So I’ve
been having a pretty crappy bipolar week this week. It started last Friday, I felt really good
about the fact that I was no longer hiding my disabilities and that people were
interested in what I had to say and by that night it had escalated into the
beginnings of a hypomanic episode. I
guess I should explain what hypomania is; in short it's mania without the hallucinations
and delusions (which is characteristic of Bipolar Type I, hypomania is characteristic of Type II). When you’re experiencing
a hypomanic episode, you are excited and almost euphoric, you have intense
amounts of energy, it’s “go go go” all the time and at superhuman speeds. You talk fast, you multitask like it’s nobody’s
business, you sleep less, and sometimes you have an incredibly short fuse and
will lash out at anyone around you without warning. Now, on one hand, you’re experiencing a true “high”
and feel pretty awesome for most of the episode and you can be extremely
productive (provided you can control the restlessness). On the other hand, you have no impulse control whatsoever and also, the higher you fly, the
farther you fall. Once the hypomania
ends, you are left exhausted and depressed.
When my
episode started Friday night, I felt awesome! Actually, I felt awesome for the entire weekend and my mood kept
improving every minute. By Monday night
I was talking (to myself) at a hundred miles a minute, blasting music,
pacing/dancing around my apartment, and just having the time of my life. And then all of a sudden I was calm. My euphoria had subsided and I was on my
down. At first I just got super tired
and ended up passing out a lot earlier than usual. Now, normally the depression sets in right
away and when I woke up Tuesday morning I wasn’t expecting to be able to get
out of bed but to my surprise I didn’t feel all that bad. I wasn’t happy but I wasn’t depressed either
and judging by the degree of hypomania I had reached, the depression should
have been pretty severe, but it didn’t come. I had a relatively normal day that day and yesterday started out pretty
normal too, until I got home that night. Apparently the depressive episode had just decided to hold off for a
bit, to make me feel secure and then when I least expected it rip the rug right
out from under me. I had felt fine all
day, we went out for a celebratory dinner and I was in a perfectly good mood
when I got home. I got into bed and put
on an episode of Bones and then it hit, the intense depression that allows
follows a hypomanic episode. For no
reason I was crying hysterically and I couldn’t stop. I was (silently) screaming because my mind
was going at a million miles an hour and I had no control over the thoughts
that were racing through. Good thoughts,
bad thoughts, neutral thoughts, you name it. It was all rushing through my head at once, like trying to watch fifty
different TV channels. I eventually
ended up crying myself to sleep and then spent all morning in bed. I had to go to school for a bit this
afternoon and I’m glad that I actually got myself up and left the house because
it brought my mood way up. That’s not
always the case though. A lot of times I
can’t get out of bed for two or three days, and even if I do manage to get out
of the house for a bit, I just end up going straight back to bed when I get
home. Hopefully this is a sign that my
condition is improving but I’m not holding my breath. There is nothing predictable about bipolar
disorder, regardless of how well your treatment regimen is working and mine
clearly isn’t figured out yet.
I’m
seeing a second psychiatrist in a couple of weeks, maybe she’ll be able to make
some changes and get me back to my life.
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