Humiliation and Panic

I had to write four papers in the last few weeks, and needless to say it was a daunting task. I had won a trip to the Marlboro Ranch so that was scheduled very inconveniently during the time I needed these papers done. Little did I know that two of my professors would extend the due date. Guess which papers I had written a month before the original due date to have time for the others? You got it, the two that got extended dates. I am an Honors student I can handle a few papers, long or short but something happened to me.

I got stuck in my manic rut. This time it was different. I started cycling through different episodes and could not gain control over my feelings. I felt lost, overwhelmed, and insecure leading to a very sorrowful depressed unmotivated state. It was so debilitating that over spring break I didn't even touch my research or my papers. This is not normal for me. Even in the past when I would go through rapid cycling I still felt motivation to do well academically. Well this lack of motivation caused panic to ensue at an almost constant rate which led to an utterly awful and rushed paper for Biomedical Ethics (my favorite).

Thankfully I have peers that help me edit but this paper is a turd compared to my normal writing skills. Obviously here this is no where near my academic writing but nonetheless I am mortified.

Now having been put back on my meds after a complete break down I am calmest but still feeling sick about the draft I turned in. It is astonishing how a mental illness can diminish your analytical and cognitive skills. You think you are organized and have it together just to come to the realization that you do not. You are overwhelmed and have dug yourself a deep hole. You have decided to not take care of your mental illness because you stereotypically think "Oh I'm good I can control this on my own. I am super rational now and don't need any flipping meds that just tranquilize me!"

You eventually come to realize-once you notice a downturn in your productivity, skill set, and everyday attitude toward the 'innocents'- that you are far from good and far from being able to take care of it alone. Support helps but for me without the meds I feel just nuts. Rolling up and down a hill continuously and destroying things that get in my way. Angry at people who aren't bad people (like getting angry at your husband because deep down you are mad at the world). Sometimes the feelings are correct but a lot of times they are just not.

It can feel mortifying to realize you are acting super irrational when you believe you are thinking logically-and this hurts more when you study gosh dang logic and philosophy! I was open with my professor and apologized for the atrocity I turned in. I did reedit it but who knows if it is even close to my normal work. I had to tell her. It was not an excuse I will fully accept my grade but I felt an apology was in order as I slacked off during break (not because I was drinking and partying and granted it was because of mental sickness).

I do still astonish myself sometimes though because I have a hard time sticking to a job, a budget, a therapy, and so on, but I have stuck to school and researching on my own. I have no clue if I will mentally be able to handle a career or having to be at work most of the week, but with support I can do better.

To be honest, J did slack off a bit more than usual at school attendance wise. Usually I try and make every class and this semester the monster in my head hit, and along with that physical issues. So here I lay with degenerating cartilage and what sometimes feels like a degenerative frontal lobe trying to do what I can. Driving to school, even sitting in a long class, going into some store where I could probably get a job, and panicking really does disable me. Panic and your day may just feel ruined. Panic and be going through a manic or mania stage and guess what, all hell breaks loose inside that brain. You can't get it together. Happiness may be off the table that day(s), and sorrow comes a tumbling on down. It make you feel useless bc wherever you go you start fearing, and wherever you go you may start feeling the affects of mental illness. It makes for a situation where all you want is to go lay down at home. Many times I have fallen victim to it and have just laid in bed all day. This is not normal, and it is not Okay. So please tell anyone who says 'everyone is bipolar' to read this post, shoot email me, IDC, but make sure you realize that bipolar and panic disorders are not 'fake', are not ways to get drugs (JI mean if you really want go ahead get some tranquilizers for bipolar and tell me how ya like it!), nor is it something one should try to handle on their own. Sometimes we need help, sometime we need support.

Thank you

Lea

The ups and downs

I hate it most when people say "isn't everyone bipolar, at least a little bit?" No and that is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard.

If by 'isn't everyone bipolar' you mean doesn't everyone have crazy episodes, you are even more a douchebag.

Guess what? Having Bipolar disorder is not fun to deal with, nor is it 'cool' to have, nor is it an excuse for some not mentally ill person to use when she/he goes loco on her/his bf or gf.

You want to know what it feels like to be bipolar? Well I will tell you how it makes me feel.

When I go through a manic episode I literally feel my blood pressure spiking (if I am getting angry). So much so I can pinpoint when RAGE mode is about to happen. Since I rapidly cycle through episodes I will try to lay it out for you

Perhaps I wake up a bit aggravated, this means little things are going to make me angry. Like the hot water not being hot enough. Then I go into some low weird sorrow episode where anything can set me off crying or hating life. This may seem absolutely ridiculous but this is how it really happens. I then may get very hyper, or hyper focused on some task. So hyper I can't stop chatting, or can't get off facebook bc no one is home to bother. When I realize, irrationally, that acting like this, and feeling facebook is my only option to connect, I again cycle into a sorrowful state. I sit and brew for a long time, like 4 hours or so. I start to irrationally conjure up all these things either my lover, or my family has done, and I start to boil. If someone is home with me they become my target. I know I need to calm the fuck down but I can't. I know I may even have a legitimate reason to be mad but am projecting it all onto one person instead of talking to the people who really angered me. The issue is that sometimes I don't want to recognize or care about what someone has done towards me that is hurtful because I don't want to feel crazy again. I don't want to feel like they are looking at me like I have the IQ of a ten year old so I keep it in. Well that back fires.

Instead it brews and brews and something unrelated to how they hurt me can remind my irrational self why I was hurt by them.

The RAGE ensues, or should I say erupts. I start feeling my body building up in anticipation. My nerves are going crazy, my mind is hyperfocused and on point. I am literally trying to calm myself internally, which never works, and then I burst. I throw things that are unbreakable now since I had broken so many expensive things before I had to learn to keep unbreakable around. I scream, or say vicious things, which I regret the second I say them, and I usually make myself walk away. I can't mentally handle it so I have to walk away or I will bury myself.

Once I walk away something strange happens. I feel the rage lift off and a deep depression weigh in. I start to cry and weep. I feel so trapped in my head because I cannot control it, and everything just starts coming out. All those hidden feelings, all the frustration from being bipolar,all the sadness associated with manic depression, and so forth. I sometimes cry for hours when this happens. But after awhile something else happens.
Sometimes it is sooner because my husband comes to talk with me and help me work through it, sometimes no one is home so it takes longer. But eventually I feel happy. So fucking happy. I don't have any clue why and no idea why I feel I should go run a few miles.

This may happen often, or only parts of this cycle take place -usually sorrow, anger, and hyper focusing. However, I tend to believe I don't need meds when really I do. I cannot explain in words how awful I can become and how depressed I get. Plus I start panicking big time when I am cycling. It's because I have time periods (anywhere from one week, to several) where I feel stable. But don't be fooled!

I am now back on meds because I couldn't deal with it anymore! But that's for another time.

Thanks for reading if anyone actually did!

Lea