“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” ~Ray Bradbury
When Leah and Jess started Real Mental a few weeks back, I jumped at the chance to post just once. In the hope of finding and opening up a vein to unleash the mish mash that has been going on in my head for the past few months. Before I moved back to NY – and the two having nothing to do with each other – I was diagnosed with a Bipolar II Disorder. Which in the grand scheme of things isn’t a big deal, but it’s been something of which I’ve had a most difficult time writing about or expressing. In fact my jumping at the chance is a manifestation of my desperate need to say something about it and now I’m hopeful that I’ve found that space.
I still have trouble telling people, even those that have known me for years, but I have no trouble strolling up to the pharmacist at CVS at regular intervals to get my Lithium and Klonopin prescriptions because they are the key to my not going completely fucked up, raging mad. I mean, really? It’s been weeks since I’ve given anyone the finger for having the audacity to merge.
So for now, what I once felt was sacred, I’m trying to be a little bit more open about in hopes that I can fully accept my new ‘normal’ without having an outer-body experience whenever I tell someone. Like maybe if I say it quietly they won’t hear me, better yet, maybe they’ll forget that I’m fucked up. In all honesty, my friends that know aren’t judgmental or fear me or think that I’m ‘special’ or speak to me V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y. They’re actually relieved to hear that that I have an actual medical condition and not just a permanent case of grade a BITCH.
Hypomania
“The mind is the most capricious of insects – flitting, fluttering.” ~Virginia Woolf
Euphoria frightens me. As do moments of high productivity. But who doesn’t enjoy gleaming hardwood floors at midnight? I swear you could lick my bedroom floor right now. Who doesn’t like a continuous flow of ideas and words that seem to exude with sudden aplomb? Why, it’s a lovely change from my normally fainéant behavior, isn’t it? I get things done while checking things off my list and being disgustingly jolly. All the while it’s as if everything inside of me is hyper extended. It isn’t limited to my mood; everything races and continues joyously to an abrupt stop of depression. It’s not a slow abatement but imagine driving down a freeway listening to The Steve Miller Band; happy as can be and humming along, feeling completely exhilarated and then hitting the back of a Mack truck.
The episodes of hypomania are so few and far between that I notice them more once they occur. I fear discussing it partly because I still find it baffling and also because – and forgive me for being a cliché – having a bipolar disorder doesn’t exactly define me. Which is something I realized when I attempted to write about it on a regular basis. It’s just one of those annoying things that I rarely think about because I try not to let it become a big deal. I take great joy in telling Doctors and Nurses what medications I’m on and having them look at me as if I will fling myself across an exam room to rip their head off while cackling during a fit of mania. It isn’t that extreme but these ebbs and flows – however slight - are still felt and noticed, sometimes more often than not. It’s manageable. I’m lucky and so very fortunate. This entire ‘thing’ makes me feel empathetic yet helpless towards those who are not.