Florida

At the end of January/beginning of February last year I went to Florida to visit my grandparents. While I was in Florida I felt like my mood was pretty stable. I can see in retrospect that I was on the up side of things. My emotions were more acute. I was more intense about some things.

I remember having a very serious conversation with my grandfather while we were driving around about my mom and things I was just finding out about her, like the fact that she went to the hospital when she was 19 due to an overdose on drugs. I remember at the time suspecting that perhaps she intentionally overdosed, trying to commit suicide. This led to the idea that if that was true, perhaps her becoming pregnant with me saved her life. I haven't thought about these things since then. My grandfather wouldn't really tell me anything about what happened. He just said that I should talk to my mom about it, that she should be the one to tell me. I never brought it up to her. After I got back from Florida my mania kicked into high gear, and I became fixated on other things. Perhaps I should bring my questions about that time up to my mom. I have serious doubts about whether she would tell me anything. But if I don't ask, then I'll never know. I think I will talk to my psychiatrist about it first and see what he has to say.

What I think really put my mania over the edge was traveling home from Florida. I was up early East Coast time and I went to be about 11pm West Coast time. I calculated at the time that it was a 20 hour day. One thing I remember after getting off of the plane was about the time change. I did the math the wrong way and converted three hours in the wrong direction, leading me to think I had been up six hours less than I actually had been. This error is what partially led to staying up so late. Mama D. picked me up from the airport and I decided that I could get something to eat with her, when I should have gone straight home and to bed.

Fortunately, I didn't have to work the next day. The day after that, when I returned to work, was the day I realized that I was in love with J.