Bi-polarity

I think I've mentioned that I'm bi-polar. I'm not sure many people understand what that is. I think that no-one who has not been in a manic episode (or possibly high on cocaine) can fully understand the pull of mania.

Bi-polar is the new name for manic depression. It's uni-polar depression for straight depressed people (most people admit that depression now exists), and bi-polar for people who have mania as well. So how does that affect my life. In short - greatly and in every way.

When I'm manic, I can act inappropriately in public. What that means is make coarse jokes about sex with total strangers, spend money like it's going out of fashion, get angry at people because they don't admit that I'm right and they are wrong (even when I'm wrong that is). The higher ends have be going off into psychosis, where I will start to believe things which blatantly aren't true. My worst episode was when I was about 20, when I got into believing I was the re-incarnation of the goddess Ishtar. My boyfriend at the time didn't know what was going on. Looking back I can totally understand his attitude to me then, and I agree that I needed help. I'm still pissed off at him that he didn't try and push me more to get help, but we were young and foolish (me more than him I think).

However, despite these apparent downsides, I still remember the feeling that came with mania. The feeling that made it all worth while, including the really bad depressions I went into.

Now I don't get it - the meds ensure that. In fact I've been on them so long now that the call of it seems to have died down. I can remember the last day I had mania, it was sometime last year, when, for no apparent reason, I went into a manic day.

It was a great day - everything was right with the world. I was perfect in a perfect day, in the perfect marriage, to the perfect man, and everything was just peachy. That was just the half of it.

Imagine the feeling that you get just after a climax - that rush of adrenaline that fills you with this sensation of completeness. You can also get the feeling from a good workout, or something like sub-space. Now take that feeling and extend it for 24 hours, that's one day in euphoria.

Now, take that day and have it over, and over, again for 6 months - that's mania.

I don't want to be manic anymore. I've got too much invested in this marriage for me to risk it, even for the good feelings. In some ways I feel like I cut off part of me and sacrificed it, but in the long run, I'm getting more and more like a 'normal' person with regard to mood swings; and that is good.

But, one problem I have is the feeling of guilt and shame over how I have acted in the past while manic. They are just small things, things which most people would go "so what" at, but they are totally not what I would do.

An example - at a party taking a swig out of a bottle of baileys as opposed to pouring it in a glass. Now some people would say "yep, I've been to parties like that", but this one was hosted by my parents, and that was just bad behaviour according to them. But I still feel guilt and shame over that. There are other things, but too many to list here.

I've tried a couple of techniques to deal with them, and EFT seems to be working quite well for me, despite seeming to be as mad as a medium sized box of frogs.

Recently I've been pushed into mild mania (no euphoria, just the bad stuff) by PMT. My voice pitch has risen (a sure sign of mania), and I've been emotional and irritable as hell. And I've ended up having to second-guess myself almost all the time. I have good insight into my condition, and if my husband points out what's going on I can tend to temper my behaviour accordingly, but still - try going through a day and before you say anything to someone outside your immediately family having to stop and think is it a good thing to say or not. It's really tiring.

And I now come to the honest conclusion that I don't know how to finish this blog (pun intended).

And so I have a reminder I use on myself when I'm in the manic (or depressive) phase. I'm not this person, this person is caused by changes in my brain chemistry which give me a different personality. This is not who I am.

I'm not sure how accurate that is medically, but it sure helps me get through the rough patches.