I am bipolar. I am autistic. I am anxious. I am who and what I am. There is no golden standard, there is no mold. I replaced my meds almost completely with cannabis, and it has worked out quite well for me, but everything is relative. If I say how great the pot has been for me, people assume that must mean that I am now 'normal' (ish) and no longer have any problems. False. Let's say I used to function at 2%, then I started using cannabis and went up to, say, 10%. That's 400% increase in functioning. Wonderful, right? 400% is a big number! That's 5 times how much I was functioning before! So, all the problems are solved, right? No. 10% is still a far cry from 100. That number, also, would still be an average and not a constant. That means that one day might be 4%, another 15%, another 8%, and so on. Outside factors also heavily influence this. If I'm staying at home watching Netflix all day, I'm more likely to feel like I could function more if I wanted, but if I'm out doing new things in new places, I'm going to feel like I'm pushing or breaking my limit, which leads to overload, which can lead to either a meltdown or shut-down. Meltdowns have been more the typical result.
When I get anxious, I get irritable, and when I get irritable, I get angry. Getting angry can make me aggressive, and then people stand there in the aftermath with dazed expressions wondering what just happened. Poking the bear is what happened. If I escalate, that all but undoubtedly means something or someone is causing me to escalate. When it is a someone that is escalating me, as I get more aggressive, the other person tends to get more persistent, which causes a continual process until I explode, which works out for no one. All the person has to do is stop. Stop talking, stop trying to alter or help me, stop everything. Just stop and leave. That is what I need.
My overload, meltdowns, and anxiety are not just quirks, they're not just things I can get over, not just overreactions I can briefly contemplate and then change my mind completely to, "Oh, yeah, I guess you're right." That simply is not the case. I also cannot just put these things in my back pocket when it's most convenient for everyone else. There are things that are acute and things that are chronic, and they require entirely different approaches. For instance, an acute panic attack as a result of a chronic anxiety condition requires a far different approach than when I'm not in such an acute state and can address the more long-term issues (which still don't benefit from immediate attempts at change, but take time.)
My brother and his fiancée are getting married. As the wedding has gotten closer and closer, as well as more and more 'real,' my anxiety has begun to skyrocket. The real tipping point was the fitting for the tuxes. That was when things really took a nose dive off a skyscraper. I'm also known for my big, curly, unfettered, and crazy hair. I've had it in many different styles throughout my life, some I like looking back on more than others. But the point is that I had some modicum of control. I could decide what I wanted to do with it. As I'm diving toward the pavement, my hair acted like my parachute. It was something I could depend on to not surprise me, to be there as it was before. I could decide what I wanted to do with it. It might seem silly to others, but my hair is - in some ways - an anchor.
Well, as people started turning my hair and how it should look for the wedding into a bigger and bigger issue, it was like watching someone trying to cut holes in my parachute while I was still falling. Of course I would panic and even act aggressively in an attempt to get others to stop. Of course it triggered an extreme reaction in me. But people never have the whole picture. We only really get a tiny glimpse at our very own pictures, our own lives and minds. So I'm not going to take it well when people make grand assumptions and enforcements about how I should look, act, be... I wear the tux that feels uncomfortable, stuffy, and drives me nuts because that is what was chosen. I'm attending because it's asked of me. I'm being a groomsman because it was asked of me. All of those things produce incredible, unbearable anxiety, but I do them anyway. So... when I'm adamant about my hair, about how I want my hair to be, others can back off and let me be. I think it's not such a big problem to ask they give me that much.
Also, comments like 'act your age,' or 'you should do ___ because it's what people do,' or, 'you could be/do so much more' are all bullshit, and I'm going to call them bullshit. If I am drawing the line at my hair, everyone else can get over themselves and just give me that much. If not being pestered about my hair, if being able to wear it and have it exactly as I want, can alleviate some of the anxiety all the other things are causing, you can give me that. Taking that away is a really, really shitty thing to do.
We live in a world of people who demand instant change, instant fixes, instant gratification. It doesn't work. Some things virtually never change, even, while other things always change. The other side of the coin is how people desire things to always remain the same, hustling and bustling to keep it that way in the face of a universe that would tear them apart without hesitation. Wanting change isn't inherently bad, nor is wanting things to remain the same. It is healthy - even understandable - to attempt to change some things and keep others the same. All actions cause reactions, and the wisdom of what actions we choose to take derives from the difference between what we wanted to happen and what did happen. Doing something repeatedly despite seeing a different reaction than desired is generally unwise. All reactions are warranted based on all of the influencing factors, and are seldom the result of a single, isolated incident.
Miracle cures don't exist, and most things don't get better right away. For all I or anyone else knows, I could die young never having been what anyone hoped for, or even die old and have the same result. Hypothetical thoughts and beliefs are not realities or facts, and very well may never come true. The only things that 'should' happen are the things that do happen, and everything else is fantasy. No, I'm not going to grow up to be the president. I may never be 'healthy' and I certainly will never be anyone's idea of 'normal.' I get by. I survive. I manage. Do I want more? Sometimes, but I also realise that wanting something doesn't automatically make it happen. Do I try to improve myself? Of course, but sometimes you can only do so much, get so far, and you have to live with and accept what you cannot change. People who can't accept that some things can't be changed hack at it so much that they kill it, anyway, making any possible resulting change meaningless and inviable.
Everything happens for a reason, I do believe that. In the simplest form, this means A causes B. A little truer would be to say A causes B; B causes C; C causes D... and so on, but even that is a gross simplification. A causes B1 and B2. B1 causes C1 and C2, while B2 causes C3 and C4. C1 causes D1 and D2. C2 causes D3 and D4. C3 causes D5 and D6. C4 causes D7 and D8. Then the Ds cause the Es, the Es cause the Fs, the Fs cause the Gs, and so on, growing exponentially more and more complex, a chaotic system, everything with a place, a role, a cause and effect. I don't do things without an underlying reason: none of us do. My actions and reactions are a product of countless forces and factors, some seen while others unseen. My anxiety, irritability, overload, meltdowns, and aggression are all results (which cause more results, which cause more results...) Some are more acute forces at work, while others are slower and more chronic. While others may be able to do little about the more chronic forces, at least in a given moment, they can do something about the acute ones. When I'm tipping over the edge, people don't have to help push me over. The best thing to do, sometimes, is to back off and do nothing.
People may be enigmas, but enigmas are codes, and codes can be cracked. No enigma is without its solution, its cipher, which can interpret its coded messages. No actions are without cause, ever, and everything has a reason.
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