I Feel My Bipolar Coming Back (Good? Bad?)

The title kind of says it all. So I'll say it again - I feel my bipolar 'coming back,' and I can't be sure if it's good, bad, or some combination of the two in whatever varying degrees. As some may know, I started getting off of my bipolar meds (I've stayed on Wellbutrin, the antidepressant/mild-stimulant-cousin for, obviously, depression, and less obviously, potentially ADHD.) The Wellbutrin, being left unchecked from the lack of mood stabilisers, could be causing me to gradually rise and rise into a manic flight, but any kind of full-blown mania, or even hypomania, is yet to be seen. Then again, a lot of people with hypomania don't even realise when they go into a hypomanic state. But, anyway, to get back on track, I actually feel bipolar again! Not some mild, lame excuse for 'stable bipolar' (which 'stable' is really just a relative term.)

For the first time in what seems like a long time, I'm starting to feel emotions in their full ranges, and, to be honest, I'm a bit overwhelmed. I haven't had any bouts of depression in the... 15 or so days since I started getting off my meds, so I wouldn't say that the outlook looks positive in that I probably won't have bouts of depression, and I'll be more realistic, watching out in case they come. I had depression while on meds, it was just milder depression. I had mania when I was on meds, it was just hypomania. What meds really did was help me sleep... at all, pretty much, keep my moods and emotions in 'bearable' ranges, and keep me from being quite clinically psychotic. It didn't... 'take the bipolar away,' which is a pathetic pipe dream that no on with bipolar should shoot for. Rather, the goal is to adapt with and learn to withstand or even utilise the bipolar.

Sleep is seeming more and more irrelevant, every sensation and emotions seems ten times as potent, I'm giddy for no reason and smile uncontrollably at seemingly random times, my OCD seems like it's more prevalent, even if it's a bit more in my head than in practice, my anxieties are skyrocketing, but they were before I got of meds, so that could be irrelevant to note... To most, those things would all sound bad, but to me, some of them seem quite good, or at least fairly benign or indifferent. Imagine the thrill of a rollercoaster... Some people love that - it gets their blood pumping, their emotions riled up, and their senses overloaded. Well, I suppose that a part of me likes that rollercoaster thrill - a psychological rollercoaster - and so I sometimes see these bad things as good in their own way. I'm also a bit of an emotion junky, I suppose. If my emotions aren't strong, pronounced, and involved in every situation and facet of my life, well... I just don't think it's enough. I knew extreme emotions before I got on meds and knew only milder, faded versions of those same emotions, so I suppose it makes sense that I'd naturally prefer the former. I felt like, when on meds, that if I felt bad, I couldn't even feel bad correctly! It was like really poor, unconvincing acting where someone goes, "Oh, drats, I feel so, so sad..." I couldn't even convince myself! With actual emotion! It felt so weak and fake.

Well, it's coming back to me. That raw emotion pouring out. I'm starting to feel it more and more. Now, whether that's truly a good thing or a bad thing, I can't really say. I suppose the answer to that question has more to do with how I end up responding to it in the long run. I think that it's inevitable that I'm a bit overwhelmed at first, and that things seem to point a bit more to the bad than the good. Time will tell, as someone recently told me. Whenever I get a cut or some kind of injury, I always have this uncontrollable urge to take the duller pain and aggravate it so that it's sharp and pronounced. If I have a cut on my lip, I bite into it, or if I have an itchy scratch, I pour astringent on it almost mercilessly, and if I have a bruise or similar injury, I press on it. The constant, dull pain, no matter how agonizing in its own right, is more unbearable than the sharper, stronger pain, which has it's own... paradoxical sense of relief go along with it. It's like scratching an itch with a carpenter's nail, even if it makes you bleed a bit. I suppose I've always been a bit of a masochist, but I've just always liked those things... stronger.

There was a part on the show, Being Human (North American version), where they show Aidan in a flashback after having just been turned into a vampire, and when he wakes up, every single sense is drastically sharper and stronger. He could hear birds chirping like they were right next to him, he could hear the wind and the grass, the sunlight was brighter, everything his sense of touch was amplified, and so on. His maker then went on to say, "Have you ever felt so alive?" which is ironic, considering how vampires are clinically dead. That's what these floods of feelings seem like - awakening to a new, stronger, darker and brighter, world. Sure, I feel more alive, but I feel more... everything. Scared, excited, euphoric, shocked... I'm hyper-aware of everything, and yet my thoughts are still a jumbled mess and foggy. I was hoping I would get the... same lucidity - if that's the correct word - as before meds, but perhaps I have to wait a bit longer. Worst case scenario, the meds altered my brain enough over the past five years that I'll never return to that same capacity. I used to feel like a supercomputer was in my brain, but working on so many things at the same time that it became impossible to handle. But to get just one more day where I didn't stumble with my thoughts, where I didn't stutter in conversation, where I could think mentally labor intensive things without being forced to give up before I hardly get started... To be able to think with that clarity that I once had... I traded an enormous clutter of thoughts for the inability to think. People call me 'smart' just because my interests lie in the academic, but any nitwit with enough time to waste and will to study could know all the things I know; it's nothing special, nor useful.

I used to be genuinely smart, though. I used to excel in classes of all varieties, I used to have a pretty good memory (I could at least remember how I got to where I was more than half the time without having to really think it through), I used to RETAIN things, I could figure things out on my own! Now, I know something for a brief moment, and then it flaps away, perhaps randomly appearing and disappearing despite any and all effort on my part to hold onto it. I often feel the need to vocalise or record what I learned in some way just so that I don't feel like it was an utter waste having spent the time getting it in my head in the first place. Now, this brain is a useless piece of shit in a decaying, useless body. I essentially just take up room in the world - that's my purpose. Sustaining this awful excuse for a life is costly and wasteful. Now, if I could figure out some way to become ethereal and not take up any space, or use any resources, then it might be worth sticking around... Or, if I could just get this mind back to where it used to be! Psychotic episodes? Bring 'em on, if I'm even capable, anymore. Panic attacks? I'll become an agoraphobic and just have other people in my life do everything in the outside world. Depression? I've always been to afraid to commit suicide or hurt others physically, so not really a worst-case-scenario hazard from that. Mania? What's wrong with mania? Sure, I might hardly ever sleep, but at least I start to feel like wanting to clean! And the pain lessens the more manic I am (pain means several things in this case.) That's what life is... Living is being free and unlimited, however that manifests itself. And living a miserable, awful thing, so might as well get the most out of it while you can.

There are these commercials for glasses where the picture is all out of focus and you can't see a thing, and then a pair of lenses cover a chunk of the screen and everything's perfectly clear through them. That's what it was like before meds... Sure, I saw my share of things that I didn't want to see, and some of it simply went to far, but at least I could see! Some people wish they could gouge their eyes out, and I used to be one of those people, but when you lose your sight, you'd be thankful to see just about anything again... You know, my anxieties didn't really manifest until after I got on meds. It's like my mind no longer had anything to pay attention to, so it invented a bunch of things to force its attention onto. Now, I consider my bipolar to be this modest little kitten compared to the monstrosity that is my all-consuming anxiety. But no one else can experience my anxiety, so obviously it would appear to be irrelevant and something to be shrugged off. My bipolar, now, that could cause me to hurt someone's feelings! Gasp! God FORBID I hurt someone else's feelings... But when anxiety comes over me and I feel like I'm being swallowed up alive, awaiting to be digested by the acid in the belly of the beast? Well, no one else is really paying attention, so no big deal, right? Who cares about that weirdo who's a little too worried all the time! Who cares if he thinks he's going to have a heart attack and DIE!

Maybe it'd just be better to lay down and die, and just get the inevitable over with, right? I try my best all the time with no results, or no good ones, anyway, so I might as well just give up before I damage anything else, right? *long pause* See? I nearly cried! I can feel things again! Well, after a long, long pause, I'm now at a... sort of blank, apathetic stage, so I'll end there.

In the Fishbowl

Yesterday, I woke up and I was reminded that we were going to eat out. This is a fairly rare occasion for me, for more than one reason. My stomach had felt a bit queasy from the get-go, but I figured that it would either pass or I'd power through it. Well, I didn't quite realise that we'd be taking a detour first to take my brother to his friend's house. I got in the car, uncertain of how I'd feel, and before long started to feel like I was going to throw up. I started to get lightheaded and breathing techniques weren't doing a thing for either problem. I then started to sweat profusely and felt utterly miserable. I wasn't sure if I was going to suddenly throw up bile, acid, and any other thing that might've been in my gut, or if I'd be able to power through. Well, after what seemed like an excruciatingly long drive to my brother's friend's house, he got out and we headed toward the restaurant.

Now, mind you, this isn't your quiet, dim-light, fancy sort of restaurant; this is a bright, loud, crowded burger joint that we were going to. On the way there, the 'voice of reason' in my head that I've taken to calling Natalie, kept on reassuring me that I might just have a bug, or it might be withdrawal from getting off my bipolar meds, but my 'normal,' fearful part of my mind kept on wandering immediately to PANIC. It must be anxiety, I'd incessantly think to myself. And then good ol' Natalie will reassure me, 'If it is anxiety, you need to calm yourself down,' and reason, 'but don't go to the worst case scenario, because then it'll become anxiety for sure.' Well, I managed to mentally talk my way through, if nothing else, the nausea until we finally stopped because we arrived at the restaurant. After a pause, I took in a breath and got out of the car.

As soon as we walked through those doors, voices were loud, staff were yelling order numbers for pick-up, and amongst themselves just so they could hear each other, the music was awful (classic rock, I think), the lights were bright, which was worse since there were a lot of white tiles, and as we approached the register, I was almost bursting out in tears. My brain told me to fight through it, but my body wanted to fly out of their; so much for the 'fight-or-flight' response. I felt like I was gasping for air, but I wasn't sure I was more afraid of - panicking in front of a bunch of people, or the environment in which I was in. On one hand, I just wanted to curl up and cry, and on the other hand, I was petrified of making a scene. So... I took my years of practice, and held it in as best as I could. Once we got to the table, I started closing my eyes, blocking the bright lights with my hands over my eyebrow ridge, and trying and trying just to calm myself down. After I got a nice, hearty burger in me, and what seemed like a bucketful of fries, my nausea finally started to subside, but the rest was hardly fading away. I kept on thinking to myself how it felt like being a fish inside a fishbowl with a bunch of terrorising children thumping their fingers on the outside. Every voice seemed louder, every light seemed brighter, every feeling felt more sensitive...

When we left, I wasn't exactly reluctant to pass back through those front doors. I felt almost like I was going to pass out, like my heart was going to explode, and once again like I was going to throw up, but this time not because I was nauseous. Strangely, I was somewhat relieved when we stopped at Walmart. I'm not so anxious at Walmart, which seems to go against all social phobia mis-logic. However, there are a few factors involved, some more conscious, others more subconscious: it's bigger and has fewer people per square foot, it's not nearly as loud, people tend to keep to themselves, and just about everyone who goes to Walmart looks like they've given up on life, with messy hair, sweats, lack of make-up, and so on, making me look... almost good! Also, I've probably been to Walmart more than I've been any one place outside of my house.

Still, I was sweating, lightheaded, and antsy until... well... okay, it may not have completely gone away, yet. It's on and off, mostly when I think about all this, so particularly the whole time I've been writing this. I had almost forgotten what it was like to have this kind of anxiety. Usually, I'm just anxious about the possibility of being anxious, and am so avoidant that I avoid full-on panic mode. Well, I faced panic mode for the first time in a while, and it was not pleasant. So unpleasant, in fact, that I've almost considered never walking out the front door again... The treatment of anxieties often includes exposing yourself to what makes you anxious, little at a time, and recollect how you survived that experience, so you must be able to survive more! Well, this kind of had the opposite effect. Probably not nearly as gradual as would be used in treatment, which often causes the opposite. No, instead... I went through it, came out alive, and decided that I never want to experience that again. It'll happen again, I can be sure, but my avoidant personality will kick in in over-drive and I'll start hiding behind a barricade between me and the anxiety until the anxiety crushes me in my own barricade.

'Natalie' was probably the only thing that kept me from actually fainting, from actually making a scene, and from actually running out of... well, any given place like a madman. My brain has a tendency to develop defence mechanisms just about any time a distressing situation occurs, and the more distressing, the more radical the defence mechanism. Well, apparently my mind decided that I need a little 'voice of reason' in my head to try and keep me at least relatively afloat. I named her Natalie because I imagine the voice as the voice of the character Natalie from the show Perception, where she essentially serves the same purpose to the schizophrenic protagonist, Dr. Daniel Pierce. Unlike Daniel's Natalie, however, mine isn't a conjuration of the subconscious, nor is it a hallucination. It's more like a rational 'voice' within myself to try and negate the more frantic, irrational thoughts that tend to dominate my mind. And it helps me to be able to distinguish my rational side from my irrational side; how better to do that than to a) use a woman's voice versus my own, and b) base the voice on a character who serves the exact same purpose on my favorite still-running T.V. show?

When my irrational thoughts are less of a problem, Natalie tends to fade away, but when my irrational thoughts start to skyrocket, she tends to calmly and collectedly kick into action. Having hypothetical or imagined conversations in my mind is not unusual for me, but it is unusual for the conversations to be both very oppositional and productive. Usually, the conversations I have in my head are rooted in fear, trying to present many hypothetical conversations that might occur in the future with another person - sort of planning how to respond. 99.999999999999999% of the time, the hypothetical conversation never actually occurs in real life, and is moot. Another reason that I have conversations in my head is to try and sort out curiosities and thoughts in my mind, which is a lot easier when I imagine someone else, usually with a different vantage point, to interact with. Lastly, I've rationalised, partly with the help of Natalie, that the conversations were probably originally meant to replace my hallucinated 'voices'/'personalities' after getting on antipsychotics. I have immense trouble imagining images, moving or still, or just about anything abstract, so I instead think almost every single thing that goes through my head as streams of words, most often with my voice - as I hear it - as if I were saying the thoughts aloud. I'm not sure if this is even remotely unusual or not, but I would imagine that people can imagine things at least relatively more efficiently than through thinking the spoken word. Usually people can think of a concept in a flash, even if vague, without needing to even translate it into coherent sentences, but I'm not very good at that. If I can't say it aloud, I pretty much can't think it. I also can't seem to think or read words faster than I could speak them.

So, the next time that I feel like I'm in a fishbowl, being harassed by a bunch of evil little children poking at the glass, hopefully Natalie will be their to try and dissuade me of the irrational thoughts, to calm me down, and to get me through it. Since I'm utterly conscious of her being me, and vice versa (almost too aware), it's not like I'm 'depending' on another person or thing, as would usually be the case. Nope, it's just me trying to help me. Oh, and that also reminds me: if you're reading this and you tap on fishbowls with creatures in them... you probably shouldn't do that. It's not very nice.

The Cage

In a darkened room, surrounded by iron bars, I feel trapped, but don't know why. I can't seem to see anyone else, and I know that I'm all alone. My heart begins to sink from some sort of foreboding feeling, and suddenly I hear a sharp, metallic screech. The ground beneath me begins to shake, and as I look at the iron bars around me, they start to close in ever so slightly and suddenly STOP. My eyes gape open as I realise I need to get out, but I don't know how. There's no door, no lock, no key, no way out. I grab one bar with both of my hands and then prop one leg against an opposite bar and push! Despite my greatest efforts, the bars remain unmoved.

Sweating now, my heart begins to flutter as I start to realise my impending doom. A clock somewhere lost in the darkness goes tick-tock-tick-tock and I can't help but start to count the seconds in my mind, "1, 2, 3, 4... 117, 118, 119, 120." Suddenly, the bars start to move again! I try to push and resist all I can, but they oppose me effortlessly. Despite the bars' gaps, the perceived openness, I start to feel claustrophobic. As I count the seconds, and I reach 120 all over again, the bars close a little tighter, just inching along before suddenly halting. Every two minutes, the bars get tighter and tighter with me inside, and I start to give up, accepting the crushing, horrid fate.

Tick-tock-tick-tock, the incessant clock counts down the seconds of life I have left. The space becomes so frighteningly limited that I can't help but curl up and cry, and I feel so helpless and hopeless. Suddenly, I hear noises all around me, like some creatures are hiding and moving in the shadows. I simply listen, and listen, and listen, my eyes as wide as they can be in vigilance as I try to detect the creatures in the darkness. Out of the darkness comes a large, black, furry beast, a monstrosity not of this world, and it lunges forth at me, but it hits the cage before it can get to me. The beast flees back into the shadows, but just seconds later, more beasts lunge at me and hit the cage. This goes on and on until the bars abruptly close in on me further.

Suddenly, a door is formed in the cage with a lock, and in my hand appears a shiny golden key. I think to myself how I could now get out if I wanted to, but if I'd leave, the beasts would surely eat me alive! I start contemplating, and between the two choices froze up. I couldn't decide which fate was the worse fate. Tick-tock-tick-tock, the cage becomes even smaller, and the beasts continue slamming so aggressively into the cage, as if brute force will manage to break through.

"I could get out if I wanted to, but what a horrible world out there," I think to myself. I can't stay in the cage or I'll surely die, and I can't leave the cage or I'll surely die. What sort of sick and twisted dilemma is this? Who would orchestrate such an awful situation?

Suddenly, I hear a voice - an omnipotent voice - echo around me saying, "You did."

I ask the voice, "I did what?"

"You were the one who created this terrible situation," the voice replies.

"But why would I doom myself like this?" I ask frightened and confused.

There is a bit of a pause before the voice whispers, "Is it?"

I scream, "Is it what? Is it what?" as I begin to cry, hopeless and helpless.

The clock ticks more, and the cage gets smaller. The clock ticks more, and the cage gets smaller. The clock ticks more, and the cage gets smaller... Suddenly, my heart begins to pound like an angry war drum, I start to become dizzy and can't think. Panic. The overwhelming feelings of panic overcome me as I start to break down. "I'm dying... I'm dying!" The beasts in the shadows begin to smash into the cage harder and harder, angrier and angrier, but the cage resists without fault. As I fall to the ground, feeling heavy as a rock, and I stare down at the ground, the tears roll down from my cheeks until they hit the ground, looking like raindrops that have fallen from the sky. "This... is a rain I don't like..." I whisper to myself in an unsteady voice.

"Is it?" the voice rings in my head. "Is it? Is it? Is it? IS IT?!" I can't get the terrible, incessant, echoing voice out of my head!

I pick up the golden key from the ground and stare into it for what seems like forever. The cage is nearly so small, now, that I can barely sit. I slowly put the key into the lock, and as I turn, a loud, metallic screeching noise nearly deafens me, and I have to exert all of the strength I can muster just to turn the key. Finally, I hear something snap into place and an immense pressure is released as the door creaks open. I count, "One... two... three," and I run out of the cage.

"I'm with the monsters, now."










***Just a  little metaphorical vignette about anxiety and panic.***

A(n Obvious) Revelation

Apparently, I didn't see something that was right in front of me. They say that most people who have bipolar don't realise when they're hypomanic because they simply feel 'elevated' and happier, but that outsiders can often distinguish it from the more central, normal moods. While I've always been pretty keen on my different moods, even at different levels, I've apparently been extremely blind toward my anxiety.

For years, I've had problems with hyperhydrosis - unnecessary sweating - and always figured that it was just that, not that there was actually an underlying cause. It's not the most pleasant thing to admit, but my family knows one thing about me that I try to hide from the world - I often stink, badly. And it's not really my fault, I just can't control how much I sweat. Well, I decided to do some digging into the matter since I knew that there were two types of sweat: sweat caused by heat, activity, and more normal causes, and sweat caused by distress, anxiety, agitation, and the like. I knew that one stank and one, for the most part, didn't (this mission to figure my sweating ordeal out was mostly triggered by my realisation that I've been sweating more lately, where I've been more anxious than usual, but just prior I had gone quite a while without much of a problem and seemed to be doing fine.) Well, I found what I was looking for; my... sebaceous, mordacious sweat has been caused by such anxiety, just anxiety at levels I couldn't quite detect. You see, stress- and anxiety-induced sweat is the sweat that smells (perhaps why people are often told 'It can smell fear!' when dealing with some strong, deadly animal or creature.

So what does this mean? Well, the next time that I start sweating uncontrollably while simultaneously feeling like I'd taken an ice bath, I'll know that it's my cue to try and calm my body down. I suppose I never really caught that it was anxiety-induced because I never got the clammy palms like so many people with anxiety get, nor the dizziness with those much lesser episodes of anxiety. The anxiety that I usually notice involves a pounding heart, and dizzy head, and cyclical thoughts - it never occurred to me that I could be having more subconscious or simply less obvious anxiety. I've also had a few nightmares recently, and I seemingly never have anything I would deem a nightmare, and I'd wake up in a cold sweat. It seems that, for some reason, my level of anxiety has been going up lately, and I have no idea why that would be. I've continued avoiding... well, essentially everything, as to not have anxiety, I have no life or social life (and haven't really for at least a couple years), I dropped out of school, I barely go outside the front door of my house, probably averaging 5 to 10 times a year, not including doctors' appointments. I've avoided everything that could induce anxiety and panic, more now than ever, so why am I still anxious and agitated?

I've also noticed that I've had some more hyperactive, erratic behaviors/moods, without even quite qualifying as hypomania, but not truly ADHD, either. It's like a sub-hypomania (like quarter mania), agitated state where I have difficulty sleeping, concentrating, staying still, maintaining a single thought or stream of thoughts, where my mood can fairly easily shift by external stressors, I can get anxious very easily, and a number of other symptoms that bear resemblance to both hypomania and ADHD, but don't seem to quite be either one. It might be a mild mixed episode (a cross between hypomania/mania and depression),  but I've had plenty of those in the past, and it doesn't quite feel like that. I just know that it seems like it's sole purpose is to exacerbate problems, or to be easily exacerbated itself and cause its own problems.

So, embarrassing personal information aside, anxiety... It's creeping closer and closer to my comfort zone, making the comfort zone ever smaller, and I have no idea as to the cause. It should be dealt with, somehow, and if I can't deal with it, then I fear that I'll become an agoraphobic who'll never leave the house (oh, wait, I already am!) Not dealing with the constantly encroaching anxiety will make it so that I would, with almost complete certainty, never be able to function or live a reasonable life. At least, at this point, I have a little bit of a chance. Sounds like I have some comfort zone expanding to do, soon... It almost makes my heart flutter just thinking about it.

Pharmacological Straightjacket

I already drank tea with valerian and took a valerian capsule with my nightly meds, so I probably don't have long to write before it become incoherent or incomplete. Anyhow, a lot of thoughts have been banging around this ol' noggin, as they often do, but a large sum of them have been related to my desire to get off meds. This isn't exactly a novel idea for me, or anyone with a disorder of the mind, but it's for somewhat different reasons than most people have when deciding to go off their meds. Typically, people go off their meds (particularly around my current age) because they're "feeling better," and they think that they're "cured"; this essentially is never the case, and they simply get all of their symptoms back. Now, me on the other hand, I don't want to get off of my meds because I'm feeling better, but rather because I can't stand how I feel now, and I actually desire my symptoms to return in full effect. Since I got on meds, I haven't been able to concentrate one tiny bit, my memory has diminished drastically, my senses and emotions have been dulled, my mental capabilities have become nearly moot, my anxieties have skyrocketed, and the list goes on.

So, what happens if I go off my meds? Well, I have absolutely no idea. It's been probably in the ballpark of 5-6 years since I first got on meds, and I can't hardly recall what it was like before them. I can, however, recall quite vividly how I felt and what I thought the days immediately after getting on meds for the first time, and they weren't exactly positive. Over time, I simply got used to the meds, as I was certain I would, and forgot what it was like to be a total nut job (okay, I suppose I always clung to that quality at least a little, even on meds.) Well, like a person who had amnesia, essentially became a different person, and then started to get their memory back, I started to have a more and more lacking desire for this new life and wanted to just get back into the old habits, feelings... symptoms. This drab half-crazy stuff just never really worked for me. My brain certainly needed a good rest from the psychoses and major moods, but I've had plenty of rest and relaxation (but, like the panicky mom who thinks she left the toaster on as she drives away from the house to go on vacation, and then quickly turns around and MUST check to see that the house hasn't burned down, my anxieties started to get the better of me.)

My brain simply cannot stand being virtually inactive, even though I can't bear not giving my brain well needed rests. Essentially, despite my best efforts, my brain is always going to be over-active and impossible to keep up with. Even while I'm sedated, my brain is constantly, unbearably active (albeit I can't maintain the same thought for more than a few seconds.) Before I was on meds, my brain was constantly exercised and active, and somewhat allowed to run free. This was both good and bad because freedom can often lead to lack of restraint, which in turns leads to extremes and disasters. I had my share of them, but a lot of people have made the argument throughout the ages that freedom is worth even the most unrestrained, uncontrolled individuals and minds. Sure, mental or physical shackles can keep things in order and from 'running away from you,' so to speak, but who wants to be in shackles of either sort? My meds have shackled me, and I finally decided that I'd rather be free and have the risk than to be imprisoned by some false sense of stability.

So, what would happen if I go off my meds? That's the million dollar question, I suppose. It's been so long, I really couldn't say. It has felt as though my disorder had been chopped up, and like it could never be whole again regardless of if I were on meds or not. I suppose it's especially hard to predict whether my psychotic symptoms would resurface or not since, unlike the mood symptoms, I've had essentially no psychotic symptoms whatsoever. The day that I admitted myself to the adolescent psych ward, my mind was filled with the chatter of the entirety of the streets of New York, it seemed, whereas the day after (after having gotten on meds), it seemed extremely quiet. I've never once described that crowded feeling since getting on meds, nor described hallucinations of any type, nor delusions... I may still have some paranoia from time to time, but not usually clinically significant. Perhaps these things would all come back, perhaps not. Whether or not they would would actually answer many questions I've had for years. Also, going of meds would make my symptoms less muddled and easier to compare to those of the disorders I seem to have (or perhaps that I haven't even been diagnosed with!) It's hard to justify any 'symptoms' as being that when my meds neutralise and dull those symptoms. When I say I'm hypomanic, it's hard to justify that diagnostically because it's very toned down from what it would be off meds. I've had glimpses into what my moods would be like off meds, but never what my psychotic symptoms would be like, should I be able to get them back.

I think that it's because of my meds dulling my disorders that I actually doubt that anything is truly wrong with me for at least a brief moment almost every day! I'd think to myself, "Are these symptoms real, or am I just fooling myself?" Now, if I was, in fact, fooling myself, then that would be such a grand delusion, one for the long-haul, that in itself would have to be some kind of disorder... So, after thinking about that, it usually occurs to me that the paradox simply made my worries null and void. This also happens with multiple specific issues, but the thoughts and anxieties usually inadvertently prove that what I've known for years is true, and my worries are rooted in fallacy. Another thing that seems to cause misleading symptoms, or lack thereof, is how I avoid uncomfortable things and situations at all costs, and by avoiding those things, I appear more 'stable.' Deny my avoidance, however, and make me face what I avoid, and I'd appear to be far, far from stable. I've learned that I can't even bear watching people in high up places on T.V.! My heart starts to race, I cringe, and I begin having difficulty breathing just because someone on the T.V., usually a fictional character, is shown as being high up somewhere. If I have such a bad reaction from something so distant, how would you think I'd handle the real situation? If I'm anywhere near cobwebs somewhere in the house, I adamantly object to going anywhere near that area, and when a bee (not a bumblebee, but the misnomer relating to wasps and yellow jackets) whizzes by me, regardless of if I did any harm to me, I'll be adamant about not going outside for at least a week, and don't even want doors to the outside to be opened! My issues are there, I've just done so much to bury them or avoid them that I've created this illusion that the issues aren't there.

The day that I learn to drive, finish school, get a girlfriend, a job, or married, that I can be at least semi-decently comfortable in public places, can stand to shake hands or touch doorknobs and other public surfaces, that I can spend even a single minute without some sort of worry or anxiety, that I can practice self-discipline and healthy habits, that I can form social relationships and sustain them, and much more... well, the day that any of that happens will be a day far, far from now. If someone didn't see me as disabled, disordered, or at least some kind of ill, then they're utterly blind. Some moments of some days, I'm the blind one, but other days, it's someone around me. How could anything ever get solved if I'm constantly told, whether through implications, insinuation, or blatantly, that I'm healthy enough to take charge of my life and control my life, at least at this point. I've known certain people to essentially deny there are any real issues with me and that I essentially need to pick myself up by my bootstraps and get on with my life, and those people are simply awful, inconsiderate people. None of this is to say that I've totally given up and that I don't aim to make something of my life; it's just that you wouldn't deny someone having a broken bone and send them on their way if their bone is, in fact, broken and in need of being treated. Mental illness is just much, much more complicated and typically has a wider range of possible treatments. Meds may be for some, but not for others...

Either I can't succeed in life because my disorders are overwhelming, or I can't succeed in life because I practically subdued myself in a pharmacological straightjacket - those are the two likely demises I might face. I'd rather find my life in ruin because my mind was free instead of because I willingly sapped myself of my potential. I just know that the med-induced failure would be utterly inevitable, whereas I at least have a chance for success if I set my mind free. The odds are against me no matter what, and it'd always be easier to give up, but I do actually want to give success a shot, whether or not it's a gamble.

Some Good News for Once!

Lately, I've been making some grand strides to improve myself and my life. People usually don't see all that goes into even the littlest changes in my life; it can be a constant struggle to make certain that I eat, or don't overeat, each day, and that's an extremely minor thing. So, life changing decisions like going back to school or developing a social life? Those are in a league of their own when it comes to decision making - the most difficult kind of decisions that are nigh impossible for me to make and follow through with. But I've been making leaps and bounds! (to my standards, at least.) So, even though I'm starting very small, I'm working my way up very slowly and steadily until I make bigger, more meaningful impacts in my life. It might take years before I get back into school! but I'm quite determined to get to that point where I'm capable.

So, what are these grand, immense changes I've made in my life recently? Well, for one, I virtually stopped drinking pop altogether, second, I started drinking a lot more tea and replacing table sugar/brown sugar with honey, and third, I started doing yoga which I'm determined to make a regular thing. Probably doesn't sound like much to the average person, but those are major life changes for me! And, proportionally, something like finishing high school would be my equivalent to an average individual wanting to be in the marines. And college? Sticking with the previous theme, that would be my equivalent to someone wanting to be a marine sniper - some of the most elite of soldiers. See where I'm going with this?

Dropping pop for the most part has been a bit difficult because of those darn cravings! Sometimes I even contemplating stealing a Coke, and I hate Coke! However, I have had mom stop buying me the pops I do like as to avoid temptation. I don't really remove any calories by removing pop as I largely drink tea instead, and with how much honey I put into my tea, it comes out to about the same number of calories as a can of pop; however, pop is bad for me is so many more ways than just the number of calories, and by removing pop, I've both been getting a lot more water in me, as well as antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals when I drink tea. Now... if only I could manage what I eat as well as I manage what I drink...

Tea, naturally, is quite healthy. The tea I drink is very rich in antioxidants and flavonoids (described by Wikipedia as "show[ing] ... anti-allergic, anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-cancer, and anti-diarrheal activities.") I also add honey which is rich in antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and simple sugars that are easily processed by the body and have more drawn out, healthier absorption and utilisation by the body. There's also the caffeine which is drastically lower than drip coffee, but enough to have a soothing effect on me (the warmth and aroma certainly don't hurt, though.)

Yoga. Now this is one that I'm completely new to. I typically try to do ten different positions each time I do yoga, each geared toward helping with some aspect of my mental health (anxiety, depression, stress, over-activity, and so on), as well as having the obvious benefits for the body (though I swear I just about destroyed my neck doing one position wrong.) I'm having trouble staying consistent, and I'm very far from perfecting even these most basic moves, but I haven't stopped completely, yet! Hopefully, it'll simply become routine and I won't even have to exert myself just to get up and do 15 to 20 minutes of yoga (about 10 of which is literally just laying flat on the ground!) You can tell when I've done yoga because my room is drenched in the smell of incense.

So, all of that's the good news I had! It's not often... at all... that I get to say good news, so it's a refreshing change of pace. Another nice thing about this good news is that I don't actually fear that it'll all go down the drain in just a couple of weeks like good things and positive changes in my life usually do. I think that the little to no pop change will be like my no pork change, where I occasionally get those cravings for just a little chunk of maple sausage or a bite of bratwurst, but where I've been able to resist such temptations almost utterly and have found decent enough work-arounds. Now, unlike with pop, my porkless diet has caused for some conflicts with the rest of my family's porkful diets. Still, we always seem to manage some kind of compromise or adjustment, even if it means an entirely different meal for me alone, just to make certain I can keep it up. When I break a habit - any habit! - it usually becomes nearly impossible to start back up again, so it's incredibly important that I try as hard as I can not to break the patterns and habits of these recent steps forward. The more things that I manage to remain disciplined for, the more disciplined I can become in the future, and the more things that I can take on as I grow emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically.

Random Insights

I've learned a lot over the years (forgot even more!), and I still learn more every day. I've probably spent more time trying to figure myself out than I've spent on any one other thing in my life (except maybe sleep), and yet, I still appear to be an enigma to myself that might never be fully deciphered. But, regardless, I've learned some significant things, even in just the past few months or year. So, in no particular order or method, I'll list some of those things.

When I feel better, I feel worse, seemingly out of some kind of masochistic desire to always feel bad. Perhaps I like feeling the need to be taken care of (a borderline quality), or that I'm not special when I'm 'doing better,' or that I like the attention I get when I'm doing quite obviously poorly, despite constantly saying otherwise. I strive for mental distress, self-destructiveness, the inability to function, relying on others, and psychotic/neurotic/delusional features that clearly separate me from others, and am saddened when I don't experience those things. When I'm happy, I'm unhappy, and I'm unhappy when I'm unhappy, so no matter what, I end up unhappy somehow.

I've overstepped my bounds 'one too many times' several times throughout the years until I developed a morbid fear of doing so; thus, my comfort zone has shrunken to the size of an acorn, and I fear going even a smidgen out of that comfort zone. I've started to blame my inability to function and go out of my comfort zone on my 'moods' and whatnot, when the comfort zone and my episodes are quite distinct, even if influenced by one another. I appear to be quite highly functioning because I avoid stepping out of my comfort zone at all costs, but if someone saw me try to step out of my comfort zone, they'd see me as a cowering, fearful, catatonic, emotionally shattered train-wreck, instead. I achieve functionality by doing absolutely nothing at all, which isn't truly functioning, is it?

Sometimes I can't quite distinguish an 'episode,' or the start of one, from a benign, irrelevant state or quality because of hyper-vigilance. If I feel unusually tired or lethargic, I might think I'm dipping into a depressive episode when that's not at all true, or if I feel excited about something, I might think I'm going into a flight of hypomania, when that's not at all true, either. I see what may be a sign of a mood shift and assume it's because of a mood shift before assessing the situation and possible causes. I might be tired or lethargic because I took a medicine with an antihistamine; I might be excited about something because I genuinely love that thing, and nothing more.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if my 'personalities' still existed these days. I'd have fake conversations with 'them' in my mind, and then reminisce about when they did actually exist. I often hope that I could get them back simply by getting off of my meds, and attribute any and all of my success from my early years with bipolar, anxiety, and a menagerie of other issues to them, as separate entities, even though they were me. I strongly believe that my subconscious mind could much better lead me in life than my conscious mind, and that if I don't get my hallucinations back, I'll never be able to progress in life.

A lot of people think that my fondness of the name Najjar is because of my ancestors bearing that name, but this is only a half-truth. I have a great fondness for that name because one of my 'personalities' that I had before getting on meds had that name, and he was the best of them all. Even though he was me, and vice versa, he guided me in ways I couldn't guide myself, he protected me, he helped me through life and deal with hard situations, and the list of good things goes on and on... I try and try, as hard as I can, to preserve the memory of him, even after years of him not even existing anymore. I highly doubt that going off meds could eventually lead to his revival, but I certainly wouldn't object if it did.

I can't commit... to anything. A routine, a job of some sort, a goal, a course in life, an idea for a profession, responsibilities and obligations, and so on and so forth. I can't commit, and then I get angry when I stop doing whatever it is I inevitably stop doing. I have no one else to blame than myself, and get mad about that, but then blame myself and feel worse, yet don't start doing whatever I wanted to make a commitment to again. Also, if I have even a tiny break in a habit or routine, it almost always becomes nearly impossible to get back into that habit or routine. This means that things that take effort and persistence (i.e. almost everything in life) are typically doomed to fail. Even working on my commitment issues takes too much commitment for me to do.

I often have more anxiety about anxiety than the anxiety I'm anxious about. I worry about worrying and I fret about fearing. This causes me to avoid things that actually cause real anxiety to the point that I never really appear anxious. As with most things in my life, I avoid triggers at all costs, and by such avoidance, appear relatively normal and stable to others, when even the tinniest of triggers could make everything instantly come crashing down. What's left of my life is constantly balancing on a sharp, deadly blade, trying not to fall. When I try to step out of my comfort zone, even to a degree that seems so infinitesimal and minute that it should be benign, I panic to the point where I avoid that thing at all costs. The fears and anxieties always seem to add, but never subtract, and it seems like I'll one day fear absolutely everything.

Spiders? Keep it a hundred feet from me, kill it, and flush it down a toilet, please. Bees? Nuh-uh! I'll just never go outside when bees are alive, and make certain to keep doors to the outside open as little time as possible! Saliva? If it touched your food, either keep it away from me, eat it, or throw it away, but I'm definitely not going to touch it! Shaking hands? No siree! Unless you have Purell or something as good, of course... Touching pretty much anything in the outside world, and a large number of things in my own home with my bear... well, anything? Nada; you can open public doors for me, I'll hold it in until we get home, even if my insides feel like they're going to explode, I won't touch a rail with my hands, especially if I'm going to have my hands near or on my mouth, or touching food I'm going to eat, and the list goes on...

Most of the time that I don't sleep well, I got caught up doing something, like writing this, and then I blame my inability to sleep on my meds. After all, if they aren't strong enough to forcefully knock me out like an elephant tranquilliser, what good are they? If I don't feel the overwhelming sedation, then I'm most certainly not going to 'try' to go to sleep. After all, I drive myself crazy if I lay in bed with my mind unable to shut down for even a fifteen or twenty minutes, and I need stimuli to drown that out. Also, since I hardly know what it's like to have a normal, natural sleep pattern that isn't primarily drug induced, somehow that means that not feeling naturally tired means that I have to be forced asleep.

I somehow seem to think that, if I were only able to control my sleeping without meds, dropping my meds would allow me to regain my hallucinations and 'personalities' once again, but in a more controlled manor, even though those hallucinations were most likely induced by lack of sleep. I want psychosis without most of the bad side-effects, I want to go through Hell - just the deluxe tourist package that ensure that I inversely don't endure physical and mental distress; obviously I can't get both. I've always had unrealistic expectations for life, and just can't seem to shake that habit.



Well, those are just a few of my insights. I thought I'd cut it short (probably not that short to anyone who reads this.)