I forget that my mania manifests itself in this loopy dirge of what I refer to as my 'Marie Antionette' phase. I call it thus because when I am in its grips I can often be heard muttering: off with their heads! I become convinced that everyone is an idiot and a waste of space. I want forced sterilization brought back to the table for discussion. I have been know to snap and yell at companies or individuals who fail to provide good customer service. Why customer service rankles me so, I do not know but I sometimes think that people who are incapable of connecting dots tend to be drawn to this profession. When I am in the grips of this cycle I find a passion in beginning conversations with others for the sole purpose of getting the other to see what an idiot they are. I am determined to make a point. I am invincibly right, violently correct, blindly driven, and unable to sleep.
You might immediately think that because a chemical imbalance swirls through my blood I must therefore be the offending party. Wrong!
Is she in the grips of this now as she writes? Yes. But...
My mania, any ones mania, is a heightened sense of awareness. I don't have a filter in my brain. What I am thinking, feeling, seeing, is running around my body like Bach's Cantata 54. That's exactly how it feels to me. Everything feels orchestrated and in the exact correct place in my head, and like Bach, it is orchestrated to music which serves to take my thinking pattern to a higher plane. I feel euphoric. Everything seems syncopated to my mood and desires. It is idiots like you that interfere with my joy. It's you unknowing peasants that can't keep up or see how remarkable things could be, if only... Woe is me that must maintain proximity with you.
I forget that this is how my mania shows up. I forget because it all seems completely plausible to me when I am in its throes. It seems reasonable and correct. It is only when I am beginning to come down from my high, and begin feeling like I have no reason to live, that I remember that this is not normal. Only then do I remember that suicide is not the answer. It dawns on me anew, that I have indeed felt good and happy and that joy wasn't as far away as I had previously thought. I forget this each cycle. In some ways it's like an awakening, over and over again. I forget because part of the DNA of bi-polarity it to convince me (I feel so good. I feel so high) that this time is the exception. That this time my mania was a real state of being and real.
Being bi-polar shouldn't mean a thing to you if you don't find yourself debilitated by it. You shouldn't even care that I have this diagnosis. It's not contagious and I personally don't have a history of frequent random sexual partners or tapping out the bank account when at my highest. I just feel convinced everyone is an idiot and I feel angry.
Does this mean that if I am angry I must be experiencing mania? How does a person with bi-polar disorder express anger if their mania is expressed with anger? How would you know the difference? I don't think there is a difference that you could see or feel. The difference is with me. The mania always eventually slides into suicidal thoughts and the normal anger doesn't. Simple, really.
My Clues: Sleeplessness. Either not sleeping or sleeping for an hour (or minutes), waking and being raring to go again. Or sleeping like I ran around the world in 40 days or something. Like a bear. Like my bed is a barge surrounded by treacherous waters and I can't leave it for the sharks. I become committed to sleep.
Bi-polarity is hereditary. It makes absolute perfect sense to me that I find myself with it, but the funny thing is everyone in my family swears they are sane. Not only do they behave with bi-polarity but should they chose to, they'd be a suitable national representative for the disorder. That's another story...
It was a relief for me to be finally given this diagnosis. Prior to medication I sometimes felt like Linda Blair. Violently pulled here and there, against my will, as though overtaken by unseen forces that left me punched in the head by my own emotions. I spent a good 35 years of my life fighting depression and I was relentlessly chased by suicidal thoughts. I don't feel this way anymore. Knowing this about myself doesn't even make me feel sad. I like having plausible explanations for things.
My amnesia means that in a quick passing of time I can't recall any reason that I might have said something to upset you. I can't remember if you are not a good person. I have no filter on my thoughts which means I may have said something to you which meant nothing to me (not only nothing, but I can't remember what it was), but which you are upset about. It means that subjects of sex, bodily functions, anything taboo (in general or because I am a girl) are not censored by me. I use the word "fuck" a lot because that word seems to be a good exclamation point to what it is I am feeling. (Every time I say this word 'fuck', I immediately wonder why no one gets upsets when they hear, 'ice cream' or 'tabletop'. Why can The Irish can say it all day long and no one cares?). I've spent my time in this life living near a stream of consciousness.
I'm practically incapable of distinguishing the good from the bad. But the bad are often given another chance because I can't remember they were bad. This may be good for others but it is bad for me. Other people have the ability to filter; I can't. Whatever pops into my head usually lands on my tongue. Calling people names or revealing others' indiscretions never pop into my head. But if you are having a problem and you can't see your way out, and I have to listen to the moaning a bit too long, and all my kind advice that you asked for isn't taken, then I'm probably going to have a conniption fit. Not because I am angry at you but rather to snap you out of it. Sometimes to snap me out of it. People have a way of droning on sometimes and suddenly I am listening to an 80's rock station and wondering what the hell happened to Bach.
I'm just saying.
I don't perceive others as a threat. I walk around like Polly-Anna and I have the gullible expectation that others will protect me. Protect me in the sense that you will prevent yourself from harming me. You will be upstanding and forthcoming. You will conduct yourself with integrity and justice. They never do.
I conclude that in general no one actually feels any responsibility to others. You (I) have to protect yourself. Sometimes the only way I know how to do that is to shut you off. I live by a strict set of standards about how to treat others. The one thing I am absolutely positive of is that people with predatory behaviours love to come back for round two. If they can get away with something, they can't help but try and see if they can do it twice. I don't give second chances anymore unless you get it into your head that you made a mistake the first time.
I am beginning to wonder if my soul mate is not another bi-racial man but another bi-polar man. Some one I can call my own little bi-polar bear. Who else would instinctively understand me? Maybe what I need understood about me is not my educational background or the fundamentals of my life but rather how I am emotionally wired. We both couldn't be manic at the same time, could we? But then again, think how much fun it would be to share your mania with another? It's just a thought...
You might immediately think that because a chemical imbalance swirls through my blood I must therefore be the offending party. Wrong!
Is she in the grips of this now as she writes? Yes. But...
My mania, any ones mania, is a heightened sense of awareness. I don't have a filter in my brain. What I am thinking, feeling, seeing, is running around my body like Bach's Cantata 54. That's exactly how it feels to me. Everything feels orchestrated and in the exact correct place in my head, and like Bach, it is orchestrated to music which serves to take my thinking pattern to a higher plane. I feel euphoric. Everything seems syncopated to my mood and desires. It is idiots like you that interfere with my joy. It's you unknowing peasants that can't keep up or see how remarkable things could be, if only... Woe is me that must maintain proximity with you.
I forget that this is how my mania shows up. I forget because it all seems completely plausible to me when I am in its throes. It seems reasonable and correct. It is only when I am beginning to come down from my high, and begin feeling like I have no reason to live, that I remember that this is not normal. Only then do I remember that suicide is not the answer. It dawns on me anew, that I have indeed felt good and happy and that joy wasn't as far away as I had previously thought. I forget this each cycle. In some ways it's like an awakening, over and over again. I forget because part of the DNA of bi-polarity it to convince me (I feel so good. I feel so high) that this time is the exception. That this time my mania was a real state of being and real.
Being bi-polar shouldn't mean a thing to you if you don't find yourself debilitated by it. You shouldn't even care that I have this diagnosis. It's not contagious and I personally don't have a history of frequent random sexual partners or tapping out the bank account when at my highest. I just feel convinced everyone is an idiot and I feel angry.
Does this mean that if I am angry I must be experiencing mania? How does a person with bi-polar disorder express anger if their mania is expressed with anger? How would you know the difference? I don't think there is a difference that you could see or feel. The difference is with me. The mania always eventually slides into suicidal thoughts and the normal anger doesn't. Simple, really.
My Clues: Sleeplessness. Either not sleeping or sleeping for an hour (or minutes), waking and being raring to go again. Or sleeping like I ran around the world in 40 days or something. Like a bear. Like my bed is a barge surrounded by treacherous waters and I can't leave it for the sharks. I become committed to sleep.
Bi-polarity is hereditary. It makes absolute perfect sense to me that I find myself with it, but the funny thing is everyone in my family swears they are sane. Not only do they behave with bi-polarity but should they chose to, they'd be a suitable national representative for the disorder. That's another story...
It was a relief for me to be finally given this diagnosis. Prior to medication I sometimes felt like Linda Blair. Violently pulled here and there, against my will, as though overtaken by unseen forces that left me punched in the head by my own emotions. I spent a good 35 years of my life fighting depression and I was relentlessly chased by suicidal thoughts. I don't feel this way anymore. Knowing this about myself doesn't even make me feel sad. I like having plausible explanations for things.
My amnesia means that in a quick passing of time I can't recall any reason that I might have said something to upset you. I can't remember if you are not a good person. I have no filter on my thoughts which means I may have said something to you which meant nothing to me (not only nothing, but I can't remember what it was), but which you are upset about. It means that subjects of sex, bodily functions, anything taboo (in general or because I am a girl) are not censored by me. I use the word "fuck" a lot because that word seems to be a good exclamation point to what it is I am feeling. (Every time I say this word 'fuck', I immediately wonder why no one gets upsets when they hear, 'ice cream' or 'tabletop'. Why can The Irish can say it all day long and no one cares?). I've spent my time in this life living near a stream of consciousness.
I'm practically incapable of distinguishing the good from the bad. But the bad are often given another chance because I can't remember they were bad. This may be good for others but it is bad for me. Other people have the ability to filter; I can't. Whatever pops into my head usually lands on my tongue. Calling people names or revealing others' indiscretions never pop into my head. But if you are having a problem and you can't see your way out, and I have to listen to the moaning a bit too long, and all my kind advice that you asked for isn't taken, then I'm probably going to have a conniption fit. Not because I am angry at you but rather to snap you out of it. Sometimes to snap me out of it. People have a way of droning on sometimes and suddenly I am listening to an 80's rock station and wondering what the hell happened to Bach.
I'm just saying.
I don't perceive others as a threat. I walk around like Polly-Anna and I have the gullible expectation that others will protect me. Protect me in the sense that you will prevent yourself from harming me. You will be upstanding and forthcoming. You will conduct yourself with integrity and justice. They never do.
I conclude that in general no one actually feels any responsibility to others. You (I) have to protect yourself. Sometimes the only way I know how to do that is to shut you off. I live by a strict set of standards about how to treat others. The one thing I am absolutely positive of is that people with predatory behaviours love to come back for round two. If they can get away with something, they can't help but try and see if they can do it twice. I don't give second chances anymore unless you get it into your head that you made a mistake the first time.
I am beginning to wonder if my soul mate is not another bi-racial man but another bi-polar man. Some one I can call my own little bi-polar bear. Who else would instinctively understand me? Maybe what I need understood about me is not my educational background or the fundamentals of my life but rather how I am emotionally wired. We both couldn't be manic at the same time, could we? But then again, think how much fun it would be to share your mania with another? It's just a thought...
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