Today I'm not up, or down. Ron's playing James Taylor, who's also bipolar. "Fire and Rain"
Not up or down. Today, I'm baseline - babble-speak for a normal mood, as it were. Today, I realized that an average mood for me, is going to be exhausted.
I love a properly medicated mania. Housecleaning, yardwork, I'm full of energy. It all gets done. Then I get depressed or baseline and I hardly have the energy to wipe my butt.
I'm not whining today; I met a waitress who "Didn't like" what lithium "Did to her" and is now running around unmedicated. She had a pretty good mania going, I was a little envious.
Now Ron's playing "Gloria" - which we feel also describes someone with bipolar disorder. I think of the homeless guy under the overpass "They said I was bipolar, and gave me pink pills (lithium), but I didn't like them so I stopped." Now he's an alcoholic, living under an overpass, begging for beer money.
God's always giving me examples of why I need to remain medicated, if I'm ever foolish enough to forget the horrible mixed episodes, wanting to die at the same time I felt like I drank a whole pot of coffee, and literally bursting out of my skin with pain. Let's not forget the hallucinations and delusions either... really quite scary.
It's awful to feel invisible bugs on my skin, hear laughter that isn't there, or my personal hatred, the music that doesn't exist. I hear it fairly often even on the meds, but I'm not interested in increasing my doses right now.
It's a hard balancing act, when it takes four tries to spell "balancing", and keeping the moods at a reasonable level. Dull roar, kind of. I wanted to talk a lot and do a lot last time I was manic, but I didn't spend all my money. Good balance. Depressions; where I have to make myself do things I enjoy but I can still do so.
I'm not average, I'll never be average (can't spell average either today). I'm OK with that. I accept that I will have to make some significant sacrifices in order to manage my illness. I don't like it. I think it's sad, but then I've never really been able to rely on my brain anyway.
But even on a bad day, I'm going to make sure that some of the energy I've got is going to fun things that bring me joy. I deserve that, even if it means that sinkful of dishes remains unwashed.
3 comments:
I wish we had better medications for things like this ..it is just not fair that we can find all kinds of things for other health conditions and for especially combo psych diagnosis we have such a limited arsenal to keep people happy and healthy ..it is because of politics and misunderstandings and bias you know ...the brain is our most neglected and most important organ why we can not give it more consideration and help is beyond me!
take care and feel better I am glad you are gardening again ..my garden is my therapy I feel close to my own baseline when I have dirt under my nails!
Oh and I am looking for a patchouli plant I never even thought of growing one until I saw your post ..I was reading on the easy garden board that they are a bit difficult to grow here but I am going to give it a try and see ..if i can find one!
love and hugs
Heidi
OOOXXX Heidi
Hang in there the one thing about being a "rapid cycler" is it will rapidly pass OOOXXX
Thanks Heidi! Yeah, a lot of stigma out there... it's sad. My sister challenges it by enrolling in every study she can. I blog and try to educate people. Our driver this morning kept staring at me as if I were a fascinating bug after I mentioned the word "Bipolar", but I'd taken my pills so I didn't care! LOL
Patchouli needs to be protected if it even thinks about getting cold, so you might want to cut the bottom off a gallon milk jug, leave the top on, and put that over the top of the plant whenever it might get chilly at night. It can stay on during the day as a mini greenhouse if you take the cap off. I do that whenever we get a cold snap. Just put the cap on at night! Tomorrow I expand a garden bed by 16 square feet. It ought to be fun!
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