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.)

The Ebb and Flow

For me, bipolar is a lot like a big island coastline, a small island coastline, and a bit of ocean between the two. The goal much of the time is to get to the other island without any boats, any aircraft - just swimming there. Now, the waves can be strong and attempt to push you right back to where you came from. Sometimes, fighting the waves, you wonder if it's really worth the effort or if you should just turn back and be content with the little island you came from. On the little island, you're much more alone, but it's land. That big island holds all of the opportunity, one could reason, and all you have to do is swim a little ways against the rugged waves.

It's not easy being tossed back and forth like a helpless rag doll. And this back and forth motion can apply to so many things. For me, indecision, opinions, beliefs, goals, likes and dislikes, interests, lifestyle, progression and retrogression, and many, many more... It's very easy for me to counteract myself through this being tossed around, trying to go in one direction and then being pushed in another, or going along with the waves. And then once you get onto that bigger island, it's not what you thought it would be... Your little island was comfortable, had no dangerous animals, had no great cliffs to fall off of... You're alone and driven crazy by your loneliness, but if it weren't for yourself, it would be exceptionally underwhelming. That big island, however, is the opposite. You're out of yourself and suddenly surrounded by something much larger than yourself. There's a population to keep you company, resources, but there are massive cliffs to fall off of, vicious predators who'll eat you alive... You regain your sanity, but you just trade one danger for another.

Perhaps if you could go back to your small island, lonely as it may be, but bring some of the resources back from the larger island. You get yourself a little boat, some food, tools, and goods, and you travel back to that little island. By doing so, you become internal again, but things are a bit better. You have the boat - a safety net - so that you can go back to the island whenever need be. The journey doesn't have to be so brutal, anymore, as you don't have to swim against those crashing waves each time. When the loneliness becomes too much, you can get the company that you need for a little while and then go back to the comfort of your home, where you came from.

The boat would essentially be meds in this metaphor. By using the 'boat' to go to the big island, you return to the harshness of sanity. By using the 'boat' to go back to the small island, you return to the paradoxically comfortable and unbearable insanity. It's difficult to bear either one, but with each one comes some kind of benefit, as well as its own set of difficulties. With sanity come tools, stability, but also the harshness of reality, intimidation, anxiety, and external struggles. With insanity comes unique outlooks, a paradoxical security, tools few people have, but also loneliness, a lack of interpersonal relationships, and instability.

My mom remembered my last psychiatrist saying how most people in my current age group (older teen to 20s) most commonly stop taking their meds. But my reasoning for wanting to stop taking my mood stabilisers and anti-psychotics is different. Most of those people want to stop taking their meds because they think they're 'cured.' They feel better because of the meds and think they don't need them anymore, while they're usually quite wrong. Once they go off of their meds, they sink back into their pre-med state and fall into instability once again. The difference here is that I'm actually discontent with the stability my meds have brought me. I crave instability, and know that I'll probably never be 'cured.' Instead of wanting to drop my meds because of a misconception, I want to dive head first into the nasty, gritty, grotesquerie that is the reality of insanity. But I don't want to do it completely blind. I want to go in with the things that I've picked up on in my time spent with sanity, go in with new strategies and tools.

I won't be that scared little kid who had no idea what hit him, who he was, or even what he was. I'm quite clear on that, now, even if it's fuzzy. I know that a dire lack of sleep for the coarse of two to three years was probably a likely cause for most of my worst problems before I was on meds, so I want to maintain sleep with as little mind-altering medication as possible. I don't want to be shaped into something I'm not naturally. Anti-psychotics and moods stabilisers were like tactical nukes followed by an insurgency - 'peacekeepers' - who obliterated anything that could've even potentially caused a threat, and in itself created a contradictory instability in ultimate stability. Humans aren't meant for such things. Order can only exist with chaos, and trying to remove all of the chaos in the world could only remove all of the order, as well. But, because this isn't truly possible, ultimate order would simply create an eruption of chaos. Better to balance the two out than to try and force one completely over the other. Through insanity, sanity. After all, reality is relative.

As I said, reality is relative, and not everyone's reality is the same as mine. Some people get on meds and never even think about turning back. Some people find meds to be a miracle, even if it took great amounts of tinkering and experimenting to finally end up at that point. I'm not saying that everyone who is on meds - particularly those for mental illness - should just stop. Some people literally need meds to live. And I want to keep meds available if I do need to get back on them again, primarily as a safety net. Who knows - I might go off of my meds for a week or two and find myself needing to get back on them. Brain chemistry is a tricky, fickle thing. Even the minutest change in brain chemistry can send a person spiralling toward their demise. Perhaps I'll even go back and forth between being on meds and off meds, weathering only so much before returning to the relative order, simplicity, and safety of meds, but then returning back to the chaos after having gotten my footing once again. I want to play it by ear. Life, it seems, is really just one big experiment for me. I'm a Petri dish of human bizarreness, constantly going through trial and error in an attempt to 'get it right.'

Well, time to sleep and rest this... strange, strange mind of mine.

A Lost Part

I often say that I don't remember much. That simple statement actually can go far; while I do have a lot of forgetfulness anywhere from long-term to just a few seconds ago, it can also span simply whole periods of my life. I'm finding this to be more and more partially true. Why is it not wholly true? I'm finding my brain has these massive reserves of memories, stored in abundance, but largely locked away. Anything can trigger a memory. I might watch a show with a schizophrenic character talking to a figment of his imagination, and I'll be warped back in time to a memory I didn't even know I had of a similar event, where I was talking to my very own figment of my imagination. I might smell an incense burning while in a dark room and be warped back to a time when I was laying on my bed in another house, incense burning, lights off, body spread across the mattress, crying and lonely, the mini-fountain on the desk gurgling and gasping like a fish out of water. That last memory is an example of memories that I'm brought back to enough that it becomes more or less ingrained in my mind. Suddenly, a forgotten moment can be a moment I can never forget, even after years of having forgotten.

I started watching a show called Perception. For those who don't know what Perception is, Wikipedia sums it up as:

Dr. Daniel Pierce, a talented but eccentric neuropsychiatrist, is enlisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to assist in solving some of its most complex cases in Chicago. Dr. Pierce works closely with Special Agent Kate Moretti, a former student who recruited him to work with the FBI. Also on the team are Max Lewicki, Dr. Pierce's teaching assistant and Natalie Vincent, his best friend.

The main character, Daniel Pierce, also has paranoid schizophrenia, which is the source of his interest in neuropsychiatry.

Daniel isn't on meds and has vivid hallucinations, primarily in the form of other, imaginary people whom he even converses with. These hallucinations often guide him to conclusions and truths that most would overlook. He has his problems, certainly, but he's functioning... He shows symptoms and has episodes, but he's functioning. His life, fiction or not, is exactly what I want for myself. To be a neuropsychiatrist lecturing at a college, appreciated for your unique, eccentric mind? That sounds like heaven to me. Perhaps the path getting there isn't so heavenly, as that's often where I meet my first and greatest roadblocks. For me, maintenance isn't even really an issue because I haven't gotten to any point to maintain - I've been unable to travel the path to somewhere, someplace, that I would need to maintain.

More and more, memories started popping up. It was stunning to me what that show could dredge up each episode. By the forth episode, I was welling up with tears, thinking about how dissatisfied I am with my life and how I feel like I lost, or gave up, a large part of me. Since the first day I woke up after taking meds for the first time, I felt an emptiness. I convinced myself that, with time, I'd get used to it and the feeling of emptiness would go away. I was right, for the most part. I did get used to my 'new life,' but I also started to forget my old one. When memories would (seemingly) randomly appear in my mind, I'd feel that emptiness all over again, as well as an immense, overwhelming feeling of longing. I longed to get those pieces of me back again.

Now, just what pieces am I talking about? For one, my 8 other 'personalities' that guided me through some of my darkest days. They were compartmentalisations of my various facets and made me make more sense to myself. It was easier to comprehend myself when I was separated into bite-sized chunks. The second would be the imaginary world I invented in my head that I could retreat to whenever something to overwhelming happened. There were numerous areas in that world that each served different purposes. The third thing would be my delusions and hallucinations which inevitably brought me to greater enlightenment and spirituality - enlightenment and spirituality that, I might add, has been strained and dwindled since those delusions and hallucinations disappeared. I can see how one would simply see this as me saying, "I want my insanity back!" I wouldn't argue with that. But insanity is... subjective and debatable, as is sanity. I actually functions drastically better before I was on meds, no matter how much anguish and emotional pain I endured. The biggest difference between then and now is that I could endure more than an ounce of pain and anguish. Now, I can't endure anything even remotely 'challenging.'

With what I know now, after my respite of 'sanity,' and from 'insanity,' I've gained enlightenment with a more levelled head than before, a kind of enlightenment that I simply couldn't have gotten before I was on meds. I'm grateful for all of the years that I was more or less 'stable,' but I want to go back 'home' now. Think of my time on meds as studying abroad. Sure, it's a wonderful opportunity, and there are plenty of people who'd rather stay abroad, but I think most people would eventually want to just come back home, even if it's been years. Well, I think I really want to go back home, now. Perhaps if I were off anti-psychotics and mood stabilisers, I could maintain some kind of functionality, return to school, finish my education, and get a career and a life. Right now, no matter how 'comfortable' I might be in comparison, I'm simply at a standstill. I'm chained down and unable to face anything that could even slightly push me forward.

I certainly want to hold onto the facets of the new me. I don't want to simply return to merely who and what I was, as if rewinding.. Rather, I want to maintain who I am now, and regain who I was, and then meld them together. My symptoms have been resurfacing more and more (though not anywhere around hallucinations or delusions), and I no longer have my defence mechanisms - my self taught tools - to deal with them. I sacrificed those when I tried to get this silly little thing called 'sanity.' I sacrificed my only means of actually surviving in the long-term. People saw me as 'improved,' but it was merely a limbo for me to get some things sorted that I couldn't before. Well, that limbo is crumbling and becoming more and more useless. Keeping me in a limbo-like state without any of the benefits simply freezes me in place, unable to move forward.

Sleep was an extraordinarily rare commodity before I got on meds. If I could find a way to sleep without having to use mood stabilisers and anti-psychotics, I think I'd be just golden. Sure, I'd open the floodgates, let in the monsoons, the hurricanes and tsunamis, but I'd actually be able to weather them. As I am now, I couldn't weather a mild drizzle! I'd be miserable, but I've always been miserable, so is that really a negative? Usually, when people rise up and know peace, they dread the thought of going back to that lower chaos they knew for their whole life before. I'm not usual, and that's not how I am. I see new, better, greater things and scoff at them, preferring my older, familiar but much lower quality things. I suppose that's how I am in life in general. I'd rather dwell in the dark, muddy depths than the bright, clean heights.

I need to talk to my NP and primary doctor... try to figure these things out.

Blissful Ignorance

I've been realising more and more how easily I note both in my mind and to others (albeit, primarily people online) when I seem to be slipping into a mood of one sort or another. For better or worse, I seem to be able to forecast the 'weather' well before it comes. I don't know whether to be excited or frightened. Imagine knowing an enemy inside and out. You know your enemy better than yourself at this point, from their favorite haunts to their least favorite food. You know all of this because the sole purpose is to combat - eliminate - that individual. Isn't that something to be frightened of, whether or not it's necessary? Now, it's not a perfect metaphor, but it gives the general idea.

Knowing when a mood is coming on is becoming like second-nature to me. It's no longer painstaking, semi-accurate analysis - it's instinct. Just like how a great survivalist can just stop for a moment and smell the air hours before the storm and know it's coming, I can sense mood swings, shifts, and switches coming. Shifts are still more difficult to predict than swings, and switches are harder than shifts, but I've become fairly instinctive about them when I'm not too caught up in the current mood/state.

An example of this almost unintentionally honed instinct is: I begin to feel pressure in my head with a mild headache, can't concentrate, and become mildly sore all fairly early into my day; as the day goes on, it feels as though the world is getting paler for some reason, and the contrast seems either very low or very high (i.e. shadows and light spots don't contrast much, or shadows are very deep and light spots are very bright), and every sentence that comes out of my mouth seems to be bent in a mildly negative way, even when talking about something positive (it might come off as whining, irritability, or mild anger); at first I think I'm getting a cold - after all, I did have congestion, a runny nose, a headache, and body aches - and maybe I do have one, but there's something particular about the feeling, and despite cold being a more likely candidate, that feeling sways me to a different conclusion - a bout of depression is coming on. Surely enough, a few hours later, I begin slipping into a mild depression. Whether the depression gets better or worse is seemingly random and variable, and perhaps dependent on a multitude of impossible to predict circumstances (food intake, physical exhaustion, what shows or movies I watch, what music I listen to, events of the day, how much sleep I do or don't get [both can be beneficial or detrimental], conversations I have, if I go to the store or stay at home, if I lie down more, sit, stand, or walk, and on and on and on...) At any one time, I can know if I am or am not currently doing one of those things, and can monitor it, but at any one point, I can't know the whole course, except for afterwards.

One benefit that I do often get from mild bouts of depression is a strange tranquil lifeless weightlessness. It's a similar feeling I get after taking narcotic pain relievers that blends a sort of dreamy semi-wariness with an utter lifeless lethargy, sapped of everything - feelings, energy, thoughts, mental and physical capabilities - and, while each of those things (except for 'feelings') have become pretty constant now-a-days, with both the narcotics and certain bouts of mild depression here and there, it becomes even worse. Lethargy becomes lifelessness, trouble concentrating becomes confused and dazed, and mental and physical capabilities diminish appropriately.

I had a thought today... It was mostly provoked by thinking of my disability claim. I thought, 'I think there are three primary kinds of bipolar people - those who use illicit drugs just to function with the inevitable result of becoming totally incapacitated, those who don't take drugs and thus have little to no means of functions at any point of time, and thus are pretty much incapacitated anyway, and those who manage to function fine without illicit drugs. It might be a stark view, but that's how it seems to me. People with bipolar often take drugs to get through all of the pain, tumult, monotony, and chaos, and that improves their ability to function temporarily, but the drugs themselves eventually wear away at the person inside and out, and they fall into a hole that becomes extremely difficult to climb back out of. And then there are people with bipolar who somehow manage to raise themselves up without the use of illicit drugs (and who may or may not use pharmaceuticals), who can function properly, even if after years of mastery, and who can even appear... sane! And then there are people like me. People who don't use illicit drugs and who can't function. Sometimes I think that drugs of one fashion or another could be a way to function better, but my fear of risks in life outweighs my innate bipolar urge for risk taking. Whether that's a relief or a curse, I'm not sure. I know that, at any time, the holes I dig as I am now are much easier to get out of than the holes I'd dig when abusing drugs. I've never had addictive tendencies toward pharmaceuticals of any kind, which is lucky, and so I can seemingly take all the narcotics I need without becoming addicted (although, once again, my fear of risks outweighs this feeling of immunity to addiction so that I'm extremely cautious with all pharmaceuticals, regardless.)

I often say that I can understand drug abuse quite well and can be very sympathetic, if not empathetic, toward people who abuse drugs. Then again, I've also said that, before I got on meds, I felt like a druggy, with all of the paranoia, mood swings, lying, deceiving, and withholding, delusions, hallucinations, dissociation, fear and anger, depression and euphoria, nausea and 'creepy-crawly' feelings... and that's an incomplete list. It always felt easy to compare my years before meds like being on drugs and my years after meds like being clean. Being clean's no picnic, though. I'm most certainly not out of the woods - far from it. I still have many of the symptoms, just in drastically lesser degrees (still debilitating when all added up.) I have new problems accumulating, old problems evolving, I have what seems to be more problems getting worse than problems getting better. I no longer have the delusions or hallucinations, and have had only very rare instances of dissociation. And, of course, like many druggies worldwide (whether sober or not), I always have the urge, no matter how minute or strong, to go back to my drugs (only, in my case, that means go off my meds.) But don't the costs outweigh the gains? Yep. So why would I want to go back to what it was like before I got on meds? I'll answer that rhetorical question with another rhetorical question: why does any druggy crave to get back on drugs at any point in their life?

So, like most days now-a-days, I'm hyper-aware, and it feels like more of a pain than a benefit. I see everything happening while feeling utterly powerless to it - a spectator to my own life. I can analyse every detail of it, but to what benefit? I know all these things without being able to do anything about them. My problems just get progressively worse, and I see it with such clarity every step of the way. It'd seemingly be better to be blinded and unknowing of what's going on in my own mind (which, I'll admit, my mind can still seem alien even to me) than to be so aware. People say it's a step in the right direction, but take that step out of context, as if it's the entirety of the context on its own. Being aware is only beneficial when you know how to do something about what you're now aware of. Otherwise, it's best to remain blissfully ignorant. Oh, how I wish I could be blissfully ignorant...