out heavy emotions and name them making them easier for the rest of us to digest- for our own crazy selves. Most days I do not have the strength to fight through the mess enough to tell my head from my ass, let alone point the way for someone else. Few people read my blog. In fact, I think the blog has made me feel more alone…like one little crazy voice shouting through a storm…I don’t know if what i mean is coming through here, (and for that I toss in my “crazy” card), but on your worst days you are still more lucid than I am on some of my best. You are a light and a joy and a comfort to many and I know that you have worked hard to become as clear as you are….take at least some comfort in that.
This is a rather mixed bag in the way of compliments, and probably placed in the wrong spot, but.
I am so jealous of your progress and wish I was even a tenth of where you are in your understanding of this wretched disease.
My head just won’t permit that kind of learning most days. I am grateful today for this little piece because now I have something to bring to my doctor…I was totally baffled by my inner state until i read it, now I at least have someplace to start from in sorting it all out.
Getting the jealousy thing off my chest was helpful, because A. I can see how absurd it is (I mean really!?) and B. I get miffed at you sometimes for seeming to be unaware that being able to articulate through the mind fog we all live in is a blessing and something some of us can only dream about doing well. In light of yet another blessing you bring me with your writing I just had to try and reach out a bit and say, Hey! -I think this also follows on the heels of some recent controversy and what not….which is just par for the course I’m afraid. I thought I heard you doubt yourself…DO NOT!
Just being able to shoot from the hip a bit has given me some much needed change in energy, and if nothing else, venting in my way has given me that. :) Plus- I know ur cool like that.
and again, I play the crazy card….please refer to it if you find yourself asking WTF?
Have a better one, dollface. we ARE all in this together.
much love,
~sm
December 14, 2010
Tuesday
8:42 a.m.
I kicked the depressive state and am now in what I believe they call a “mixed state”. I’m exhausted, yet my mind is racing, I am anxious, nauseated, no appetite, all I want to do is smoke cigarettes, go to sleep, watch a movie, and have sex all at the same damn time. Can you believe it took a decade for them to figure out I am Bipolar?
I see it all so clearly now. I recognize when I am pendulating, when I am obsessing…when my body feels like it weighs 500 pounds and I have to somehow drag it out of bed, into a shower, and into the light of day and that feels like more than I can bear. I realize that one glass of wine will destroy my mood the next day, but when I am manic I throw it all to hell and try to forget the depression part—the darkness that comes to claim me when I have all but forgotten about it. I drink, I stay up late, I rebel against this disease. I try to will myself into some kind of belief that I can be ‘normal’, that this illness is make-believe. When I talk to family members, they only validate this make-believe belief. I can’t possibly be that ill they say. I’m just having a bad day, a bad week, a bad few months. Really? What happens when you have entire years of depression punctuated by hypomania and mixed states? What then? Can you still cling to the belief that I am just experiencing the lows and highs of normal life? Can you tell yourself I am being dramatic and really live inside blaming me? I can’t. This disorder is REAL.
Every day is a challenge whether I want it to be or not; whether I meditate, eat right, exercise, write positive affirmations, journal, talk to friends. I can exhaust all of my coping skills and still be left with the pit of anxiety that burrows deep within my core and the voices that tell me I will never be okay, that I will ultimately end up alone. No one but me knows my struggle—they can’t. And I won’t inflict pain on those I care about because of this disease. The trick is figuring out how to tell others how to help me when I can’t speak for myself. The trick is to let those who want to be there for me be there. I’m so gifted at shutting people out. I’m so used to people bailing—important people. I want to learn to let others love me. I want to believe they really can; that somewhere the care of my soul matters to others and to me. I want to LIVE not just exist. Maybe that is expecting too much. Maybe radical acceptance is all there really is. But where do our dreams go when we are bipolar and tired of the ups and downs and in-betweens? Can we radically accept that we may never reach our grandiose goals of being the next Hemingway or Van Gogh? I don’t know. I just know that I have to keep surrendering, accepting and gosh darn it-hoping.