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.

From the inside

Where to start? The narrative of a manic episode from inside the head of the maniac is difficult to tell because of all the associations and leaps in logic, as well as the non-linear quality. I could start anywhere but everything seems to need some back story. I could start from the trip back from Florida. That is probably a place where normal thinking switches to manic thinking.

In the Denver airport I had some time to kill so I called a couple people. One was my friend P. who was living in Denver at that point. I hadn't spoken with him for a while and thought it would be nice to say hi while I was in town, even though it was unlikely he could meet me at the airport during my layover. I also talked to my ex-girlfriend. I think I thought of her after seeing a baby. The reasoning behind this is a side story not worth going into.

As I was talking on the phone I spotted a red-headed woman who appeared to be waiting for the same flight as me. The background on red-headed women is that I find them attractive, and in some of my obsessing over women I had keyed on redheads. Later when we lined up to get on the plane the redhead was in front of me. I decided I needed to talk to this woman or at least create the circumstance where we could interact on the flight, so I sat next to her. We didn't talk on the flight until the very end as we were approaching our destination, my hometown. Throughout the flight I was hoping to strike up some conversation but she was engrossed in her book, and I also didn't want to give the impression of being a creepy guy hitting on her. My mind was working overtime but I think I was able to act pretty mellow during the flight. When we did start talking at the end of the flight, she said she was visiting a friend and this was her first time visiting this city. I gave her some recommendations on what she might do while in town for the weekend. (Keep in mind this was Valentine's Weekend, this is relevant at a later point.) In particular I mentioned a Thai restaurant that I like.

After getting off the plane I was still hoping to talk to her and possibly give her my number. Even though she was from out of town, the possibilities between us were only bounded by my manic thinking's limits of imagination. I payed attention to which suitcase she grabbed from the baggage carousel and was not surprised when it was a wonderful shade of bright green, another sign to me of the necessary connection to her. I debated with myself about approaching her and giving her my number, which I didn't end up doing. When her friend arrived I was a man and then the thought occurred to me that it was the Wednesday before Valentine's Day and perhaps he wasn't merely a friend.

Mama D. picked me up from the airport and we went to get some food at the Thai restaurant that I had told the red-headed woman about. The whole time we were at the restaurant I was expecting her to walk in with her friend. It was meant to be. And like so many things that are "meant to be" when I'm manic, this was not.

I didn't get to bed until around 11pm that night which was 2 am according to my body's clock. This long day set the stage for the chaos that followed.

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.

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.

Mania Lite

Less filling, tastes great? Not quite. More like: Less sleeping, more stress.

The last week I've been feeling up. Ever since my sleep got fucked last weekend. Starting the new job on Thursday just aggravated my elevated mood. I've been upping my Seroquel for the last 3 days or more. Now I'm at 100mg above normal. I should make sure my mood is stable before I reduce it back to 500 a day, what it was before. I also took some Klonapin yesterday to keep myself from freaking the fuck out. Talking to upset people on the phone all day is not conducive to a peaceful and serene life. In other words, I WILL NEVER WORK IN A FUCKING CALL CENTER AGAIN. If I forget this promise some how, please remind me. Now call centers have joined sales jobs and canvassing for money as "Shit I won't do even if you pay me."

I'm swearing a lot in this entry. I definitely lose some of the filter when I'm feeling up. Mostly it comes out in my conversations but it flows in the writing as well. Tonight I don't feel too off balance, but after I get up at 6am again tomorrow I'm sure I'll be feeling it. Well, when I get my paycheck next Friday I can be grateful that I actually had some work, unlike so many others out there right now. I am really thankful this job came up. I am twice as grateful that the other job that I start Monday came up, so that I can have this little taste of hell and then be done with it forever (maybe?).

I'll check back in as to what trajectory my mood continues to take. But for now I just need to get to bed on time and "take the fucking pills" as another blogger says.

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