The Big Dipper

Today... I saw a message... It wasn't good news. Rather, it was extremely upsetting news. My mood began to plummet and rapidly. I was talking to someone who understood. It was nice - that's always nice. But it didn't quite do the trick... I then started to two episodes of Homeland that I hold on to. The last two, specifically. The first one mostly shows the main character fly into a wild manic state, while the second one addresses more her depression. I watch them because they're so true and so accurate. Some of the people around me don't get me as well as a TV show's writer. Ironic, I think.

After the show... I decided to go for a walk. I hadn't walked in a while and, with my fibromyalgia, I figured I needed it. My fibro pain had seemed to subside after what was previously a nuisance of flare up that lasted two or three days. I started my walk and immediately could smell a familiar... but old smell. A smell I smelled in Maryland. It was a mixture of moistness, deciduous trees, and grass. I walked around for most of my lap... but then decided to take a detour. This was far beyond unusual for me.

I turned on one of the north-south streets and headed south. Somewhere down the line, I actually decided where I was going. My sister's school is almost directly south from our house so I headed there. When I got there (about a half mile walk, now), I decided to go a bit further into the adjoined park. I stopped at about 0.8 miles toward the far end of the park (thank you Google Maps.) The crazy part is that I was able to run - or rather, sprint! - across streets and some of the park! It's one thing for me to walk a distance... it's a whole other thing to be able to sprint at all. Fibromyalgia pretty much prohibits that... but I was free from its clutches... somehow.

I laid down on that park bench, my head facing south, my toes facing north, and I stared at that night sky. The clouds soared through the sky, speckled stars appearing and disappearing through their cracks. I just laid there and laid there. It was probably five or ten minutes until I decided to get back up and start walking back. As I started walking back, the northern part of the sky, at least, started to clear up and I at first saw the big dipper, and then as I was almost home, the little dipper showed its face. I don't remember the last time that I actually saw the big and little dippers. Everytime I looked up at the sky, a building or tree or cloud got in the way, but as I was walking north along the road, nothing obscured my view.

I don't know the last time I could run like that - at least over a year. I don't know the last time I smelled some of the things I smelled. The memories - good memories - that conjured up seemed to have been long forgotten before tonight. I didn't follow any thought when I went on this walk - which was about 1.6 miles - at night. I followed scents. Smells conjured memories, and those memories drove my walking. It was so out of my comfort zone, the whole time I was sweating, even though it was cold out. I was looking around, flinching at every crack of a stick or crumple of a pine cone. I was making sure to stay in the light (albeit dim light) as much as possible and watching the shadows. I was my normal, paranoid self, anxious and honestly frightened. It was... stepping out of my comfort zone, trying something new.

For once in... as long as I can remember, I truly felt free.

'He's Been Institutionalised'

In The Shawshank Redemption, there's a line that I always remember, where Morgan Freeman, 'Red', tells his fellow inmates about why it's such a bad, frightening thing that the elderly man, Brooks, is being released after 50 years in prison. He says, "He's been institutionalised" (or the script probably had 'institutionalized.') Red continues to explain to the younger inmates who can't quite understand that, after 50 years, prison is all Brooks knows.

Normally, when I explain my strange, rather nonsensical longing and reminiscence of what I call the 'bad old days,'  I've been saying that 'bipolar people can't stand to be in chaos, but can't stand not being in chaos.' Over the past few months, I've been having such urges and reminiscing more than previous times of those days before I got on meds, when my bipolar peaked and my life began spiralling out of control. Maybe that's not true for all people with bipolar - I often say that nothing is different and that just about everything that I say that sounds definite is actually a generalisation.

Well... I just thought of a better example, and that's the quote from The Shawshank Redemption. In a way, once a bipolar person has dipped their feet into the well of chaos too long, they get a taste for it - it becomes all that they really know, and it's hard to adjust to a 'normal' life. But the more and more that I get a taste of that chaos, the more the I have trouble denying it. Sometimes, I just want to jump head first into a whole pool of chaos. There's a reason why all bipolar people - and almost all people on psychiatric meds - drop there meds at some point. Typically that reason is that they started feeling 'fine,' but, in the case of a bipolar person, it's usually feeling 'dull' and wanting to go back to their lively self.

Bipolar is very much like a drug - a drug that the brain naturally and readily produces. Meds, essentially, are supposed to act as inhibitors to this bipolar drug. However... people who get high once are likely to want to get high again, even with those horrible, horrible crashes. That rollercoaster can both be utter agony and surreally high. Without those highs, I'm constantly seeking some sort of supplement - video games, romance, opiates are always nice - but nothing illegal (by opiates, I mean strictly prescription pain meds) or reckless. No reckless sex, no illicit drugs, no gambling, and so on. I've always thought that I'd bee too shy to do hard drugs, anyway!

My 'rock bottom' is somewhat ideal, really. I've never been (truly) suicidal, never done anything dangerous... Really, I typically hide under a rock until it passes over. Anyone who knows depression probably thinks this sounds pretty good for depression. But, just because some of the classic 'bad' symptoms aren't there - the most self-destructive - doesn't mean that it isn't still horrible. It's just horrible within different constraints.

My hallucinations, my misfit friends, my more outward personality... Some parts of me think I was better off then, some (more sane) parts of me say that I'm way, way, way better off now. Despite the obvious rational and irrational sides, one is always persistently trying to convince the other. Everything in life has two ends - yin and yang, good and evil, heaven and hell, mania and depression. Bipolar is a crash course lesson in that aspect of life, even if not everyone accepts that or sees that. Without the devil, how can there be God? To see heaven... I keep on seeking hell.

The Neutron Star of Moods

When a star dies, it undergoes a common process known as supernova. When you dissect the word 'super-nova,' you get the Latin words (or, at least, word parts) for 'beyond/above' and 'new.' Essentially, it translates to a birth that transcends its previous state as a star (really, though, it's superlative to the phenomenon 'nova,' which I'll discuss later, but I'm using this definition for my analogy.) Typically, a star becomes either a black hole or a neutron star in this 'transcendent state.' Some lesser stars don't get to even supernova (but instead 'nova'), simply burning out like an ember. But those that go above and beyond either have the ability to suck up all but fermions around it with immensely destructive power, or become an almost unfathomably dense super-magnetically-charged ocean of bright, rotating, lighthouse like neutrons. These 'lighthouse' beams of gamma rays can obliterate anything in their path - including planets or even other stars.

What's the point of this astrology slash quantum physics lesson? Bipolar moods are kind of like the results of supernovae (and sometimes feel like supernovae.) Depression can feel like a crushing, dark, destructive black hole. On the other hand, mania can feel like super-charged, gamma-ray-emitting, speedily-spinning neutron stars that blast through anything in their sights. Mania. That's what I'm discussing today. I've been up since 6:00 p.m. and it's now 1:00-ish p.m. I plan on staying up for at least 13 plus more hour. That'll be 32 hours of being awake. Here's the catch: I have no more melatonin which is rather pivotal to getting to sleep, Tramadol can often aid in sleep, but can act as an accelerant to my manic episodes, and I don't know when this episode will die out. For all I know, I could stay awake for past 48 hours... maybe closer to 60 or 70! I just don't know. I'm wide awake, it's morning... is a semi-fitting song title by Bright Eyes. O, coffee, why do I desire thee so, before I slip into mania? Why doth my subconscious, pre-manic mind bend to thine seductive power? Mania is one of the only times that caffeine and sugar affect me. Look out... whatever needs to look out in the near future! My manic rays will mow you down! Perhaps... the bathroom floor will know my power!

The Sunrise

I realised something today. It's taken a number of days with irritable mood swings, but I realised it. I screwed up with someone I really care about. She asked me about something that was extremely important to her, and through the shroud of my affective disarray, I said some of the wrong words. I didn't mean them to come off how they did, but I really couldn't blame her. Normally, I would try to come up with a poor excuse and then meekly avoid the subject from then on. While I did, at first, make a poor excuse, I stopped, thought for a moment, and said what I truly meant. I managed to at least balance things once again. When it comes to someone I really care about, I can at least try to fix my mistakes. Some cases are much harder than others, and different circumstances (regardless of how much I care about a person) can also change how difficult it is for me. However, now I've realised that I can.

Truly, I just want to lie on the couch and do nothing. I want to sleep the day away and perhaps even wallow in a dark cloud that was designed just for me. However, this realisation still made things better than without. I've been swinging like a pendulum to and fro these moods o' mine. But... while I'm getting nagged at for staying up far too late and waking up far too late... it doesn't stop me. When I see the room gradually grow brighter and brighter from almost total darkness, hear the birds begin to chirp and the world become alive... There's something magical about that. And I know that I won't be waking up to witness these things, and so go to sleep early enough, either. That makes my only viable avenue to stay up. Besides, what does it matter when I go to sleep and wake up so long as I sleep long enough? It's not like I'm sleeping for 12+ hours, or like I'm missing out on anything that I wouldn't still do. There are even some advantages - the house gets quiet, I get to talk to some people that I normally wouldn't be able to, and it's simply therapeutic.

I suppose that, while I was in the darkness, now my sun has begun to rise. It's really rather metaphorical, even...

The Coward's Way Out

I have to admit something that I've realised when talking with Laura... I make excuses - a lot of excuses... I avoid things, even things I want, like my life depends on it. Why? Because I'm deathly afraid. I know I need to start making friends, but I am just petrified and horrified at the idea of approaching someone - anyone - to hopefully start a friendship. I'm deathly afraid of going to college and moving on in life because of the possibility of crashing and burning in that attempt. I stay in my comfort zone, and the longer I stay in it, the more it shrinks. I don't merely become afraid of trying, I become afraid of life.

Why do I get so combative and defensive when someone asks about moving forward in life in any way..? Because just thinking about it makes my heart flutter. I just want them to immediately stop talking about it because, really... I feel like just going into a corner and crying (if I could cry.) But I do try... I just need people to trust that I do actually try, even if the steps I make are almost too small to notice. But... forward is forward, isn't it? So, perhaps I try to take the coward's way out. I may just be weak and afraid. Anxieties are not rational... so, likewise, you can't really expect me to act rationally when I'm anxious. It's not easy - it's never easy. So, the prospect of even going up to someone to say, 'Hi,' in hopes to make a new friend... can sometimes feel like the hardest thing in the world. Just thinking about it makes me feel like fainting.

So... those times when I just keep on making excuses, just know that it's because I'm so afraid I'll do just about anything not to leave that warm, fuzzy safety of my comfort zone. I need to slowly, gradually creep out of my comfort zone, just a little at a time, before I can obtain a goal. And the whole time I'm trying to creep out of and expand my comfort zone, I just want someone there to support me unconditionally. No, 'When are you going to do this? Are you going to try that? You need to do this.' All that I need is a little comfort, a little help along the way - maybe even just a hug every once in a while!

But do know that me writing this - me doing this blog - is just one such way I'm trying.