The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess. William F. Allman
Yesterday, the whole day, there was screaming in my head. It was me doing it and I couldn’t make it stop. It finally stopped on its own at around 19h00 and the peace and relief were truly exquisite. I smiled for about half an hour.
Before, when I had mixed episodes and didn’t know what they were (oh you know, most of my 44 years on earth), I assumed they were character flaws. The world reinforced that view and people close to me sometimes tried to help both themselves and me by not taking my shit. Amazingly, the simple addition of a diagnosis is actually helping me deal with the previously terrifying mood shifts.
Mind you, I drive people bananas even when I’m stable, because, well, I’m only talkative and lively when I’m somewhere on the mania spectrum. Otherwise I am quiet and frankly reclusive.
My head is sore, everything tastes bad. I’m all over the place. Definitely less nausea since dropping lithium to 1000mg, still can’t eat. But I did manage to harness some manic energy to go to town and then walk the dogs on the beach. Win. Yesterday I kept wanting to write and I felt my brain shut down and despair kick in every time. Fucking bipolar fucking disorder. And can’t someone do something about the taste lithium makes? It’s so vile there isn’t even a word for it.
I’m starting to wonder if my baseline is depression.
I have no idea whether my perceptions are off, but I feel like I’m trying to express stuff irl and just not getting through. I’ve got to stop grieving the fact that there’s nobody in my life who will educate themselves about bipolar and hold my hand a bit, and work out how to accept it and just get on with stuff. The same can be said for many things in my life this year. Stop grieving, start accepting.
Well, acknowledging it is the first step, amirite?
I read a blog entry yesterday, where someone used the word misgivings as soon as she found out her bf was bipolar. And I mean, that’s fine as long as she would use the same word if he had children or cancer … but I bet she bloody wouldn’t.
Here’s an outstanding quote in the you don’t know what it’s like genre. Take it away, KRJ …
Others imply that they know what it is like to be depressed because they have gone through a divorce, lost a job, or broken up with someone. But these experiences carry with them feelings. Depression, instead, is flat, hollow, and unendurable. It is also tiresome. People cannot abide being around you when you are depressed. They might think that they ought to, and they might even try, but you know and they know that you are tedious beyond belief: you are irritable and paranoid and humorless and lifeless and critical and demanding and no reassurance is ever enough. You’re frightened, and you’re frightening, and you’re “not at all like yourself but will be soon,” but you know you won’t.”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
