Stress

     The other day I mentioned that I’ve been having a bit of a rough time lately, and I couldn’t really put my finger on why (except that we’re still working out my drug regimen). And then last night something happened that had me a little stressed out and panicked and I became hypomanic (which was followed by a short but intense bout of depression). Now, I normally lack any ounce of self-awareness. Doctors and therapists ask me questions about myself or about the effects of increasing the dose of one of my medications and I honestly have no idea what the answers are. I’m sure it’s very frustrating for them because it’s not like anybody else can answer those questions for me but most of the time, I know nothing about myself. So imagine my surprise when I was able to make the connection between me being under stress and the occurrence of hypomanic episodes. This makes perfect sense though, and if I was self-aware I would have realised this a long time ago, because stress is on the list of things to avoid if you have bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, I’m a grad student and stress is part of the job description. Not to mention I am currently studying for an exam that I really need to pass, so a little extra stress is inevitable. But how do you study when your mind is going at a million miles an hour and you couldn’t sit still to save your life? And then when the depression hits and you can barely get out of bed, how do you study then? What about on exam day, how do you get through it if the stress induces a hypomanic episode and you can’t get your thoughts straight? The answer: I have no idea.

     I’m sure there are a number of therapeutic techniques that allow you to cope with stress and prevent it from triggering a hypomanic episode, or to lessen the severity of an episode once it hits, but I haven’t been dealing with this disorder long enough to have mastered any of them. I’m still working on recognising when an episode is starting so that I can ignore my brain and keep myself from doing something stupid and irresponsible. And since there’s only a month until my exam, I don’t really have a surplus of time in which to work on any coping strategies. Hopefully my therapist will have a quick fix, or the new psychiatrist can adjust my meds to make me a bit more stable, otherwise I’m seriously out of luck. Then again, I was pretty much out of luck when I developed the disorder so this really isn’t anything new, just another wonderful hoop to jump through.