The Ebb and Flow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Lost Part

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blissful Ignorance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Homemade Mocha, Part II

People look at me and my life and think I'm just not trying very hard - that I'm overly privileged because I can just drop everything and stay cooped up in my house. But they don't realise that every single day of my life is a struggle just to stay alive. If it weren't for my fighting spirit, I feel as though my body would've just given up and I'd have faded from existence a long time ago. But no, my spirit keeps me going, driving me from one day to the other in hopes that I might be able to climb back up out of the hole I fell into and just live! I'm still here because of hope and because of those little moments like with the homemade mocha. All of the little things culminate into something great that keeps me going.

Depression can be defined in its most simplistic form as pressing down on something or someone. Depression is a pressure or force on the body and the mind, which can be caused by both external and internal sources. But, ironically, an atmospheric depression seems to release this pressure, making the weight on my shoulders seem to vanish. That feeling is so pivotal because of its antithetical nature to my depression. I welcome the storms. I embrace and love the storms - especially that peaceful moment just before. I may not be able to access that wonderful, powerful, amazing part of my mind anymore, but I feel that - one day - I'll be able to dig and dig deep enough that it'll come bursting out. And it is hope that makes me believe - a force greater than the forces of nature. Hope is the driving force of humanity, and it has gotten me this far. If I give up on hope, now, it'll be like swimming half-way and then turning back.

I once nearly drowned. I was just four or five years old. Most people think that drowning would be extremely scary, but I don't think that. As the water filled my lungs, I quickly began to lose oxygen to my brain. This caused me to begin to fall into a very dreamy state. I didn't feel any kind of pain and can't even remember pain. The process was amazingly fast. I may have struggled at first, as anyone would, but I don't really remember that part, either. What I remember most was this amazing peacefulness I felt. Everything started to become dark and my eyes began to close, the sunlight above refracting into the pool water. I stopped thinking - I wasn't really in a conscious state, but I was still oddly aware. I saw a humanoid shadow block out the sun and start to come to me when everything went dark. Moments later, I was wide awake, chlorinated water spewing out one horrible cough at a time.

I know I was terrified, especially afterward. I had trouble learning to swim for years and years afterward, completely petrified of water that merely went higher than my nose, let alone truly deep water. But I also had a growing fascination with water. Some of the most peaceful moments in life come from the most tragic of moments. Sometimes, horror breeds purity and calm. I think this is how some of my deepest depressions were; I would have some of the calmest, most tranquil moments when I was the most depressed and hit the rockiest of bottoms. I'd watch the sun rise and let life hand me the self-therapy I needed so direly. Seeing the quiet, lovely nature that somehow manages to survive amongst all of the asphalt and concrete, when cars aren't driving about and people aren't yet awake, and the world is still for a brief period, I could find peace.

I've never really been able to find true meaningfulness in life without crashing badly. Steady moods were stagnant and unproductive. Highs were more delusional, temporary, and empty. But those lingering lows that took so long to climb out of were like trials for my soul to bring about enlightenment. And when I'd rise, I'd rise a little taller. Depression tempers the soul into a finer, sharper steel, wrought out of the blackest, most brittle iron. It's a very difficult process, and takes its toll time after time, but it always imparts something a little greater.

Wellbutrin, Wonders or Worries?

I recently got on Wellbutrin, an atypical anti-depressant, for my bipolar depression. It usually works within the first one or two weeks, and - right around the start of week two - I started to notice effects fitting of Wellbutrin. Apparently, Wellbutrin can cause hypersomnia (lengthier nighttime sleeping, more daytime sleepiness and/or sleeping, and such), and one study I read said that it was most prevalent within the first month of use. Well, guess what! I started sleeping for 12 hours a day rather uncontrollably. And then, when I wake, before I know it, my mouth is flapping uncontrollably, exhausting mom just from having to listen to me talk! Hmm... think the hypomania's acting up! Wellbutrin is supposed to have a decreased incidence of this in bipolar patience in comparison to other anti-depressants, but I'm always the exception to the rule, it seems. It's also supposed to have a decreased incidence of '(hypo)manic switching,' switching being a term that refers to suddenly and quickly switching from one mood (e.g. depression) to another (e.g. mania.) In some people, the switching can seem almost instantaneous. Well, I've noticed a little of that, too - from sudden bouts of depression and loneliness to equally sudden bouts of hypomania.

Now, Wellbutrin is supposed to also be able to help with ADHD. To what extent, I'm not completely certain. If it has helped, I'd probably need a pair of outside eyes to weigh in, as the hypomanic moods and quick shifts of lethargy and depression have somewhat occupied all of my cranial space. I did just recently score an 86 on a scale that ends at '70 and above' for ADHD, but that was apparently given lifelong experiences, especially in adulthood (since I really just reached that, I included all of my teen years in the considerations.) I have noticed that I can keep on a topic when talking a little better - spewing out words a hundred at a time, but usually still on topic. It's hard to tell anything else, though, when manic symptoms and ADHD symptoms overlap so much and are so similar, so obviously during a manic episode, what's causing what will appear a bit vague and ambiguous. I have, however, stated to my NP on more than one occasion that I want to maintain my mood somewhere around hypomanic and level, though that might take much more of a toll on those around me than on myself.

On the plus side, I have been getting that extra energy boost I've been wanting, but then again, at what cost? Sleeping for an average of 12 hours - effectively taking half of my day away - makes there a lot less time to utilise that energy. While I have gotten some more things done in that time - even though my current tasks have been relatively irrelevant to life - perhaps just balancing it out. I have had less pain in the time the Wellbutrin seemed to have started to kick in, which could incidentally be a result of the hypomania and increased dopamine from the Wellbutrin. I've actually been able to get little workouts in for almost every day in the past week, which is definitely a plus, and might allow me to eventually work back to the point of being able to climb a single flight of stairs without feeling out of breath! Or to walk around Walmart for a little while without feeling like killing myself just to make the pain go away - especially in my joints. My NP actually asked if I had osteoporosis from how inactive I've been! I'm quite certain that would be some ways down the way, though.

So to list the pros and cons of Wellbutrin as of week three (week two since it kicked in)....

Pros: Overall elevated mood, shorter episodes of depression, increased energy, possible decrease of ADHD symptoms (though that's yet to really be confirmed), hypomania

Cons: More mood 'switching,' sleeping for 12 hours at a time, possibility of worse panicking (yet to be seen, though), hypomania

And yes, hypomania went into both categories.

Painful Pane of Glass

Have you ever watched yourself as you were commandeered?
Have you ever felt that you were on the sideline of your own life?
Have you ever, have you ever watched through that painful pane of glass?
Have you ever felt you weren’t you, and no longer in control?

Like a horrible flood, or a slaughter for blood.
Like a big horrid storm that’s become the new norm.
Like a sick psychopath making a big, big blood bath.
Like a volcanic ash cloud that seems to swallow the ground.

Have you ever seen yourself commit suicide, or try and try?
Have you ever seen yourself beat so to shit by your very own fists?
Have you ever seen yourself tear up the ground and swallow your loved ones whole?
Have you ever felt you weren’t you, and no longer in control?

I cry in the corner, not sure of myself, not sure of what I am.
I try to hold it all in so you cannot see, you can’t see me for me.
Like a werewolf at night, I turn and tear up the living nearby.
I’m a vampire in bloodlust, draining you for all of your trust.

Like a horrible flood, or a slaughter for blood.
Like a big horrid storm that’s become the new norm.
Like a sick psychopath making a big, big blood bath.
Like a volcanic ash cloud that seems to swallow the ground.

Have you ever fallen out of yourself, like you died and your soul had departed?
Have you ever watched yourself tear down everything you ever loved?
Have you ever felt your own heart ripped out by your very own hand?
Have you ever felt you weren’t you, and no longer in control?

Sometimes I just want it to end, even if it meant I’d just die.
Sometimes I’m so sick of myself, I don’t want to show my face.
Sometimes I think I’d be better of buried and out of your life.
Sometimes I just cannot see anything else but strife.

Have you ever felt you weren’t you, and no longer in control?

Progress, or Hindrance?

For the online game I've been playing, I wanted to address an issue in the forum and propose a possible fix. In the game, you can invade a neighboring empire and plunder any one of their buildings every 24 hours as long as you can breach their defences. Naturally, the stronger players in each neighborhood decimate the weaker players and try to take their most valuable things. These valuable things are necessary to make progress in the game. Many players have been complaining for some time about the plundering option, and even leaving the game entirely, while - of course - mostly the dominant, higher ranked players are just calling the sufferers whiners. Many of these stronger players seemingly devote their lives to the game and will breach a neighbors defences and then wait up to the allotted 24-hour window to plunder that neighbor when they're best producers are done producing! People who can't play so obsessively and constantly obviously have to have larger periods of being offline before they can come back and collect their stuff. Each player can choose various lengths of time for producing from anywhere between just 5 minutes at a time to 48 hours! The longer period you choose, the more stuff you get at the time of collecting (though if you could be there to collect every 5 minutes, it would be drastically more efficient than every 4, 8, 24, or 48 hours; that's just not realistic for many people, or probably most people.)

My person experience from being on the wrong end of plundering has obviously colored my views on the subject, for if I were a much more successful fighter and plunderer, I obviously wouldn't be trying to 'fix' the plundering system to limit my plundering abilities in any way - but this isn't a bad thing. See, I've been through the game's forums and I've seen argument after argument for both sides and took both sides into heavy consideration. Some people wanted to only limit the plundering so that those who are being plundered get only a benefit and those plundering get only a limitation. I don't agree with - the 'fix' shouldn't purely help one and hinder another. Others have quite bluntly said that people who get plundered should just 'get used to it,' also not a viable option. The game specifically lays it out so that you can focus on military might, trading, or something in between, but because of the plundering option, it's much harder to be a trader or something in-between when you aren't strong enough to defend yourself, retaliate, or plunder, and they're taking your only real means to progressing in the game.

Some people have gotten it much worse than me, having it seem like a whole neighborhood is ganging up on them at once - as many as 79 other players! This is brutal and completely decimates that player's ability to progress in the game. Now, here's the big thing - it's an online game, so it should be able to be played by a wide range of people. Making it so that only a select, elite group of people can play a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE (MMO) GAME is ridiculous! Also, it's a free game, but people who spend money on extras (particular diamonds, which can be used to progress in absolutely every aspect of the game) get such a clear advantage that - even when they should be at the same level as another player - they can essentially rule whole neighborhoods of 79 other players. I've heard an argument that every MMO is like this, but every MMO I've ever played in the past let players be able to keep to themselves and go at their own pace without any real problems. One MMO that I've played over the course of a several years, I've been absent most of the time. Do I feel like I've lost the ability to play, like other players are going to murder me when I sleep or am offline, or like I'm 'missing out' because of going at my own, very slow pace? Not at all! I hop back on every once in a while and get to playing as usual. The player(s) who say that every MMO is so competitive obviously has only played MMOs that focus on competition. This game that I'm playing, however - Forge of Empires - is somewhere in-between and made with the clear intention to allow for competition, but also allow for more relaxed players. This isn't how it is in practice, however!

My idea was to add a button on every player's screen so that they can toggle whether or not they want protection from plundering. By getting protection, they sacrifice the ability to fight other players and, consequently, plunder other players. Other players, however, can still attack the people who are protected from plundering, and can gain points for defeating their defending army (default 2 of the lowest ranked military units.) This makes it impossible for players to no longer be able to gain points by battling other players, preserving the core Player-versus-Player aspect of the game, while protecting those who wish to opt out of the competitive part of the game. Now, attacking another player doesn't hurt them at all! If you defeat their defending army, their army is immediately restored and they don't have to worry about being defenceless (can't always say this about the attackers, as any units they lose they have to replace.) So by allowing players protected from plundering to be able to still be attacked, they are completely unaffected, but the players who want to continue fighting other players can continue do so!

There was a point brought up that I had already thought about that if the protection could be toggled at-will, someone might attack and plunder a neighbor and then immediately turn on the protection, making retaliation impossible. Since you can only attack and plunder once every 24 hours, I thought that it would be effective to make it so that the protection option can only be toggled every 48 hours. This makes it so that, if they come out of the protection mode to attack, they are vulnerable for 48 whole hours! If they turn on the protection again after that, then they can no longer attack other enemies for 48 whole hours! It makes it so that toggling it on and off is very inefficient, and thus can't be easily abused. I've seriously looked at this from every angle I can think of - unlike most, single-minded players - to come up with a win-win solution. It allows players to live in harmony without one minority constantly suffering and another minority constantly dominating! Everyone could also then play at their own pace with their own style. For some reason, many people can't see this, especially on the plunderers' side. They think that it would 'completely eliminate' the fighting aspect of the game, when I've distinctly tried to preserve that aspect. Most say that they attack for the points, and plunder as a 'reward' for breaching a person's defences. The thing is, if the person is virtually defenceless, then those people are getting a 'reward' without any real sacrifice, and plundering only hurts one and helps another, unlike all of the other aspects of the game that focus on win-win, or win-neutral situations. Plundering, as it is now, makes the game horribly unbalanced!

Now that I'm finally being able to see things from different perspectives - a trait that doesn't come very naturally to people like me - I'm taking flack for it by people who can't see the situation from different perspectives! It feels terribly unfair. I'm doing my best to come up with a solution that works for everyone, not simply hindering one and helping another, and people are getting mad at me for it! Now it feels like it would be better to be single-minded and fit in with a certain 'group' of people who think the same way than to be devoid of any group of thinkers and take flack from most everyone. I've read just about everywhere that people with bipolar and various other related illnesses need to learn to see from other's perspectives since many of us apparently are lacking in that department, but it appears to me that most people are devoid from being able to see a situation from multiple perspectives. If this is the case, I'm just putting all this effort into learning a trait that no one else actually really shares. It's supposed to be 'helpful and healthy,' but I feel like it's just a disadvantage in one way or another. I thought something better would come from it - a novel, balanced idea that could be appreciated from both sides. But, just as in life, the power-hungry want to remain in power, and the weak want the tormenting to stop, but no one actually does anything about either. Capitalism - a total crock. No wonder so many people hate America! (and any other imposing, power-hungry, dominating country that they aren't a part of.)