Hell

Last night while sitting in my regular AA meeting, I was struck by the memory of being in jail the last time. I recall lying on the bed, on the top bunk, looking back on my life through the lens of mania--when a million different events and details seem woven together in a tapestry of connection and meaning, fate and design. I remember being a little boy at the mercy of his anger and those adults charged with his care and protection--protection from himself and others, and the protection of others from him. I saw a cycle of uncontrolled action and loss of freedom. It seemed like an inevitable circle that would play out for the rest of my life, in the way the thought of a maniac can have certainty and reality, no matter how detached from reality it actually may be. For someone in acute mania thought can become fact and fact can be altered by though. The mind of the maniac is self-absorbed and self-centered to an extreme; it believes in its own veracity and is bound at the same time to its own delusion.

In that moment, feeling the certainty that this broken record of my life would forever spin and skip, I couldn't bear the possibility, the inevitability, of the continued cycle f loss of self-control and loss of freedom. I truly wanted it to end. I said to my god, my creator, "If this is my fate, please take me now. If I must keep living out this nightmare, I don't want to live." It was the first time since I was 15 that I would have death than life. My creator didn't take me; I was left on that bunk, and somehow the moment passed. I took it as an answer. Whether or not it was didn't matter--I took it as one. It was in that bed that I sank to a hell in my own mind, and something brought me back out.

It was also in that bed that I began to let go of J. Something in me shifted. I remember watching the snow fall on that March day and thinking of something I had written or said about J. I said that I would wait for her until hell froze over. Well I was in hell and it had frozen enough to snow, so I had waited long enough. I didn't completely let go of her at that time, but I began to. When I got home after being released, I had a phone message from B. In that moment I was able to take hold of my lingering love for her and finally put down my manic obsession with J.

My mind doesn't often go back to that hellish place, lying on a mattress in a jail cell on the special floor reserved for special people like me, but I need to keep that memory alive somewhere inside me where I can pick it up every now and then, dust it off, and remember where I never want to go again.

It's Been A While

Just checking back in. I have forgotten about this blog. That tends to happen. I think about my illness and get obsessed with it and then it fades into the everyday background.

It is coming up on three years since the last episode. I am about to test the three year cycle. I had my first episode in 2003, the second in 2006, and the third in 2009. 2012 approaches on the horizon.

My life today feels much different than it did when I started this blog and extremely different than in 2009. I'm still working at ODS. I've found good summer work with a parks department. The winters are still tough. Last winter I barely made it. I don't think about J. very often, but occasionally she pops up in my mind. I probably think more about her boyfriend than her because he still works at the store down the street from me. I saw him there the other day for the first time in a long while. I am not haunted in the way I was when I started this blog. I've had other ups and downs since then, but no big problems with my mood.

I've taken a much more active role in managing my meds, especially when I'm working at ODS. Currently I'm taking 600mg of Seroquel once a day and 300mg of Lamictal a day. I take all of the Sero at night and the side effects don't bother me like they did when I was taking it during the day.

For some reason I thought of this blog and decided it would be good to check in. Maybe I'll be more regular about it.

One Year Ago

One year ago I was on the brink of a very severe and life-(altering/shattering/disrupting) manic episode. Part of the purpose of this blog is to reflect on my past experiences with bipolar disorder. So I think I'll begin to write about my episode a year ago.

In January, and maybe in December I'm not totally sure, my mood began move into hypomanic/manic territory. I know this because other people in my life have told me this, and, in reflecting, I remember a few situations in which I can see the connection between my actions and an elevated mood.

For example, one night I went over to a friends house, to hang out and play an interesting strategy game. I had a good time and was feeling upbeat. I headed home on my bike. It was about 10:00 or 11:00 at night. While I was on my way home I passed a convenience store, in the parking lot of which there was a sizable group of young people on bikes. One member of the group had a trailer attached to his bike with a sound system set up on it. I call it a sound system because it wasn't a mere stereo, it was a serious set up attached to a car battery with some serious speakers. I passed the group, but felt pulled back to them. I went back to check out what was going on. This began the second part of my evening, which lasted until well after 1:00 in the morning and involved stopping at two different houses, one not too far from my house and the other in the inner NE part of town, maybe a few miles away. I didn't necessarily do anything particularly manic, but the simple fact that I joined in with a group of strangers, traveled around with them, stayed out late, and did all of this on a whim, makes this abnormal behavior which can be attributed to an elevated mood state.

Another thing I can look back at as evidence of an elevated mood are my pocket journals. I was writing all kinds of little notes and aphorisms. I was getting deeply involved in reading and thinking about Myers-Briggs personality types.

Another situation I remember from January last year was the big auction night at work. I know my mood was up that day. I was in action mode and feeling good, but I'm certain my mood was also elevated. I felt like a general with his troops. I was feeling self-confident, if not grandiose. My mind was running fast. I said some things I maybe shouldn't have or in a way I shouldn't have. Other things I remember from work that month are how I thought that my energy at work was affecting my co-workers. This was a bit of "magical thinking" or perceiving something that was on a different level. I think I was getting less work done, but I felt like I was doing important things like distributing events calenders and other tasks that I thought would part of my plan to get a promotion. I'm mainly relying on my memory right now, which is spotty, but even these scattered bits point to my elevated mood.

Of course, at the time I thought I was doing great. I couldn't see where things were headed. I didn't know that my enthusiasms and new interests would start to become obsessions and eventually I would fall into the most destructive obsession, the one focused on J. When I'm flirting with mania the line between possibility and certainty, between fantasy and reality, between hopes and facts becomes exceedingly thin. If I think it, it becomes real. If I want it, I try to make it happen. And I don't realize when I cross this line.

I took my feelings of friendship and closeness with J. and expanded them into a world of deep love and devotion. I took our working relationship and my perception of her role as my confidant and adviser and transformed them into a relationship outside of work that was mostly in my mind. The line between what I wanted and what existed disappeared. Because I wanted it, it must be so, and I must make it so.

This is how the month that shook me started.

Dancing Fool

I went dancing last night. It's the first time I've been dancing since last February when I was running high in my mania. In fact, the last time I went dancing was the night I tried to tell J. that I was deeply in love with her and the night before I had the psychotic break in front of her house.

The dancing was great. I didn't want the night to end. I stayed out until about 1:30 and didn't get to bed until about 3:00. Today I definitely have a "hangover," not from alcohol, because I don't drink, but from putting out so much energy and staying up so late. I'm feeling a little jittery and scattered mentally. Tonight should be much easier to get to bed at a reasonable time. My sleep this weekend has generally been screwy. I got up early on Saturday morning and went to bed late that night as well, and then yesterday I didn't get up until noon. That's when I got up today too. This doesn't bode well for my mood. I'll have to watch myself and maybe take some extra Seroquel.

I've found some good blogs focused on bipolar out there. Check my blogroll to see what I'm reading. I especially like The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive.

Today's Status Report
Mood: low-mildly elevated, jittery, scattered
Sleep: got to bed too late, slept for about 8 hours soundly and then dosed for another hour
Eating: just fine
Exercise: dancing last night kicked my ass