Spin Cycle
I’ve always been emotionally explosive. Rather, I’m like a raw nerve. I wasn’t diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, (Type I, Severe, Rapid Cycling), until I was 32 years old, but when I finally got the diagnosis, hot damn, did my life-long wild and erratic behavior suddenly begin to make a lot more sense to me.
It was an enormous relief to have some sort of explanation for the rampant mood swings, the overwhelming irritability, the rages, the meltdowns, the all-or-nothing approach to ABSOLUTELY EVERY ASPECT of my life.
Finally, I felt less alien, less alone. There were others out there, just like me, bouncing off the walls, invincible; out of their head with grandiose plans to achieve this, that and the other…and then, the next week, having to cancel everything because LIFE WAS OVER and there was NOTHING LEFT IN THE WORLD. Therefore, I could not leave my bed, much less my house. And this isn’t hyperbolic, to be frank, this is, truly, putting it rather mildly.
I live, primarily, inside of my head; the roar and silence of my mind consumes nearly all my mental and emotional energy. I find it difficult to emerge very often.
Although depression and mania are expressed in opposing timbers, they are equally demanding, clamorous in my mind. Because they insist on my undivided attention, the world surrounding me is dimmed.The voices, feelings, and needs of my family, friends, anyone, everyone, are drowned out. In order to hear, engage, converse, react appropriately (in the societal sense) I must concentrate very hard and, even then, I fear I’m not getting it right.
My mental illness makes me feel Selfish. Immature. Self-possessed. Self-obsessed. Needy and Greedy as a child– a wretched woman-child; a blight, a leech, a mistake.
A very dominant portion of my genetic make-up is the predisposition for anxiety, engendering considerable fear, self-doubt and rumination. It presents itself most potently during mood fluctuation- usually at the height of a mixed episode when agitation becomes extreme. Then the anxiety itself promotes a depressive swing, underscores it.The hopeless, frantic ruminations press in. I am afraid to be alone but desperately averse to the company of others.
This is social anxiety, magnified. Overtaking me. Engulfing me. Controlling me.
There is the tiny cross-section of time: intermittent bouts of Hypomania, in which I am hyperverbal, creative, expressive, gregarious, enthusiastic, euphoric. They are fantastic.
And fleeting.
I take my medication, the pills which are supposed to make me not so unhinged.
..unhinged enough to know that the suicidal ideation isn’t that far behind me. In fact, I can see it rearing its ugly head again.
My last trick of the night, folks. The grand finale of the Crazy Kristen Show.
After waking, I lay back down. I pull the blanket around me, over my head to block out the light from the cheerfully obnoxious sun.
What. a. bastard.
The sunshine remains unceasingly cruel; mocking me, almost taking pleasure in my suffering. I keep the blanket tucked around my head, even though it is getting hot and uncomfortable. It’s hard to breathe in there. I don’t like that. Sometimes, I think I want to die, but I’m afraid of the suffering. I forget that I will MOST DEFINITELY NOT want to die later in the day, post-mood shift. The afternoons are better, and the evenings are EXCELLENT.
Every morning, I forget that now, since I am taking the pills, I am feeling better. For part of the day. At least the whole day isn’t just one long, drawn-out morning.
Even with that it mind, it takes an hour or more for me to coax myself into an upright position, to put my feet on the ground. To slowly stand. To look in the mirror and quickly look away, hating what I see.
I try not to obsess about my fat, the uneasy knowledge that my Body Mass Index now sits squarely in the middle of the “healthy” range. The word healthy sounds fat to me: well-fed, over-nourished, portly. The fact that I am no longer thin sets off the panic.
That reassurance, which would normally calm my frayed nerves, center my thinking, reassure me; the focus around being thin, concentrating on this one goal, dials down the outside world. When I am using this unhealthy coping mechanism, everything else is muted and the complex problems in my life no longer seem so bad, so terribly urgent or troubling. But, this is not an option…sickness, I mean…certain death, I mean. I am in the dreaded state of eating disorder purgatory, where my weight is restored, but the mind (and often behaviors) are still very diseased.
I don’t start feeling better until about halfway through my workout when the endorphins kick in. And then the creativity returns, the ideas come, the planning, the small glimmers of hope. These feelings are not steady throughout, but they make enough of a dent in my misery to propel me through the rest of my workout.
Post workout, I am feeling pretty even for a while, just so long as I do not linger in front of the mirror. Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall–Mirrors seem to have magical properties, you know–they are able to transform my mood almost instantaneously. If I can remember to keep away from mirrors and other triggers, to take my medicine on time, and to employ healthy coping strategies, I can get through the day, relatively unscathed.
I’d choose rhetoric savant over boring old mainstream shmo’ any day.
(c) Bulimia – SaltandPepperTheEarth – Read entire story here.
