These déjà vus are getting more frequent. I used to only get déjà vu
every once a while... maybe every other week, or so. But now... it's
every day, multiple times a day, and each time I just instantly stop
what I was doing and get sucked into it for just a moment... and then
the feeling kind of lingers. They're mostly just emotions, senses, but
not really pictures or scenes in my head. I mean, the scenes still pop
up from time to time, but most of my déjà vu, lately, has been much more
like emotions alone. I'll read, see, hear, feel... I'll sense
something, and then a flood of emotion pours over me, sometimes nearly
compelling me to cry, or outwardly and very clearly react. I'll feel
just as I felt some time in the past - sometime I can't clearly recall -
and then thirty seconds later, the small crack in the curtains, where I
can just barely peek into some past event, gets closed, and I'm cut
off. Thirty seconds, sometimes a little longer, sometimes a little
shorter, and I simply can't recall the memory at all, but the feelings
associated with the memory seem to stick around for some time. Sometimes
hours, even, but rarely more than a day.
I keep on wondering, "Is this déjà vu? Are these even really memories, or real memories?" I have had an annoying case of the false memories
for years, now, but those are usually just plain ol' 'memories,' faint
holographs of events I thought happened, but never actually did. My mind
has liked to rewrite history, or insert utterly false events
altogether. But these... These have such strong emotions, it's hard to
imagine that they're from false memories... It's driving me nuts. I feel
like I had major amnesia, and also got brainwashed into believing I
lived a whole life up to a certain point that I never even lived! And
now I'm at the point in the movie where the main character starts
recalling his real past, and realising the past he thought was his past
wasn't even real. Now, obviously, I'm not that bad. I have more real
memories (when I can access them!) than false ones. The false ones are
just typically nuisances... Things that hold little true significance,
but that I always seemed to recall. I can typically recall false
memories much more easily than real memories. Real memories typically
just... come to me. It's not that I can willingly recall them, it just
happens whenever the hell it wants to! Usually when I'm trying the
least, actually. Usually when I'm distracted or caught up in something,
that thing that I'm absorbed into triggers the memory.
You know
when you're just having a conversation, and then someone says something
that reminds you of something else? It's kind of like that... It just
suddenly pops into you're brain, and you're like, "Oh, yeah! I remember
that!" Well, that's about the closest normal approximation I can think
of for this. This is more like you're soul exists in more than one time,
and the you from the present feels what your soul feels from events of
the past. It's sort of like that intuition, shared sense, that twins are
supposed to have, at least sometimes, but my twin is from the past, and
doesn't yet exist, and when it exists now, I'll be in the future.
Despite being in two different places on the timeline, I share those
senses. That's what it feels like. It's also kind of like on TV shows
when a character starts tweaking out because of broken, quick flashbacks
where the audio and visuals cut in and out repeatedly. It's not so
debilitating, of course, and much less clear... There's a strong
vagueness to it. It's about as clear as a room full of smoke in a
burning building. But just because you can't see it hardly at all, it
doesn't mean the fire won't still burn you and the smoke won't still
choke you.
I'm so tired of this crap... Even just one day of
complete clarity would be grand, and then I could die, happily
remembering what it's like to have any sense of clarity.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Agitated Depression
Agitated Depression... a 'mixed state' in which symptoms of depression
and hypomania collide into a volatile mixture... In my experience,
nothing good ever really comes of it. But this one... state that
I'm going through... feels... like a relief. Like a prisoner who has
been starved, beaten, and tortured, and - finally - as he is being
lashed, hit, beaten, and sliced... has a glimmer of relief, of joy. He
rejoiced because he knows that it's all going to end soon. He'll be free
soon... as he bleeds out in the mud and the life fades away from him.
In my agitated depressions, everything... intensifies. I'm aware of
everything around me, unlike mania (in which I'm often laser focused,
and can't seem to pay attention to more than one thing), and...
everything, EVERYTHING has some sort of feeling attached. The
lifting sun outside bothers me because... it feels like a timer has
reached its end and is buzzing, and I'm going over some sort of
never-spoken, never-seen time limit. The chair I sit on brings pain, and
the keyboard drives me mad with urges that I simply can't deny... Urges
for communication and purpose. The screen is a portal, a gateway...
It's indiscriminate and can show both the most awful and the greatest of
things. The blanket brings comfort and safety with it's weight as it
rests on my body and wraps me up. The pillow brings comfort in its
softness, even if the comfort is more psychological than physical. Well,
those are examples of idle things, at least... Trivial things.
But every emotions, every feeling... even my empathy, it all becomes... magnified, more like through a telescope than a magnifying glass. My brain bursts with sorrow and joy, with elation and despair. When someone else is sad, I'm depressed, and when someone else is happy, I'm joyous. But, most of all, I'm conflicted, even to the point of tearfulness about everything, good or bad. My heart is in a tug-of-war between numerous different forces, different feelings. The chemicals in my brain seem to be pouring and washing over my brain without restraint, without purpose, sometimes mixing and clashing with other chemicals. Sometimes causing paradoxical effects. I see life through a kaleidoscope that changes and fluctuates without ceasing, impossible to grab hold of any one solid image. Everything morphs and changes as if liquid or gaseous. Nothing is solid anymore, and everything is flowing, drifting, swirling, or sloshing. The world, particularly that of my mind, turns into a sea of green liquid metal that will swallow up any poor soul who falls in. It looks so, so cold, but its scolding and burning. The world around just fades into an intoxicating bile-green fog, while the few 'solid' things that can keep you out of the liquid metal are constantly morphing and changing, a maze of pathways where at any moment a hallway can become 10 times the length you thought, or when you thought it turned left, it may suddenly turn right. The inorganic, hard metal flows like a living creature, moving at a whim, shifting and morphing.
The pain amplifies... My head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds and my neck struggles to support it. I just wait for the spine to snap after taking so much strain. My shoulders feel like they've turned to stone, and my back struggles to hold that up. And then.. my poor lower back... taking on the burden of it all - the entirety of the slowly solidifying, petrifying flesh. The knives and needles stab me willy-nilly, the nerves shoot with electricity along their roots, their branches. I feel like I was in a car crash, and then the car flipped into a garbage truck right as it was compacting the garbage. I'm filthy, smashed, and contorted. Oh, my head... It's like someone wrapped an iron band around it and then tightened it more and more until they couldn't tighten it any further, like a belt on a man who denies he's gained a few pounds, and insists on the notch he remembers being able to squeeze into. And this is but a fraction of all I feel... But a minute, almost meaningless, sliver in the grand scheme of things.
I tire... Exhausted and beaten, I envy that prisoner... I envy his escape... He didn't take his own life, he didn't avoid further punishment... He endured it and endured it until... it ended. He was released. He was free.
But every emotions, every feeling... even my empathy, it all becomes... magnified, more like through a telescope than a magnifying glass. My brain bursts with sorrow and joy, with elation and despair. When someone else is sad, I'm depressed, and when someone else is happy, I'm joyous. But, most of all, I'm conflicted, even to the point of tearfulness about everything, good or bad. My heart is in a tug-of-war between numerous different forces, different feelings. The chemicals in my brain seem to be pouring and washing over my brain without restraint, without purpose, sometimes mixing and clashing with other chemicals. Sometimes causing paradoxical effects. I see life through a kaleidoscope that changes and fluctuates without ceasing, impossible to grab hold of any one solid image. Everything morphs and changes as if liquid or gaseous. Nothing is solid anymore, and everything is flowing, drifting, swirling, or sloshing. The world, particularly that of my mind, turns into a sea of green liquid metal that will swallow up any poor soul who falls in. It looks so, so cold, but its scolding and burning. The world around just fades into an intoxicating bile-green fog, while the few 'solid' things that can keep you out of the liquid metal are constantly morphing and changing, a maze of pathways where at any moment a hallway can become 10 times the length you thought, or when you thought it turned left, it may suddenly turn right. The inorganic, hard metal flows like a living creature, moving at a whim, shifting and morphing.
The pain amplifies... My head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds and my neck struggles to support it. I just wait for the spine to snap after taking so much strain. My shoulders feel like they've turned to stone, and my back struggles to hold that up. And then.. my poor lower back... taking on the burden of it all - the entirety of the slowly solidifying, petrifying flesh. The knives and needles stab me willy-nilly, the nerves shoot with electricity along their roots, their branches. I feel like I was in a car crash, and then the car flipped into a garbage truck right as it was compacting the garbage. I'm filthy, smashed, and contorted. Oh, my head... It's like someone wrapped an iron band around it and then tightened it more and more until they couldn't tighten it any further, like a belt on a man who denies he's gained a few pounds, and insists on the notch he remembers being able to squeeze into. And this is but a fraction of all I feel... But a minute, almost meaningless, sliver in the grand scheme of things.
I tire... Exhausted and beaten, I envy that prisoner... I envy his escape... He didn't take his own life, he didn't avoid further punishment... He endured it and endured it until... it ended. He was released. He was free.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Sonata
Each person has a song. Many think that songs with words, with a voice,
are the most powerful and most beautiful, but I respectfully disagree.
The sonata, devoid of a human voice, but bountiful in the beautiful,
natural resonance of the universe, is truly the most beautiful, I
believe. Every song is utterly unique, played literally for a lifetime.
And these songs often overlay upon others’ songs, creating a symphony of
sorts. When two songs clash, and simply aren’t harmonious, they either
remain horrid to the ear, or they depart until a harmonious tune is
found. Many symphonies have moments of cacophony to provoke emotions,
especially that which is difficult to bear and hard on the ears, only to
return to the beautiful essence that was invoked from an individual’s
very soul.
So what is your sonata? What does it sound like? How has it crossed and blended with others’ sonatas? Most sonatas are epics, are journeys for the mind and soul. But some are cut all too short, and make but brief, yet often quite powerful, songs. Tempos often vary, within each song, creating turbulence and calm, excitement and lethargy, happiness and sadness. There are spikes in pitch, as well as lows. No matter what, though, each and every song is a work of art. Something truly beautiful comes from each individual’s sonata.
My sonatas feel like they could be embodied across the vast range of Ludwig van Beethoven. Within a single song, he can make a lament, and then suddenly increase to something exciting and joyful, and then return to the slower, deeper, more lethargic elegy. Bipolar is a synonym for someone who’s life is inevitably beautiful, whether through tragedy or triumph. Sometimes the triumph comes completely from the tragedy, like a phoenix rising from the ashes and the flames, and then soaring into the sky and embodying the sun and the stars that provide us light, both utterly illuminating, and through the inevitable darkness. Moonlight Sonata and Fur Elise seem to touch my soul the most, at least as of yet. I’m not connoisseur, much to my dismay, and I know that those are two of his most popular songs, but perhaps there is a reason behind that. While many are moved by the two songs, and perhaps they do in fact touch their souls, I believe them to embody my very life essence. I’m not moved; rather, I am. I hear those songs I know that I am them.
As I see and hear the song of my life playing before me, progressing as I do, my soul feels enlightened. My eyes close and my heart opens up. Through four days of... a fairly strong depression, I’ve come to feel... high. It honestly feels like I took opioids, and yet I haven’t taken anything. I’ve spent most of my time for a few days, and for so many hours, just laying down, sleeping, or barely remaining conscious. I’ve been somewhat out of myself, and yet so aware. It’s like I’m meditating while walking about, and while utterly present. I went from feeling so, so heavy... hopelessly unable to even lift myself up, to feeling like I’m walking upon clouds. And yet, I still feel terribly heavy. It’s like my insides are made of stone, but my skin, and an aura around me, are lighter than helium, lighter than hydrogen!, lifting this heavy, awkward body into the clouds, higher and higher, until I’m past the atmosphere, and I see the glory of our world before my very eyes. And then I turn around and see the greater glory of the universe around me. This deep depression brought me joy and the ability to see clearer, and yet I fear it will be fleeting, and I will return to my ignorant, awkward, bulky, heavy self, or perhaps my oblivious, energetic, light self. Either way, oblivious or ignorant, I will be once again blinded and unaware.
But these most powerful of moods - especially the lower I go, rather than higher - the purer my soul. It’s like these occasionally, magnificent depressions are a form of ritual purification and trial after my soul becomes overly burdened by darkness and impurities. I know what it feels like to be high off of narcotics - legally, of course... The pain of my body sometimes requires their powerful effects. But I also know what it’s like to have very high manias and very low depressions without any outside agents. My own body is capable of recreating the effects of those powerful narcotic drugs without even needing such things. I know what it’s like to be addicted to drugs, and what the feelings of drugs are like, not from taking them, but simply from being who I am and experiencing life as I do, naturally. It’s beautiful and tragic. It’s a war inside me - a war for my soul. And it’s impossible to truly tell which side will, or has, won... until the dust has settled, and it is all concluded. Not until one force is totally destroyed by the other will I know which side one.
But this war waged inside me is not something terrible, necessarily. Some wars are necessary, especially those which are spiritual. Sometimes one has to prove its dominance over the other. Sometimes one has to struggle to survive against another. And struggles are what really mold the individual, for better or worse. Whichever side is winning will determine which side the soul deviates. Shall it be pure and grand, or shall it be impure and poisonous? My bipolar is truly a journey toward enlightenment, and when the war is ended, and I’ve died, all will become revealed, and it will be evident who I truly am, and where I truly lie. I have struggled very much, and so I have been molded more and more into something great, whether great for the better reasons, or for the worse.
Many raving maniacs are actually truly enlightened. This kind of enlightenment brings about something utterly irrational and incomprehensible, and sometimes this does a number to the mind. Their souls know, and their minds try to know, and they can’t help but spew the incoherent, otherworldly mess for all to hear. I hear it... Like whispers. And my spirit whispers back, so subtly and quietly. It is not in the mind, but in the spirit and the soul that this is heard. There are not voices, nothing even comparable to our universe, and yet something in me understands. My mind is boggled, and I cannot recreate it so that others may hear, but I can merely attempt to exemplify a mere, faint shadow of its greatness.
And though I am so euphoric, I am so tired... so sleepy. My eyes struggle to stay open, though it’s not even noon. I’ve slept for so many hours previously, and yet my body and my brain beg for more rest. My body remains like stones on the inside, full of granite, too heavy to hardly lift. I wish to faint, to simply snap asleep, almost comatose, as each movement requires grand effort. Perhaps... this is my cross to bear. And yet, I cyclically go through this. From the joy of life, to the burden of my cross and death, to the grand rebirth, and back to life. It replies over and over and over. Sometimes it’s a mere reflection, distorted in ripples and waves... and yet, other times, it’s as clear and real as can be.
My sonata...
So what is your sonata? What does it sound like? How has it crossed and blended with others’ sonatas? Most sonatas are epics, are journeys for the mind and soul. But some are cut all too short, and make but brief, yet often quite powerful, songs. Tempos often vary, within each song, creating turbulence and calm, excitement and lethargy, happiness and sadness. There are spikes in pitch, as well as lows. No matter what, though, each and every song is a work of art. Something truly beautiful comes from each individual’s sonata.
My sonatas feel like they could be embodied across the vast range of Ludwig van Beethoven. Within a single song, he can make a lament, and then suddenly increase to something exciting and joyful, and then return to the slower, deeper, more lethargic elegy. Bipolar is a synonym for someone who’s life is inevitably beautiful, whether through tragedy or triumph. Sometimes the triumph comes completely from the tragedy, like a phoenix rising from the ashes and the flames, and then soaring into the sky and embodying the sun and the stars that provide us light, both utterly illuminating, and through the inevitable darkness. Moonlight Sonata and Fur Elise seem to touch my soul the most, at least as of yet. I’m not connoisseur, much to my dismay, and I know that those are two of his most popular songs, but perhaps there is a reason behind that. While many are moved by the two songs, and perhaps they do in fact touch their souls, I believe them to embody my very life essence. I’m not moved; rather, I am. I hear those songs I know that I am them.
As I see and hear the song of my life playing before me, progressing as I do, my soul feels enlightened. My eyes close and my heart opens up. Through four days of... a fairly strong depression, I’ve come to feel... high. It honestly feels like I took opioids, and yet I haven’t taken anything. I’ve spent most of my time for a few days, and for so many hours, just laying down, sleeping, or barely remaining conscious. I’ve been somewhat out of myself, and yet so aware. It’s like I’m meditating while walking about, and while utterly present. I went from feeling so, so heavy... hopelessly unable to even lift myself up, to feeling like I’m walking upon clouds. And yet, I still feel terribly heavy. It’s like my insides are made of stone, but my skin, and an aura around me, are lighter than helium, lighter than hydrogen!, lifting this heavy, awkward body into the clouds, higher and higher, until I’m past the atmosphere, and I see the glory of our world before my very eyes. And then I turn around and see the greater glory of the universe around me. This deep depression brought me joy and the ability to see clearer, and yet I fear it will be fleeting, and I will return to my ignorant, awkward, bulky, heavy self, or perhaps my oblivious, energetic, light self. Either way, oblivious or ignorant, I will be once again blinded and unaware.
But these most powerful of moods - especially the lower I go, rather than higher - the purer my soul. It’s like these occasionally, magnificent depressions are a form of ritual purification and trial after my soul becomes overly burdened by darkness and impurities. I know what it feels like to be high off of narcotics - legally, of course... The pain of my body sometimes requires their powerful effects. But I also know what it’s like to have very high manias and very low depressions without any outside agents. My own body is capable of recreating the effects of those powerful narcotic drugs without even needing such things. I know what it’s like to be addicted to drugs, and what the feelings of drugs are like, not from taking them, but simply from being who I am and experiencing life as I do, naturally. It’s beautiful and tragic. It’s a war inside me - a war for my soul. And it’s impossible to truly tell which side will, or has, won... until the dust has settled, and it is all concluded. Not until one force is totally destroyed by the other will I know which side one.
But this war waged inside me is not something terrible, necessarily. Some wars are necessary, especially those which are spiritual. Sometimes one has to prove its dominance over the other. Sometimes one has to struggle to survive against another. And struggles are what really mold the individual, for better or worse. Whichever side is winning will determine which side the soul deviates. Shall it be pure and grand, or shall it be impure and poisonous? My bipolar is truly a journey toward enlightenment, and when the war is ended, and I’ve died, all will become revealed, and it will be evident who I truly am, and where I truly lie. I have struggled very much, and so I have been molded more and more into something great, whether great for the better reasons, or for the worse.
Many raving maniacs are actually truly enlightened. This kind of enlightenment brings about something utterly irrational and incomprehensible, and sometimes this does a number to the mind. Their souls know, and their minds try to know, and they can’t help but spew the incoherent, otherworldly mess for all to hear. I hear it... Like whispers. And my spirit whispers back, so subtly and quietly. It is not in the mind, but in the spirit and the soul that this is heard. There are not voices, nothing even comparable to our universe, and yet something in me understands. My mind is boggled, and I cannot recreate it so that others may hear, but I can merely attempt to exemplify a mere, faint shadow of its greatness.
And though I am so euphoric, I am so tired... so sleepy. My eyes struggle to stay open, though it’s not even noon. I’ve slept for so many hours previously, and yet my body and my brain beg for more rest. My body remains like stones on the inside, full of granite, too heavy to hardly lift. I wish to faint, to simply snap asleep, almost comatose, as each movement requires grand effort. Perhaps... this is my cross to bear. And yet, I cyclically go through this. From the joy of life, to the burden of my cross and death, to the grand rebirth, and back to life. It replies over and over and over. Sometimes it’s a mere reflection, distorted in ripples and waves... and yet, other times, it’s as clear and real as can be.
My sonata...
Monday, April 8, 2013
A Hitchhiker's Guide to My Mind...iverse.
I want to try and make a basic outline of how my mind works, how to
attempt to traverse it, and the various common qualities of different
moods/phases/areas. It's more in a hope that others might be able to
avoid certain issues in the future. First, some basic background. I am
bipolar I - I rapidly cycle, usually from day to day - or at most week
to week - between moods that are typically either depressed or manic (or
mildly depressed or hypomanic), with brief and somewhat uncommon pauses
of relative normalcy. There are also some fairly frequent minor 'mixed
states,' which blend two extremes into a more volatile combination,
usually leaning toward depressed, and some much more occasional major
spikes. The major spikes tend to also be mixed states, and - while I
could be wrong because I don't have enough data yet - they go in a
monthly cycle. I know... it's my 'period.' If I start ripping your face
off with words, getting really irritable, switching from seemingly happy
and extroverted to reclusive and introverted... well, you just might ask me, "Is it that time of the month?" in which case I might just
want to rip your face off... or laugh. Who knows?
::::Geography::::
My mind has mountain peaks and low valleys, volcanoes and soothing hot springs, burning deserts and frozen tundras, flat plains and rolling hills... You name the geographical feature, my mind has it. Now, if you go outside and you look at a hill, you can easily identify it as a hill. You look at the topography of my mind, and it might be a little more difficult because these ain't yo nomull evruh-deh heeeeels, ya siy? Also, by my kooky sounding spelling, one might think I was more toward the 'higher' spectrum, whereas I'm actually in a mixed mood right now that's heavily leaning toward the depressive side. Literally every moment feels unbearable and dazing, yet I frequently cover it up with nonsensical jokes and fake smiles. I'm also actually in a lot of pain right now from my fibromyalgia, and I've had increased anxiety lately. So do you think you can so easily identify the geographical features of my mind, especially now? Well, let's go over some of the more basic qualities of my psychological topography so that you could better identify these features without necessarily stuffing your brain so full you have an aneurysm.
---High Ground---
Mountains:
There are two primary kinds of mountains - volcanoes and just plain giant heaps of rock. Volcanoes are perhaps the most relevant for those around me, yet perhaps the least common, as well. Volcanoes are moods that are big enough to be mountains, but with the added quality of being very volatile, and potentially dangerous. 90% of the time, a volcano will be a mixed state (reminder - a combination of depression and mania that creates an explosive and/or volatile compound.) Mixed states are much less common for me, and they usually aren't quite mountains/volcanoes, either. I'm not sure, yet, as I've only recorded about a month of my mood patterns so far, but from what I've recorded, I have a hypothesis that my volcanic mixed states come along roughly once every month. My mood can flip flop, I can be extremely irritable, I can seem extremely difficult to get a read off, I can seem unpredictable, I can explode in your face and melt it right off with words alone, I can become extremely anxious and worried, I can be irritable and difficult to work with, I can become extremely emotional, and it essentially becomes no holds barred. A bit of my steam was relieved from a recent eruption, so I'm not quite so unstable at the moment, but one eruption doesn't necessarily mean that another won't come. These moods also tend to last longer than my normal moods - as long as a week! Usually, there's some build up as well as a gradual decline after reaching the peak. The best tactic when you see a volcano? Well... stay away from it, you daredevil dumbass! What else do you think you should do? Climb to the top and take a swan dive?
The other kind of mountain is just tall and imposing. While there may be some minor qualities of one mood type when it's dominantly another, the little fragments are usually of sub-clinical and fairly irrelevant levels. For instance, I might go through a depressive episode but have a number of ideas and be unable to sleep. Does this mean I'm in a mixed state? Nope, not at all. A lot of ideas and difficulty sleeping has never made a hypomanic mood on its own. Sure, a mixed mood doesn't always necessarily need to have a full blown hypomanic mood on top of a full blown depression, or a full blown mania on top of a full-blown/moderate depression, but the symptoms of either are usually quite significant and contribute considerably to the volatile nature of a mixed state. Note that there are no real 'depressive mountains,' as depressions are typically lows, like valleys. The only real exception is a mixed state, but it has a giant pit in the centre filled with scolding hot magma that goes below the earth's crust.. so I'd say that the 'low' kind of makes its way into there. Anyway, mania mountains tend to have very sharp peaks and both rise and decline very quickly. They're usually fairly short-lived, seldom lasting more than a couple of days. It's ironic how a person in a flight of mania might feel like they can move mountains when their mania can seem as imposing and 'high' as a mountain.
Hills:
Hills are usually mania-related and can be quite frequent and rolling. This are usually enjoyable for both those around me and myself. Usually a hill is when I seem more positive, more energetic, full of ideas, perhaps more talkative, and overall more kooky - but markedly less of all of those than mania mountains. Hills denote hypomania. This is the happy-fun-times of bipolar. This is when the bipolar person is still relatively in their right mind, but are obviously 'higher' than normal. Admittedly, it can also sometimes just feel a little bit 'happier' and 'energetic' than usual to the bipolar person themselves and those around them. Hypomania seldom, if ever, gets a person hospitalised, and they're even often overlooked by the world at large. In fact, bipolar II individuals who have hypomania, but not full-blown mania, might - or are rather almost guaranteed - to be diagnosed simply as 'depressed' because people typically don't even notice the extent of hypomanic episodes. Hills can sometimes be overlooked, as well, especially when you have much more extreme features like a great canyon or mountains that reach past the clouds. Hills are common and - while sometimes marvelled at or even loved - fairly unremarkable in the grand scheme of the bipolar spectrum. Hills might also be indicative of more minor mixed episodes, though these hills are quite rare. Hills like this might have scolding hot springs and be volcanically active far underneath the surface. Just in case you do run into a mixed state hill, look for unexpected or unusual changes that deviate from the normal hypomanic mood.
---Low Ground---
Canyons and Valleys:
Canyons are usually when my mood takes a sharp drop into depression. I can seem perfectly fine and even normal and then - oops, there's a cliff there! Usually, the lowest of the lows comes almost immediately, and then the depression might go away almost about as suddenly. Valleys, on the other hand, tend to be longer lived and have more gradual descents to and ascents from the depression. The geographical definition of a valley, and most lower points, can have the word 'depression' in them, in fact. Plain depressions usually aren't as complicated or varied as mania and hypomania, so there's little need to go further in depth, but for a quick description... During a depression, I can be less vocal, have little or no energy, little or no motivation, feel as though I am actually physically feeble (or more than usual, at least) which others can feel, too, I can often have worsened or increased incidence of fibromyalgia flare-ups, as well as general achiness, stiffness, and lethargy, I can seem more withdrawn and be more of an isolationist, and... above all, I can occasionally cover it all up with compulsive and fake smiles, and reassurances that nothing's wrong (my energy level is usually telltale, however.) Canyons and valleys are usually the worst of the worst. If I do have a facade, I usually can't maintain it for very long. I often shut down completely, or quite near. These places are also often much darker and colder than the areas higher up.
Ravines and Gullies:
These are basically the same as canyons and valleys, in that order, but simply smaller. When I have a facade or try to cover up the depression, I can typically pull it off much better and for a longer period than with the canyons and valleys. Because valleys last longer, I usually maintain no facade, or it can only survive a smaller portion of the depression, but a facade can often survive the whole depression of a ravine or gully. Gullies might not even really register on other people's radars as, while they might be wider in proportion to ravines, they're also typically shallower. Gullies might seems like simply slower points in life, or even appear relatively 'normal.' They may last longer, or appear flatter, than ravines, but I'm typically decently functioning (well, relative to me, at least) and can have at least a semi-decent outlook without too much effort. There usually isn't nearly the degree of awe-striking power as a deep depression can cause, but they're usually much easier to deal with, as well. These mild depressions are fairly common and often relatively short lived.
---The Ocean---
To stick with the geographical theme, the ocean can represent the great unknown. It constitutes most of the world, and yet it's probably the least explored and the least understood part of the world. Much of my mind is still an utter mystery to me, but with new tools, new things are being learned everyday. The great, deep blue can seem imposing, mysterious, and even scary, and perhaps it should be... to a degree. For if we sink into this great unknown... could we ever come back? I perhaps get too curious for my own good, sometimes.
::::Tectonic Activity::::
Anxiety isn't really like any particular land feature, but acts more like tectonic plates shifting. Anxiety can form mountains and volcanoes, dry up and create new seas, tear land apart and make giant holes, it can swallow houses whole into the ground like they never existed, it can shake the ground and your foundations, it can send tsunamis crashing into cities, and it can instill fear. While anxiety isn't exactly any particular land feature, it can certainly contribute to the formation of land features. My anxieties can plummet me into a depression, or send me into a manic high. Sometimes, it causes volcanoes to explode, and for my foundations (beliefs, for instance) to shatter right from under me. Anxieties can scare me into a seemingly catatonic state, or send me running. What I do certainly know, however, is that something bad always comes when anxiety is looming over me, and it's most volatile when paired with a land formation that's already existing.
::::Geography::::
My mind has mountain peaks and low valleys, volcanoes and soothing hot springs, burning deserts and frozen tundras, flat plains and rolling hills... You name the geographical feature, my mind has it. Now, if you go outside and you look at a hill, you can easily identify it as a hill. You look at the topography of my mind, and it might be a little more difficult because these ain't yo nomull evruh-deh heeeeels, ya siy? Also, by my kooky sounding spelling, one might think I was more toward the 'higher' spectrum, whereas I'm actually in a mixed mood right now that's heavily leaning toward the depressive side. Literally every moment feels unbearable and dazing, yet I frequently cover it up with nonsensical jokes and fake smiles. I'm also actually in a lot of pain right now from my fibromyalgia, and I've had increased anxiety lately. So do you think you can so easily identify the geographical features of my mind, especially now? Well, let's go over some of the more basic qualities of my psychological topography so that you could better identify these features without necessarily stuffing your brain so full you have an aneurysm.
---High Ground---
Mountains:
There are two primary kinds of mountains - volcanoes and just plain giant heaps of rock. Volcanoes are perhaps the most relevant for those around me, yet perhaps the least common, as well. Volcanoes are moods that are big enough to be mountains, but with the added quality of being very volatile, and potentially dangerous. 90% of the time, a volcano will be a mixed state (reminder - a combination of depression and mania that creates an explosive and/or volatile compound.) Mixed states are much less common for me, and they usually aren't quite mountains/volcanoes, either. I'm not sure, yet, as I've only recorded about a month of my mood patterns so far, but from what I've recorded, I have a hypothesis that my volcanic mixed states come along roughly once every month. My mood can flip flop, I can be extremely irritable, I can seem extremely difficult to get a read off, I can seem unpredictable, I can explode in your face and melt it right off with words alone, I can become extremely anxious and worried, I can be irritable and difficult to work with, I can become extremely emotional, and it essentially becomes no holds barred. A bit of my steam was relieved from a recent eruption, so I'm not quite so unstable at the moment, but one eruption doesn't necessarily mean that another won't come. These moods also tend to last longer than my normal moods - as long as a week! Usually, there's some build up as well as a gradual decline after reaching the peak. The best tactic when you see a volcano? Well... stay away from it, you daredevil dumbass! What else do you think you should do? Climb to the top and take a swan dive?
The other kind of mountain is just tall and imposing. While there may be some minor qualities of one mood type when it's dominantly another, the little fragments are usually of sub-clinical and fairly irrelevant levels. For instance, I might go through a depressive episode but have a number of ideas and be unable to sleep. Does this mean I'm in a mixed state? Nope, not at all. A lot of ideas and difficulty sleeping has never made a hypomanic mood on its own. Sure, a mixed mood doesn't always necessarily need to have a full blown hypomanic mood on top of a full blown depression, or a full blown mania on top of a full-blown/moderate depression, but the symptoms of either are usually quite significant and contribute considerably to the volatile nature of a mixed state. Note that there are no real 'depressive mountains,' as depressions are typically lows, like valleys. The only real exception is a mixed state, but it has a giant pit in the centre filled with scolding hot magma that goes below the earth's crust.. so I'd say that the 'low' kind of makes its way into there. Anyway, mania mountains tend to have very sharp peaks and both rise and decline very quickly. They're usually fairly short-lived, seldom lasting more than a couple of days. It's ironic how a person in a flight of mania might feel like they can move mountains when their mania can seem as imposing and 'high' as a mountain.
Hills:
Hills are usually mania-related and can be quite frequent and rolling. This are usually enjoyable for both those around me and myself. Usually a hill is when I seem more positive, more energetic, full of ideas, perhaps more talkative, and overall more kooky - but markedly less of all of those than mania mountains. Hills denote hypomania. This is the happy-fun-times of bipolar. This is when the bipolar person is still relatively in their right mind, but are obviously 'higher' than normal. Admittedly, it can also sometimes just feel a little bit 'happier' and 'energetic' than usual to the bipolar person themselves and those around them. Hypomania seldom, if ever, gets a person hospitalised, and they're even often overlooked by the world at large. In fact, bipolar II individuals who have hypomania, but not full-blown mania, might - or are rather almost guaranteed - to be diagnosed simply as 'depressed' because people typically don't even notice the extent of hypomanic episodes. Hills can sometimes be overlooked, as well, especially when you have much more extreme features like a great canyon or mountains that reach past the clouds. Hills are common and - while sometimes marvelled at or even loved - fairly unremarkable in the grand scheme of the bipolar spectrum. Hills might also be indicative of more minor mixed episodes, though these hills are quite rare. Hills like this might have scolding hot springs and be volcanically active far underneath the surface. Just in case you do run into a mixed state hill, look for unexpected or unusual changes that deviate from the normal hypomanic mood.
---Low Ground---
Canyons and Valleys:
Canyons are usually when my mood takes a sharp drop into depression. I can seem perfectly fine and even normal and then - oops, there's a cliff there! Usually, the lowest of the lows comes almost immediately, and then the depression might go away almost about as suddenly. Valleys, on the other hand, tend to be longer lived and have more gradual descents to and ascents from the depression. The geographical definition of a valley, and most lower points, can have the word 'depression' in them, in fact. Plain depressions usually aren't as complicated or varied as mania and hypomania, so there's little need to go further in depth, but for a quick description... During a depression, I can be less vocal, have little or no energy, little or no motivation, feel as though I am actually physically feeble (or more than usual, at least) which others can feel, too, I can often have worsened or increased incidence of fibromyalgia flare-ups, as well as general achiness, stiffness, and lethargy, I can seem more withdrawn and be more of an isolationist, and... above all, I can occasionally cover it all up with compulsive and fake smiles, and reassurances that nothing's wrong (my energy level is usually telltale, however.) Canyons and valleys are usually the worst of the worst. If I do have a facade, I usually can't maintain it for very long. I often shut down completely, or quite near. These places are also often much darker and colder than the areas higher up.
Ravines and Gullies:
These are basically the same as canyons and valleys, in that order, but simply smaller. When I have a facade or try to cover up the depression, I can typically pull it off much better and for a longer period than with the canyons and valleys. Because valleys last longer, I usually maintain no facade, or it can only survive a smaller portion of the depression, but a facade can often survive the whole depression of a ravine or gully. Gullies might not even really register on other people's radars as, while they might be wider in proportion to ravines, they're also typically shallower. Gullies might seems like simply slower points in life, or even appear relatively 'normal.' They may last longer, or appear flatter, than ravines, but I'm typically decently functioning (well, relative to me, at least) and can have at least a semi-decent outlook without too much effort. There usually isn't nearly the degree of awe-striking power as a deep depression can cause, but they're usually much easier to deal with, as well. These mild depressions are fairly common and often relatively short lived.
---The Ocean---
To stick with the geographical theme, the ocean can represent the great unknown. It constitutes most of the world, and yet it's probably the least explored and the least understood part of the world. Much of my mind is still an utter mystery to me, but with new tools, new things are being learned everyday. The great, deep blue can seem imposing, mysterious, and even scary, and perhaps it should be... to a degree. For if we sink into this great unknown... could we ever come back? I perhaps get too curious for my own good, sometimes.
::::Tectonic Activity::::
Anxiety isn't really like any particular land feature, but acts more like tectonic plates shifting. Anxiety can form mountains and volcanoes, dry up and create new seas, tear land apart and make giant holes, it can swallow houses whole into the ground like they never existed, it can shake the ground and your foundations, it can send tsunamis crashing into cities, and it can instill fear. While anxiety isn't exactly any particular land feature, it can certainly contribute to the formation of land features. My anxieties can plummet me into a depression, or send me into a manic high. Sometimes, it causes volcanoes to explode, and for my foundations (beliefs, for instance) to shatter right from under me. Anxieties can scare me into a seemingly catatonic state, or send me running. What I do certainly know, however, is that something bad always comes when anxiety is looming over me, and it's most volatile when paired with a land formation that's already existing.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Letting Go
For some people, it comes naturally (perhaps too naturally), and for
other's, it seems utterly impossible... Letting things go is something
that certain people have an affinity for, and other don't. Some people
are lucky enough to be somewhere in the middle, but I think most people
are at least a little too far to one side or the other. I, personally,
have extreme difficulties letting things go, especially things that
aggravate me. Every once in a while, however, I manage to let something
go, and I can never get used to just what a relief it is! It's like an
enormous burden suddenly vaporising and floating away into the sky.
Okay, it's not always so graceful, and getting to that point is
definitely easier said than done...
Several days ago, I sought out an answer to something on a website that's specifically for asking questions and getting answers from other users in an attempt to share useful knowledge. Well, I haven't always found the community on that site to be so utopian. In fact, sometimes it's just full of arrogant, self-righteous ass-holes, to put it nicely. There really isn't any other way I can think of putting it, that isn't harsher, to give the right idea. Well, needless to say, I got a bit incensed with some of the people on their and even got to the point of reporting one and writing an angry message to another. These didn't go unwarranted, either. I was not irrationally lashing out - I was taking appropriate actions in response to their actions. I thought that my angry message was even quite restrained and civilised!
Well, I went out of town for Easter weekend, and for that whole time, I didn't check my e-mail or that website. It was actually nice that I forgot about it all. Well, after getting back home (tonight), I got on my e-mail and checked the messages. Well, I got more than I was expecting, but one stuck out in particular. It was a message from that site. Specifically, it was the reply to my angry message. The person actually had said that they didn't even know what I was talking about, and so they couldn't even reply to it. For a brief and immediate moment, I became inflamed. I wanted to (virtually) scream at him until my head exploded!
...But then, something unusual happened. I rubbed my headache riddled head, checked the box next to that e-mail... and deleted it. I then deleted all of the other junk and moved on. It wasn't instantaneously, but it was pretty quickly, that I sudden felt this great sense of relief. I didn't have to worry about the stress of ranting furiously at this guy, or trying to reign myself in so that I wasn't in turn accused of being belligerent, or awaiting his next reply, or the possibility of several more back-and-forth messages... I just stopped it right then and there. On a scale of 1-10 of how hard it is normally for me to let something like this go... it probably gets a solid 7. If you throw in some erroneous information on the other person's end, then it probably jumps to a 9 or a full-blown 10. It can probably sometimes seem like I might be more willing to give up a kidney than to give up a conversation about something that makes me angry. Well, I guess I must be willing to give up a kidney, now!
You might hear stories of people who got great relief from not stressing out about certain things so much, and you might either scoff at it or think it's completely obvious... or both. I've often scoffed at it and thought it sounded completely obvious. I have always had trouble not making sarcastic or irritated remarks about positive life stories, whether out of jealousy or some warped perception of reality. I could just as easily think that the person is being hopelessly positive in a hopeless world (warped perception) as I could jealously crave what they've found. Well, I don't really get jealous about that sort of stuff right now (I've come to be like the people I've made fun of!)
Now, admittedly, if I didn't have the headache, weren't tired, weren't lacking the mental stamina to carry out the incensed ranting back-and-forth, and I didn't feel like it would be inevitably pointless, I probably would've continued with it. I would've fruitlessly have brought more stress upon myself out of some inane idea of right and wrong, good versus bad, and an idiotic moral-crusader-type delusionary complex. But what's the point? In all of my experience, I'm the only one who really loses anything out of such situations. Sometimes I may even feed other people's warped psychological appetites, and then I'm not only bringing damage to myself, but providing something that my 'antagonist' wants! So, again, what's the point? Simple, and essentially only, answer... There isn't one. It's totally pointless! So... I cut it off. I stopped that horrid cycle, at least for now. Score one for me!
So I probably saved myself a considerable amount of utterly unnecessary stress just by ignoring something that could do nothing more than cause me unnecessary stress. I think that my head and body would be thanking me for saving them that burden if they... well... were autonomous and could speak as entities other than myself.
Several days ago, I sought out an answer to something on a website that's specifically for asking questions and getting answers from other users in an attempt to share useful knowledge. Well, I haven't always found the community on that site to be so utopian. In fact, sometimes it's just full of arrogant, self-righteous ass-holes, to put it nicely. There really isn't any other way I can think of putting it, that isn't harsher, to give the right idea. Well, needless to say, I got a bit incensed with some of the people on their and even got to the point of reporting one and writing an angry message to another. These didn't go unwarranted, either. I was not irrationally lashing out - I was taking appropriate actions in response to their actions. I thought that my angry message was even quite restrained and civilised!
Well, I went out of town for Easter weekend, and for that whole time, I didn't check my e-mail or that website. It was actually nice that I forgot about it all. Well, after getting back home (tonight), I got on my e-mail and checked the messages. Well, I got more than I was expecting, but one stuck out in particular. It was a message from that site. Specifically, it was the reply to my angry message. The person actually had said that they didn't even know what I was talking about, and so they couldn't even reply to it. For a brief and immediate moment, I became inflamed. I wanted to (virtually) scream at him until my head exploded!
...But then, something unusual happened. I rubbed my headache riddled head, checked the box next to that e-mail... and deleted it. I then deleted all of the other junk and moved on. It wasn't instantaneously, but it was pretty quickly, that I sudden felt this great sense of relief. I didn't have to worry about the stress of ranting furiously at this guy, or trying to reign myself in so that I wasn't in turn accused of being belligerent, or awaiting his next reply, or the possibility of several more back-and-forth messages... I just stopped it right then and there. On a scale of 1-10 of how hard it is normally for me to let something like this go... it probably gets a solid 7. If you throw in some erroneous information on the other person's end, then it probably jumps to a 9 or a full-blown 10. It can probably sometimes seem like I might be more willing to give up a kidney than to give up a conversation about something that makes me angry. Well, I guess I must be willing to give up a kidney, now!
You might hear stories of people who got great relief from not stressing out about certain things so much, and you might either scoff at it or think it's completely obvious... or both. I've often scoffed at it and thought it sounded completely obvious. I have always had trouble not making sarcastic or irritated remarks about positive life stories, whether out of jealousy or some warped perception of reality. I could just as easily think that the person is being hopelessly positive in a hopeless world (warped perception) as I could jealously crave what they've found. Well, I don't really get jealous about that sort of stuff right now (I've come to be like the people I've made fun of!)
Now, admittedly, if I didn't have the headache, weren't tired, weren't lacking the mental stamina to carry out the incensed ranting back-and-forth, and I didn't feel like it would be inevitably pointless, I probably would've continued with it. I would've fruitlessly have brought more stress upon myself out of some inane idea of right and wrong, good versus bad, and an idiotic moral-crusader-type delusionary complex. But what's the point? In all of my experience, I'm the only one who really loses anything out of such situations. Sometimes I may even feed other people's warped psychological appetites, and then I'm not only bringing damage to myself, but providing something that my 'antagonist' wants! So, again, what's the point? Simple, and essentially only, answer... There isn't one. It's totally pointless! So... I cut it off. I stopped that horrid cycle, at least for now. Score one for me!
So I probably saved myself a considerable amount of utterly unnecessary stress just by ignoring something that could do nothing more than cause me unnecessary stress. I think that my head and body would be thanking me for saving them that burden if they... well... were autonomous and could speak as entities other than myself.
Friday, March 8, 2013
The Beautiful Path is Seldom the Easy One
The eventful, beautiful path is so seldom the easy one... Nothing worthwhile comes from going about the easy way in life. I was blessed to be bipolar, not
cursed. I was given the gift to see a world few others can see.
Schizophrenic and dissociative individuals, amongst many others, can
also say that they can see into a world no one or few others can. Many
come to believe that their hallucinations, delusions, and various other
symptoms are actually a way of getting in touch with a spiritual world
or some other kind of alternate dimension. Since it's not really easy to
prove them wrong, and I've personally had those thoughts before, too, I
wouldn't necessarily discount these beliefs. I wouldn't even really want to refute their claims. As one individual said in the movie, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive,
about if he regretted being born with bipolar, "That's a very easy
question; there's a very easy answer. No, not for a second. 'Cause if
you've walked with angels, all the pain and suffering is well
worthwhile."
Do you ever hear about how the great spiritual figures in history and religion glided smoothly through life and into transcendence? Nope. You hear about a long, hard journey filled with doubt, wonder, pain, and strife... You hear about a journey with tremendous ups and treacherous lows. They know both great joy and dire despair. They've experienced the full range of what life has to offer, both good and bad. Perhaps they didn't necessarily go on murderous rampages, or give into the darkness so much that they at least dipped their toes in evil, but they did have to deal with such individuals. They have emotional and spiritual conflict. They were not always so certain of their purpose, of their religion, their god(s) or goddess(es). If such an individual came to be in this modern world, they'd probably be thrown into a psychiatric ward and pumped full of pills until these extremes seemingly disappeared... until they became 'normal.' I've seen some of these historic, grand figures - these spiritual marvels and tremendous heroes - and seen so many qualities of bipolar, of depression, of schizophrenia...
So, what really distinguished these people from those with 'mental illness'? Was it just that the times have changed and we've gained a different understanding of the human body and psyche? Have we unlocked hidden problems that were invisible to those of the past? Did our society change in such a way that it was virtually inhabitable for individuals like these great historic figures? So many questions that just might be impossible to answer...
Moses. He saw a burning bush... and God's voice came from it and sent him a message... and then the fire went out, and the bush wasn't burned. Some people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and various other mental illnesses, see spiritual hallucinations - things no one else sees. No one was around Moses, thus no one could actually prove anyone else could see what he saw. Yes, perhaps it was a physical manifestation that everyone could've seen, and that there were no hallucinations. But reality is an artificial construct of our minds, interpreting sensory data to map out a perceptual conception of what we call reality. You obstruct, enable, or alter any of these senses in any given way and the individual's reality changes radically. So what truly defines reality? What is real and what is false? Certainly their are some solid things. If I touch a rock, and then you touch the rock, the rock is probably their. If I hear a voice, and you hear a voice, and the voice is exactly the same to both of us, then it's probably real. But reality is still only as true as we can perceive it. Our dreams are truly real until we wake up. How can anyone prove that our spirits, minds, or souls don't enter some other dimension - some other world - while sleeping? Do we have to physically be their, or is it enough for only our abstract, our consciousness, to be their independently? If a heaven and/or hell exist, and our spirits go their, but our bodies don't, do we no longer exist? Are we no longer 'real' because we lack our bodies?
So back to Moses. There were, in fact, many physical manifestations that direly affected a great deal of people. There were plagues, one after the other. I do believe that God had a hand in this, but I also think that God often works within the confines of our logical, physical universe. He used frogs, locusts, droughts, hailstorms... He used things physically possible in our world. He didn't summon some grand creature with such an indescribable appearance or presence that it could drive a man mad just trying to wrap his mind around it... He didn't conjure something that was never before seen to the universe. Rather, God used the scientific laws, the constraints and rules of the universe, and he made them happen. Some could argue that the chances of things happening exactly as the Bible said they did would be so unlikely that it certainly didn't happen... But who in this world hasn't seen something that was so anomalous that they simply couldn't explain it? They occur at least at some point in someone's life, and yet these events couldn't possibly have happened at such isolated points in time so long ago? Occasionally... God does utilise truly baffling things to make His will a reality. These can be visions, dreams, or things that only a few - especially spiritual individuals - could see or did see. These more abstract, bizarre instances seem to be so similar to so many bipolar experiences. Mass hallucinations and delusions have occurred, in that multiple individuals saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt the same thing, even if no one else could. We often attribute these to chemical imbalances in the brain.
In that quote from the bottom of the first paragraph in this rant, this journal, a man knew he had bipolar - a chemical imbalance. It's proven that the bipolar mind acts differently than the 'average' or 'normal' mind. An interesting fact is that it's essentially impossible to detect bipolar simply from a brain scan... So, this man, Rod Harvey, is fully aware of his condition. He knows at least the basic scientific explanations behind the disorder - bipolar. He's aware of the physical and logical manifestations of his disorder. And yet... he refused 'treatment.' He refuses meds because he walks with angels. His mania highs give him such euphoria, such love and joy, and such splendid experiences. His mania also gives him frightening, terrible images - such as how he, "actually hallucinated by seeing the devil... Burning black coals of the eyes of the devil." Rod uses words like 'hallucination' or 'mania' or 'anxiety.' These are very clinical words. He is not oblivious, not unknowledgeable, and yet he accepts his hallucinations, his bipolar, and embraces it, even. He's learned to live with it, to function in modern society. Many psychiatrists, I'm sure, would just love to get a piece of him, to throw him into a hospital and to flood him with meds. He did attempt suicide once, after all, by walking right into traffic and nearly succeeding in killing himself! And yet... I see absolutely no reason to admit him, to call him crazy, or to fill him up with drugs to 'normalise' him. He is a marvel, he has a beautiful, magnificent mind... He walks with angels.
Reality is simply a perspective... One view out of many. Typically, realities align, and this is considered truly reality. But perhaps there can be more than one reality. Perhaps a person can see one reality overlap another, yet the people around them are totally unable to see them. And if you got a crowd of people hallucinating at the same time, you might have dozens of different realities overlapping! And does this make any one reality more real than another? Even great scientists dwell on the possibilities of many dimensions, multiple universes and worlds overlapping on another... The 4th dimension is believed to be unseeable, incomprehensible, to us 3-dimensional creatures. A 1-dimension entity could not comprehend a 2-dimensional entity, but could perhaps comprehend a 0-dimensional entity; likewise, a 2-dimensional entity could not comprehend a 3-dimensional entity, and yet it could comprehend a 1-dimensional entity. A 3-dimensional entity could not comprehend a 4-dimensional entity, but it could comprehend a 2-, 1-, or 0-dimensional entity. Now, this assumes that, somehow, these entities have some sort of sentience - consciousness and intelligence. It's purely hypothetical, theoretical. But these concepts are still generally accepted.
Regardless of if we can, in some ways, comprehend dimensions less than our own, but are unable to comprehend dimensions beyond ours, we really can only see and best understand our very own dimension - the one we live in and truly experience. But if a 4th dimension does exist, or a 5th, 6th, and so on, and somehow... by some crazy, virtually impossible to understand, circumstance, we were able to get a peak into that dimension... would what we saw not be real? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound? The answer... yes. Just because others didn't sense it, I don't believe it makes it less real. This realisation is both utterly terrifying and enormously rectifying. It both scares me and puts my mind at ease. We can't understand everything. We simply can't - that's a fact. No one will ever understand everything, at least so long as they exist in this universe. We may strive and strive to unlock all of the mysteries, but there will always be questions, theories, doubts... That's what makes this world we live in, our lives, so wonderful and so awful at the same time. We naturally fear the unknown, and yet we strive to unlock it, to understand it. We are curious by nature, and yet we fear what we don't know, and what is there to be curious about but the unknown?
Perhaps no one is truly 'mad' until they're minds, their very cores, have been so twisted and warped that they are hopelessly heading towards an unfortunate demise. Sane until prove insane, perhaps. And we typically rush to conclude an individual is insane simply if we don't understand him or her. If the individual doesn't follow the 'average' coarse, and deviates so much that it potentially counteracts the flow of the most common reality. I believe that 'unable to function in society' really means 'unable to conform adequately to common perceptions.' In an alternate universe where the clinically insane are the normal ones, perhaps the ones we consider sane would actually be considered insane, as well. Everything is a matter of perception. Some individuals can't handle these altered perceptions, and their beings start to be twisted and warped. I do honestly believe that these individuals should get treatment, should get meds, so that they can return to, or come to, a state in which their minds can handle. I was once at a point where my altered reality was so estranged from what my mind could truly comprehend that I went mad for a while. I was certainly insane and unable to tolerate this altered reality. But, after getting treatment, and having given my mind time to cool down, learn, and grow... I think I'm ready to handle these alterations. I think my mind can once again wrap around these alternative realities. Now, whether or not I actually have hallucinations is currently unknown. My past hallucinations could've been perpetual due to a constant lack of sleep. Anyone and everyone can experience hallucinations under the right conditions, and tiredness - lack of sleep - is one such condition. People who've never had a mental illness, have no family history of mental illness, can go for days without adequate sleep and suddenly start seeings things that aren't there. So, yes, if I have enough sleep, I might never hallucinate again. Or, perhaps, I might not have started hallucinating because it takes as long as months for my meds to truly empty out of my system, or because my meds permanently altered my brain chemistry, or because I haven't had extreme enough circumstances, other than just lack of sleep, to induce these hallucinations. Many schizophrenics, for instance, have very disorderly, incongruous and inconsistent, hallucinations, but mixed with lack of sleep, they can suddenly become extremely lucid and real to that individual.
So many factors... so many mysteries... If this were not so, life would be so much easier, right? But as I titled this, as I wrote, the beautiful path is seldom the easy one. The real challenge is in understanding, or even realising, that this is so.
Do you ever hear about how the great spiritual figures in history and religion glided smoothly through life and into transcendence? Nope. You hear about a long, hard journey filled with doubt, wonder, pain, and strife... You hear about a journey with tremendous ups and treacherous lows. They know both great joy and dire despair. They've experienced the full range of what life has to offer, both good and bad. Perhaps they didn't necessarily go on murderous rampages, or give into the darkness so much that they at least dipped their toes in evil, but they did have to deal with such individuals. They have emotional and spiritual conflict. They were not always so certain of their purpose, of their religion, their god(s) or goddess(es). If such an individual came to be in this modern world, they'd probably be thrown into a psychiatric ward and pumped full of pills until these extremes seemingly disappeared... until they became 'normal.' I've seen some of these historic, grand figures - these spiritual marvels and tremendous heroes - and seen so many qualities of bipolar, of depression, of schizophrenia...
So, what really distinguished these people from those with 'mental illness'? Was it just that the times have changed and we've gained a different understanding of the human body and psyche? Have we unlocked hidden problems that were invisible to those of the past? Did our society change in such a way that it was virtually inhabitable for individuals like these great historic figures? So many questions that just might be impossible to answer...
Moses. He saw a burning bush... and God's voice came from it and sent him a message... and then the fire went out, and the bush wasn't burned. Some people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and various other mental illnesses, see spiritual hallucinations - things no one else sees. No one was around Moses, thus no one could actually prove anyone else could see what he saw. Yes, perhaps it was a physical manifestation that everyone could've seen, and that there were no hallucinations. But reality is an artificial construct of our minds, interpreting sensory data to map out a perceptual conception of what we call reality. You obstruct, enable, or alter any of these senses in any given way and the individual's reality changes radically. So what truly defines reality? What is real and what is false? Certainly their are some solid things. If I touch a rock, and then you touch the rock, the rock is probably their. If I hear a voice, and you hear a voice, and the voice is exactly the same to both of us, then it's probably real. But reality is still only as true as we can perceive it. Our dreams are truly real until we wake up. How can anyone prove that our spirits, minds, or souls don't enter some other dimension - some other world - while sleeping? Do we have to physically be their, or is it enough for only our abstract, our consciousness, to be their independently? If a heaven and/or hell exist, and our spirits go their, but our bodies don't, do we no longer exist? Are we no longer 'real' because we lack our bodies?
So back to Moses. There were, in fact, many physical manifestations that direly affected a great deal of people. There were plagues, one after the other. I do believe that God had a hand in this, but I also think that God often works within the confines of our logical, physical universe. He used frogs, locusts, droughts, hailstorms... He used things physically possible in our world. He didn't summon some grand creature with such an indescribable appearance or presence that it could drive a man mad just trying to wrap his mind around it... He didn't conjure something that was never before seen to the universe. Rather, God used the scientific laws, the constraints and rules of the universe, and he made them happen. Some could argue that the chances of things happening exactly as the Bible said they did would be so unlikely that it certainly didn't happen... But who in this world hasn't seen something that was so anomalous that they simply couldn't explain it? They occur at least at some point in someone's life, and yet these events couldn't possibly have happened at such isolated points in time so long ago? Occasionally... God does utilise truly baffling things to make His will a reality. These can be visions, dreams, or things that only a few - especially spiritual individuals - could see or did see. These more abstract, bizarre instances seem to be so similar to so many bipolar experiences. Mass hallucinations and delusions have occurred, in that multiple individuals saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt the same thing, even if no one else could. We often attribute these to chemical imbalances in the brain.
In that quote from the bottom of the first paragraph in this rant, this journal, a man knew he had bipolar - a chemical imbalance. It's proven that the bipolar mind acts differently than the 'average' or 'normal' mind. An interesting fact is that it's essentially impossible to detect bipolar simply from a brain scan... So, this man, Rod Harvey, is fully aware of his condition. He knows at least the basic scientific explanations behind the disorder - bipolar. He's aware of the physical and logical manifestations of his disorder. And yet... he refused 'treatment.' He refuses meds because he walks with angels. His mania highs give him such euphoria, such love and joy, and such splendid experiences. His mania also gives him frightening, terrible images - such as how he, "actually hallucinated by seeing the devil... Burning black coals of the eyes of the devil." Rod uses words like 'hallucination' or 'mania' or 'anxiety.' These are very clinical words. He is not oblivious, not unknowledgeable, and yet he accepts his hallucinations, his bipolar, and embraces it, even. He's learned to live with it, to function in modern society. Many psychiatrists, I'm sure, would just love to get a piece of him, to throw him into a hospital and to flood him with meds. He did attempt suicide once, after all, by walking right into traffic and nearly succeeding in killing himself! And yet... I see absolutely no reason to admit him, to call him crazy, or to fill him up with drugs to 'normalise' him. He is a marvel, he has a beautiful, magnificent mind... He walks with angels.
Reality is simply a perspective... One view out of many. Typically, realities align, and this is considered truly reality. But perhaps there can be more than one reality. Perhaps a person can see one reality overlap another, yet the people around them are totally unable to see them. And if you got a crowd of people hallucinating at the same time, you might have dozens of different realities overlapping! And does this make any one reality more real than another? Even great scientists dwell on the possibilities of many dimensions, multiple universes and worlds overlapping on another... The 4th dimension is believed to be unseeable, incomprehensible, to us 3-dimensional creatures. A 1-dimension entity could not comprehend a 2-dimensional entity, but could perhaps comprehend a 0-dimensional entity; likewise, a 2-dimensional entity could not comprehend a 3-dimensional entity, and yet it could comprehend a 1-dimensional entity. A 3-dimensional entity could not comprehend a 4-dimensional entity, but it could comprehend a 2-, 1-, or 0-dimensional entity. Now, this assumes that, somehow, these entities have some sort of sentience - consciousness and intelligence. It's purely hypothetical, theoretical. But these concepts are still generally accepted.
Regardless of if we can, in some ways, comprehend dimensions less than our own, but are unable to comprehend dimensions beyond ours, we really can only see and best understand our very own dimension - the one we live in and truly experience. But if a 4th dimension does exist, or a 5th, 6th, and so on, and somehow... by some crazy, virtually impossible to understand, circumstance, we were able to get a peak into that dimension... would what we saw not be real? If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, did it make a sound? The answer... yes. Just because others didn't sense it, I don't believe it makes it less real. This realisation is both utterly terrifying and enormously rectifying. It both scares me and puts my mind at ease. We can't understand everything. We simply can't - that's a fact. No one will ever understand everything, at least so long as they exist in this universe. We may strive and strive to unlock all of the mysteries, but there will always be questions, theories, doubts... That's what makes this world we live in, our lives, so wonderful and so awful at the same time. We naturally fear the unknown, and yet we strive to unlock it, to understand it. We are curious by nature, and yet we fear what we don't know, and what is there to be curious about but the unknown?
Perhaps no one is truly 'mad' until they're minds, their very cores, have been so twisted and warped that they are hopelessly heading towards an unfortunate demise. Sane until prove insane, perhaps. And we typically rush to conclude an individual is insane simply if we don't understand him or her. If the individual doesn't follow the 'average' coarse, and deviates so much that it potentially counteracts the flow of the most common reality. I believe that 'unable to function in society' really means 'unable to conform adequately to common perceptions.' In an alternate universe where the clinically insane are the normal ones, perhaps the ones we consider sane would actually be considered insane, as well. Everything is a matter of perception. Some individuals can't handle these altered perceptions, and their beings start to be twisted and warped. I do honestly believe that these individuals should get treatment, should get meds, so that they can return to, or come to, a state in which their minds can handle. I was once at a point where my altered reality was so estranged from what my mind could truly comprehend that I went mad for a while. I was certainly insane and unable to tolerate this altered reality. But, after getting treatment, and having given my mind time to cool down, learn, and grow... I think I'm ready to handle these alterations. I think my mind can once again wrap around these alternative realities. Now, whether or not I actually have hallucinations is currently unknown. My past hallucinations could've been perpetual due to a constant lack of sleep. Anyone and everyone can experience hallucinations under the right conditions, and tiredness - lack of sleep - is one such condition. People who've never had a mental illness, have no family history of mental illness, can go for days without adequate sleep and suddenly start seeings things that aren't there. So, yes, if I have enough sleep, I might never hallucinate again. Or, perhaps, I might not have started hallucinating because it takes as long as months for my meds to truly empty out of my system, or because my meds permanently altered my brain chemistry, or because I haven't had extreme enough circumstances, other than just lack of sleep, to induce these hallucinations. Many schizophrenics, for instance, have very disorderly, incongruous and inconsistent, hallucinations, but mixed with lack of sleep, they can suddenly become extremely lucid and real to that individual.
So many factors... so many mysteries... If this were not so, life would be so much easier, right? But as I titled this, as I wrote, the beautiful path is seldom the easy one. The real challenge is in understanding, or even realising, that this is so.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Sickness, Depression, and... Spirituality?
I got sick a few days ago... It's actually kind of difficult to
accurately say exactly when I got the virus, but based on my mood
charts, it was about two or three days ago (my mood went from having at
least some symptoms of being 'elevated' to being totally absent of such
symptoms, and rather leaning toward and dipping into depression.)
Looking at it from a simplistic view, utilising numbers and images, I
could track more than just my mood. I saw my mood dipping and dipping,
getting duller, sadder, more lethargic, and even quieter to an extent
(though, when I got irritated, I wasn't so quiet...) Life was looking
bland. It wasn't quite hopeless, no, but it wasn't really hopeful,
either. It was just... there. Life was life. And then the virus
germinated inside me, spread like wildfire, and beat the crap out of me.
Now, for two days, I've been totally miserable, both emotionally and
physically. I'm totally drained, my life feeling like it's seeping out
of my body.
Now, you might think that my list of symptoms aren't really that terrible - especially if you currently aren't sick. Stuffy and runny nose, soar throat, pretty bad, painful, dry cough, body aches and headaches. It's all pretty classic symptoms of that little, but awful, thing known as the 'common cold.' There's nothing especially tragic or dire about this virus, and everyone gets it eventually (unless you're a bubble boy, in which case it'd probably kill you! and then it really is dire.) But when you have a mood disorder, or potentially just about any mental illness, things are intensified. Things are amplified to levels that the average, healthy individual likely couldn't fully understand. When I get a 'common cold,' I dip into depression. Now, what are the symptoms of mild depression? Body aches, headaches, lack of motivations and energy, lethargy, tiredness, sleep disturbance, feeling like the life has been drained out of you... and those are just the physical effects! The psychological effects? Things are perceived as duller, you have a lingering cloud of sadness (sometimes becoming tearfulness for seemingly no reason), you lack the interest in things you used to like, or even love, you typically find less meaning in life, your perceptions are distorted so that essentially everything looks negative, at least to some extent... Now, I'm just talking about mild depression - not full-blown major depression.
So when you combine the symptoms of depression, which can be almost flu-like on the physical side, and which can be draining from the mental side, with the symptoms of a cold, you get a pretty volatile mixture. It's similar to battling both the flu and the cold at the same time, but with a somewhat different set of obstacles and symptoms. Your body goes from just drained and sub-par with the cold to drained of your life, of your soul, and feeling so miserable you want to do anything just to end the misery. This is how I've felt for the past couple of days - totally miserable. And I have been trying just about everything to get rid of the misery - from utterly disgusting teas to a range of over-the-counter meds and even somewhat less common tactics, such as nasal irrigation and a therapeutic humidifier. Nothing's really worked so far. So... I seemed to run out of options... and what do I do? Well, I made a radical decision - perhaps one of the craziest decisions I ever made! (and I've made a lot of crazy decisions.)
I accepted it.
Yep, just like that... I accepted it. I accepted that I had a cold and it wasn't planning on going away, despite all my efforts. I accepted that I fell into a bout of depression and that I felt awful both emotionally and physically. 'So you gave up!' you might think. But I didn't. Sure, I accepted it, and sure, I know that - at least at the moment - I can't really do much about it. But if more options appear, I certainly will try them to alleviate the pain and the draining effects. But I can't right now. Not at this very moment. So why constantly struggle, so hopelessly, over something that I can't so easily control? Why battle and battle when I don't have the ability to tumble this terrible foe? Now, with the depression, it's a little easier to deal with it. The cold is physical - another entity within me just gunning to take me down. I will feel miserable until that thing is dead, and I somewhat have to wait it out until my body does it's thing and finally kills that horrid virus. I have to have faith that my body will deal with it, which I'm sure it will.
Depression, as I said before, is a little easier to deal with if you have the right tactics. Normally, depression is like this massive stone wall that no creature - man or beast, land, sea, or air-dwelling - could possibly get over. But humans have this wonderful gift - ingenuity. What is ingenuity, exactly? Well, let's look at an official definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: "a : skill or cleverness in devising or combining : inventiveness; b : cleverness or aptness of design or contrivance." So what does this essentially mean? Well, as humans, we have the gift of using our minds to adapt and conquer, to make the world be as we see fit. Mixing it with our natural willpower and free will, well... you get great - almost unimaginably great! - methods for adapting and conquering things we never thought we could adapt to or conquer. So why would depression be any different? As long as we utilise our gift of ingenuity, learn from others and the world around us, we can adapt to or conquer anything and everything. This can be good or bad, depending on how we deal with the situations in which we find ourselves.
So, with the depression, I accepted it. Easier said than done, certainly, but I got to this point of realisation - an epiphany of sorts - where I realised that I can just accept that I was depressed rather than toil and fight with it. Rather than see depression as an enemy or something to rid myself of, I realised that I can utilise it, learn from it, accept it... and, if necessary, stop believing what my mind was telling me. Not everything I think is truth. Just because I thought something about myself or my surroundings does not make it fact. And when you are depressed, your thoughts can be extremely distorted, and you start to become blind to the truth, and accept all of the lies you tell yourself as absolute fact. So, this acceptance, acknowledgement, and even ability to realise that not all of the things your mind tells you are true, or to at least question the integrity of what you think before accepting it, are all mindfulness. Mindfulness is being aware of what is going on, but taking a more passive stance, rather than struggling and resisting what is going on. With bipolar, in particular, sometimes... a person just has to accept that they are going to have down moods, up moods, and in-between moods, or even mixed moods. If it happened even just once, it'll most likely happen again... and again after that, and again after that. To deny this, to resist this, is just unnecessary and exhausting labor that could end up being the actual downfall of the individual with bipolar.
Now, you don't want to be so passive that you do absolutely nothing. That's a dire misconception. Rather, you want to be unbiased, rational, aware... You want to be able to identify everything that is going on within and without, to be understanding, and to not let your irrationality or natural defence mechanisms get the better of you. When we give in to the lies, the defence mechanisms, the coping mechanisms, and believe everything our minds tell us, we become slaves to our bipolar. Bipolar can be good or bad, but it all depends on how you deal with it. Often, it starts out terribly bad, primarily because we don't understand the bipolar, what's going on with us and in our minds, and we can't control it or appropriately deal with it. Bipolar appears as this looming monster trying to swallow us up. And, in some cases, this might be exactly what happens. If you don't learn to adapt and grow, to appropriately deal with the bipolar, it will likely swallow you up whole in one way or another.
In this bout of mild depression, I had several revelations. I also happened to be watching the History Channel show, The Bible, which shows strong spiritual struggles, conflicts, both within and without. But do you know what the difference between the 'protagonists' in these stories versus the 'average' person? Those protagonists know how to deal with those struggles. In the end, they are victorious. They adapted, conquered, and accepted. As I watched these biblical stories being enacted in a stunningly engaging visual re-enactment, I realised just how similar these great protagonists, these great historical figures, were to someone with bipolar who mastered mindfulness. They knew misery, they knew great joy, they had ups and downs, they had great inner conflicts, as well as outer conflicts. But what was so different with them? They accepted. They believed. They sorted out what was right from what was wrong. They denied the lies generated in their mind - however good their mind's intent was in creating these lies - and they accepted the truths. They were masters of the art of mindfulness. They were... aware.
So, even after finishing watching the show - the first episode, at least - I started looking at my own struggles, within and without. I started to become more mindful, but it was just plain rationality, logic, and science, even. It was something spiritual. And I experienced a spirituality which I hadn't felt in a long time. When did I last feel such spirituality? Before I got on meds. And what changed in my life, now? I got off meds. I let my bipolar free. I gave it back its potential. Sure, there may be some permanent changes, or even some rehabilitation needed - what do you think would happen after 5 years of being trapped in a cage? My bipolar was like some fierce, exotic animal trapped in a cage, restrained, for 5 years. Sure, this creature could be vicious and deadly, but it can also be beautiful - one of God's very own creations. You look at a wolf from a distance, and you think how beautiful, sleek, and powerful it looks. But, up close, you fear it. You fear the very presence, whether or not it is malicious.
Man once lived in the wild. We were hunter-gatherers. In terms of biology, history, and cosmology, this wasn't very long ago. But we adapted so quickly, we became such clever, ingenious creatures, that we outran our biology by miles and miles. We are still biologically similar to those hunter gatherers. We are still primal at heart and in our very DNA, but modern society and advances came so quickly and so rapidly that our biology couldn't possibly catch up. Being bipolar is much like being a hunter-gatherer. You can either succumb to nature and die, or you can thrive and survive. With bipolar, you can tame the wild (but at what cost?) or you can learn to live amongst it. While I won't be going out of my house to live in the woods anytime soon, the metaphor still stands. Psychologically, I'm a hunter-gatherer, and my bipolar is my wilderness. I tried to tame it, I tried to cut down the forests and kill all of the animals, but that truly does not work. As modern humans, we're starting to learn this. We're starting to realise the costs of advancing so quickly beyond our biology, our very own nature. So I let the wilderness be. I let it start growing back, start becoming what it once was in all of its glory. I may be frightened by it to some extent, but I'm learning how to survive. I'm learning how to adapt because I'm a human, and humans have the gift of ingenuity.
There are a couple of great blogs that I read (coincidentally right after all of the things I just wrote about) that describe various areas of what I talked about to varying degrees: Finding Value In Depression and Mania, Are You Missing a Piece of Your Happiness?, and Untreated Depression in Pregnant Women
That's in order of what I think is most relevant to least relevant to what I've talked about. They did also influence some of what I said, primarily in a syntactical way. I thought it was so bizarre and amazing that I'd stumble upon those blogs right after all of these revelations and epiphanies I had. If that isn't a sign of something greater, I don't know what is. The stars seemed to have aligned and dropped a little gift right in my lap. As the first blog says, I found 'value in depression' (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, mainly because I'm not currently manic) 'and mania.' I took what I always knew deep inside and fully realised it. I accepted my bipolar, and I found the value behind it. Perhaps I can truly begin to make progress... Perhaps I truly laid down the start of a great foundation to build from.
Now, you might think that my list of symptoms aren't really that terrible - especially if you currently aren't sick. Stuffy and runny nose, soar throat, pretty bad, painful, dry cough, body aches and headaches. It's all pretty classic symptoms of that little, but awful, thing known as the 'common cold.' There's nothing especially tragic or dire about this virus, and everyone gets it eventually (unless you're a bubble boy, in which case it'd probably kill you! and then it really is dire.) But when you have a mood disorder, or potentially just about any mental illness, things are intensified. Things are amplified to levels that the average, healthy individual likely couldn't fully understand. When I get a 'common cold,' I dip into depression. Now, what are the symptoms of mild depression? Body aches, headaches, lack of motivations and energy, lethargy, tiredness, sleep disturbance, feeling like the life has been drained out of you... and those are just the physical effects! The psychological effects? Things are perceived as duller, you have a lingering cloud of sadness (sometimes becoming tearfulness for seemingly no reason), you lack the interest in things you used to like, or even love, you typically find less meaning in life, your perceptions are distorted so that essentially everything looks negative, at least to some extent... Now, I'm just talking about mild depression - not full-blown major depression.
So when you combine the symptoms of depression, which can be almost flu-like on the physical side, and which can be draining from the mental side, with the symptoms of a cold, you get a pretty volatile mixture. It's similar to battling both the flu and the cold at the same time, but with a somewhat different set of obstacles and symptoms. Your body goes from just drained and sub-par with the cold to drained of your life, of your soul, and feeling so miserable you want to do anything just to end the misery. This is how I've felt for the past couple of days - totally miserable. And I have been trying just about everything to get rid of the misery - from utterly disgusting teas to a range of over-the-counter meds and even somewhat less common tactics, such as nasal irrigation and a therapeutic humidifier. Nothing's really worked so far. So... I seemed to run out of options... and what do I do? Well, I made a radical decision - perhaps one of the craziest decisions I ever made! (and I've made a lot of crazy decisions.)
I accepted it.
Yep, just like that... I accepted it. I accepted that I had a cold and it wasn't planning on going away, despite all my efforts. I accepted that I fell into a bout of depression and that I felt awful both emotionally and physically. 'So you gave up!' you might think. But I didn't. Sure, I accepted it, and sure, I know that - at least at the moment - I can't really do much about it. But if more options appear, I certainly will try them to alleviate the pain and the draining effects. But I can't right now. Not at this very moment. So why constantly struggle, so hopelessly, over something that I can't so easily control? Why battle and battle when I don't have the ability to tumble this terrible foe? Now, with the depression, it's a little easier to deal with it. The cold is physical - another entity within me just gunning to take me down. I will feel miserable until that thing is dead, and I somewhat have to wait it out until my body does it's thing and finally kills that horrid virus. I have to have faith that my body will deal with it, which I'm sure it will.
Depression, as I said before, is a little easier to deal with if you have the right tactics. Normally, depression is like this massive stone wall that no creature - man or beast, land, sea, or air-dwelling - could possibly get over. But humans have this wonderful gift - ingenuity. What is ingenuity, exactly? Well, let's look at an official definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary: "a : skill or cleverness in devising or combining : inventiveness; b : cleverness or aptness of design or contrivance." So what does this essentially mean? Well, as humans, we have the gift of using our minds to adapt and conquer, to make the world be as we see fit. Mixing it with our natural willpower and free will, well... you get great - almost unimaginably great! - methods for adapting and conquering things we never thought we could adapt to or conquer. So why would depression be any different? As long as we utilise our gift of ingenuity, learn from others and the world around us, we can adapt to or conquer anything and everything. This can be good or bad, depending on how we deal with the situations in which we find ourselves.
So, with the depression, I accepted it. Easier said than done, certainly, but I got to this point of realisation - an epiphany of sorts - where I realised that I can just accept that I was depressed rather than toil and fight with it. Rather than see depression as an enemy or something to rid myself of, I realised that I can utilise it, learn from it, accept it... and, if necessary, stop believing what my mind was telling me. Not everything I think is truth. Just because I thought something about myself or my surroundings does not make it fact. And when you are depressed, your thoughts can be extremely distorted, and you start to become blind to the truth, and accept all of the lies you tell yourself as absolute fact. So, this acceptance, acknowledgement, and even ability to realise that not all of the things your mind tells you are true, or to at least question the integrity of what you think before accepting it, are all mindfulness. Mindfulness is being aware of what is going on, but taking a more passive stance, rather than struggling and resisting what is going on. With bipolar, in particular, sometimes... a person just has to accept that they are going to have down moods, up moods, and in-between moods, or even mixed moods. If it happened even just once, it'll most likely happen again... and again after that, and again after that. To deny this, to resist this, is just unnecessary and exhausting labor that could end up being the actual downfall of the individual with bipolar.
Now, you don't want to be so passive that you do absolutely nothing. That's a dire misconception. Rather, you want to be unbiased, rational, aware... You want to be able to identify everything that is going on within and without, to be understanding, and to not let your irrationality or natural defence mechanisms get the better of you. When we give in to the lies, the defence mechanisms, the coping mechanisms, and believe everything our minds tell us, we become slaves to our bipolar. Bipolar can be good or bad, but it all depends on how you deal with it. Often, it starts out terribly bad, primarily because we don't understand the bipolar, what's going on with us and in our minds, and we can't control it or appropriately deal with it. Bipolar appears as this looming monster trying to swallow us up. And, in some cases, this might be exactly what happens. If you don't learn to adapt and grow, to appropriately deal with the bipolar, it will likely swallow you up whole in one way or another.
In this bout of mild depression, I had several revelations. I also happened to be watching the History Channel show, The Bible, which shows strong spiritual struggles, conflicts, both within and without. But do you know what the difference between the 'protagonists' in these stories versus the 'average' person? Those protagonists know how to deal with those struggles. In the end, they are victorious. They adapted, conquered, and accepted. As I watched these biblical stories being enacted in a stunningly engaging visual re-enactment, I realised just how similar these great protagonists, these great historical figures, were to someone with bipolar who mastered mindfulness. They knew misery, they knew great joy, they had ups and downs, they had great inner conflicts, as well as outer conflicts. But what was so different with them? They accepted. They believed. They sorted out what was right from what was wrong. They denied the lies generated in their mind - however good their mind's intent was in creating these lies - and they accepted the truths. They were masters of the art of mindfulness. They were... aware.
So, even after finishing watching the show - the first episode, at least - I started looking at my own struggles, within and without. I started to become more mindful, but it was just plain rationality, logic, and science, even. It was something spiritual. And I experienced a spirituality which I hadn't felt in a long time. When did I last feel such spirituality? Before I got on meds. And what changed in my life, now? I got off meds. I let my bipolar free. I gave it back its potential. Sure, there may be some permanent changes, or even some rehabilitation needed - what do you think would happen after 5 years of being trapped in a cage? My bipolar was like some fierce, exotic animal trapped in a cage, restrained, for 5 years. Sure, this creature could be vicious and deadly, but it can also be beautiful - one of God's very own creations. You look at a wolf from a distance, and you think how beautiful, sleek, and powerful it looks. But, up close, you fear it. You fear the very presence, whether or not it is malicious.
Man once lived in the wild. We were hunter-gatherers. In terms of biology, history, and cosmology, this wasn't very long ago. But we adapted so quickly, we became such clever, ingenious creatures, that we outran our biology by miles and miles. We are still biologically similar to those hunter gatherers. We are still primal at heart and in our very DNA, but modern society and advances came so quickly and so rapidly that our biology couldn't possibly catch up. Being bipolar is much like being a hunter-gatherer. You can either succumb to nature and die, or you can thrive and survive. With bipolar, you can tame the wild (but at what cost?) or you can learn to live amongst it. While I won't be going out of my house to live in the woods anytime soon, the metaphor still stands. Psychologically, I'm a hunter-gatherer, and my bipolar is my wilderness. I tried to tame it, I tried to cut down the forests and kill all of the animals, but that truly does not work. As modern humans, we're starting to learn this. We're starting to realise the costs of advancing so quickly beyond our biology, our very own nature. So I let the wilderness be. I let it start growing back, start becoming what it once was in all of its glory. I may be frightened by it to some extent, but I'm learning how to survive. I'm learning how to adapt because I'm a human, and humans have the gift of ingenuity.
There are a couple of great blogs that I read (coincidentally right after all of the things I just wrote about) that describe various areas of what I talked about to varying degrees: Finding Value In Depression and Mania, Are You Missing a Piece of Your Happiness?, and Untreated Depression in Pregnant Women
That's in order of what I think is most relevant to least relevant to what I've talked about. They did also influence some of what I said, primarily in a syntactical way. I thought it was so bizarre and amazing that I'd stumble upon those blogs right after all of these revelations and epiphanies I had. If that isn't a sign of something greater, I don't know what is. The stars seemed to have aligned and dropped a little gift right in my lap. As the first blog says, I found 'value in depression' (and, to a somewhat lesser extent, mainly because I'm not currently manic) 'and mania.' I took what I always knew deep inside and fully realised it. I accepted my bipolar, and I found the value behind it. Perhaps I can truly begin to make progress... Perhaps I truly laid down the start of a great foundation to build from.
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