Category: Hypomania

Categories
Hypomania Slider

On Mental Health Recovery and Restless Demons

Recovery is never a matter of total perfection. It can’t be. There are too many variables that can affect the outcome. In the past six months, I’ve had two very minor escalated cycles; one of which ended less than a week ago. They were so minor, in fact, that I didn’t manifest any of the physical symptoms that I usually have when I escalate. I was sleeping consistently and had no pressured thoughts or speech. What did occur was the warping of emotions and perception that fueled several bad decisions. I couldn’t tell that I was unwell until I hit the wall and crashed into a black depression, signaling the end of an escalated cycle.

During that cycle, demons that I had thought I put to sleep years ago through a lot of self-reflection, study, and therapy came back out to play. As a result, I overran boundaries I set for myself, as well as disrespectfully trampling all over those of a new friend and breaking their trust. That was a bitter pill to swallow given how much time and effort I’ve sunk into creating an atmosphere for trust and respect. Gone in a matter of days. Thank you, Bipolar Disorder.

I was completely blind to the years of effort, knowledge, and experience I had put in to correcting these social issues I struggle with due to High-Functioning Autism. I made every bad decision I could possibly make, decisions that I had learned years ago were completely wrong and worked to correct. I was listening but not actually hearing what this other person was telling me.

Recovery is not always clean and neat. Demons that you defeat can come back to haunt you later. You can’t look at it as a failure, just a part of the overall process. It’s one of the many bumps in the road that you will undoubtedly hit as you try to move forward and be better than you were yesterday. Maybe you will be able to salvage the situation; or maybe you’ll just have to watch yet another thing burn on the funeral pyre that is Bipolar Disorder.

It’s okay to stumble. All you can do is try to mend the situation as best as you can, if possible. And if it’s not possible, sweep up the ashes and keep going because tomorrow can be better. It doesn’t make you stupid, foolish, or mean you’re derailing. Mistakes happen. Shit happens. You just have to take it in stride, own your actions, try to fix them where you can, and keep going forward. You’ll be okay.

I’ve found that a number of people think that recovery means total functionality and normalcy. But, it really doesn’t. A lot of times it boils down to attaining a great deal of control and management over one’s dysfunctions and challenges, but still needing to put out the occasional fire that can pop up. It’s hard to unmake decades of negative beliefs or behaviors. And even if you do? The demon can still be there, lurking in the darkness, just waiting for you to slip up a little bit so it can come back out to play.

Learn from it and work towards not making those same mistakes again.

I’m not one to air out personal grievances or problems with others, but I felt that I would share this circumstance with you, the reader, to demonstrate that it doesn’t matter how much you know, how rigid you are with your medication, how much time you spend in therapy, or how much experience you have; Bipolar Disorder can and will still cause disruption in your life. That’s just the way it goes.

Seems it may be time for a medication adjustment of my own.

And to the person I wronged, I am deeply apologetic for my disrespectful behavior and profoundly sad I destroyed your trust. I was escalated and did not realize it until my brain crashed and burned. The person you saw in that time is not who I am; it was a fragment of who hypomanic me can be. 

button-facebook-join-me

Subscribe to have blog posts and news delivered straight to your Inbox!


Categories
Coping Hypomania

About Doubt and Mood Disorder Management

In my last blog post, I discussed some future plans I had for wanting to push my body of advocacy work to a new level. The type of feedback I received on that post could be neatly fit into two categories; encouragement and “are you manic?” On the first point, I appreciate the kind words and encouragement that many people gave me.

On the second point, I’m a Type 2 Bipolar. I don’t experience mania, I experience hypomania. I realize that most people use the two interchangeably, but they are different things. Mania requires psychosis. Hypomania does not. Technically, I’m not manic. Also technically, I’m not hypomanic either.

How do I know that? Doubt and self-doubt.

Understanding the way unwellness manifests gives us a great tool for identifying when Bipolar Disorder or Depression is trying to drive our thought processes. In my case, hypomania brings with it arrogance, impatience, and anger. The thought that I could be making a bad decision never crosses my mind because Bipolar Disorder just shoves my brain ahead at 1000 miles an hour without any consideration for consequences.

The ideas and thoughts I shared on pushing towards forming a venture of my own are not an overnight creation. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for the past two years, off and on. The list of doubts and cons is about the same length as the list of ideas and pros.

That is a good thing, because it heavily infers that I’m not now or have been escalated. A major decision like that is an almost guaranteed unwell cycle trigger. That doesn’t mean that I will or have triggered, it’s just that the potential is there. Anything that can bring major stress or incite passionate emotion should be counted as a potential trigger. That means increasing the amount of self-assessment that I would normally do to ensure that I pick up on any shift towards unwellness before it becomes a major problem.

Awareness gives me the power to unwind the unwell cycle before it really gets going. My methods of management are derived from personal reflection and strategy learned through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

These points are something that anyone can learn to be aware of. It may sound exhausting to need to think about mental state on a daily basis, but it really is the best way to keep a firm grasp on potential unwellness. Though it is kind of annoying at the start, regular practice and effort turned it into a thing that I just do without actively thinking about it.

That leads me to one of the more common misconceptions about Bipolar Disorder. Just because we’re not unwell at the moment does not mean that Bipolar Disorder is not lurking, waiting. An unwell cycle can trigger from anything and come out of nowhere.

The only way to head those unwell cycles off is to treat Bipolar Disorder like it is a companion that is always walking beside us: not behind us, not sitting at home on the couch, not as that thing in our past. Even when we’re medicated we need to keep a close eye on it to make sure it does not run ahead and away.

Even though my doubts have been strong, I view them as a good thing. Doubt means I’m sane and balanced. Doubt means I’m thinking critically of my choices. Doubt means I’m still in control of the Disorder, it is not in control of me.

button-facebook-join-me

Subscribe to have blog posts and news delivered straight to your Inbox!


Categories
General Hypomania

How Can My Bipolar Loved One Be So Awful To Me…

Credit to www.freedigitalphotos.net and artist holohololand

…and appear relatively functional and civil to others?

Alright, let’s get a couple of points out of the way before I dive into this. This post will include a lot of theorycraft and rationalization based on the way I understand the Disorder and my social dysfunction as a High-Functioning Autistic. As an HFA, I’ve spent a lot of time observing people in social situations to learn how to function “correctly”. Read “correctly” as- in a way that won’t be upsetting or alienating in social circumstances. This post will also assume the person is generally a decent person, but becomes awful when they get unwell. Then there are plenty of people who are abusive jerks who also happen to be mentally ill. That’s a whole different ballgame really.

So let’s start with a fictitious, example scenario…

Jenny is an undiagnosed Bipolar with a mildly chaotic history, one that she has taken pains to keep secret out of shame and fear of being stigmatized. Jenny was lucky enough to complete college and secured a management position with a corporation. She’s married to James and they have two children together. The unwell swings Jenny experiences during her life have largely been manageable, but what she doesn’t realize is that the Disorder gets worse with age when left untreated.

What started off as mostly manageable unwellness has steadily degenerated to the point where the kids are afraid of Jenny and James has no idea who this woman is that he married. When she’s well? She’s loving, happy, and wonderful. When she’s unwell? Everyone is on pins and needles to avoid setting her off. As she escalates she becomes verbally abusive, raging, and intimidating.

Jenny is slowly coming apart and the people that catch the worst of it are her friends and family members. At work and socially, she seems to maintain fairly well. She still makes snide comments or picks at people in an aggressive way, but one would not really peg it as symptoms of “unwellness” unless they understood the entirety of Jenny’s life and history.

A Matter of Familiarity

Why do Jenny’s loved ones, friends, and family get the worst of her? The simple answer is familiarity. People do not act the same way in front of strangers or in the workplace as they do with those they know. Each of us has masks we wear when we are talking to certain groups of people.

When she’s at work, Jenny knows she has a professional demeanor to try and maintain. She may be coming across as short, moody, irritable, and impatient. I feel like this has a lot to do with maintaining that work veneer. Let’s face it; most of us would get tossed out on our ass if we acted out what was in our heads while in the work place. Jenny is actively working to maintain the facade, not realizing how much more difficult it actually is because it just seems like a normal part of her day. Her coworkers and general friends are more likely to shrug and go about their day, thinking she’s just moody.

But when she gets home? She’s coming back to her place of security and unwinding. A place where she is not expected to keep up masks. So the Disorder pours out. Being undiagnosed and dealing with the Disorder for so long, she may not be able to recognize that her responses and reactions are irrational. An undiagnosed or uninformed Bipolar doesn’t have the knowledge base to actually identify which of their actions may indicate unwellness and which are them just being angry or short.

It takes a lot of work and energy to actively manage instability. Jenny may be seething at work, wanting to tear off her coworker’s head for some slight- real or imagined. But she doesn’t, because she’s not so far gone that she is still able to realize that she can’t just do that in the work place. And then of course comes the problems with being too far along. Maybe she verbally lays into him and winds up fired or written up for it because the unwellness slipped past her mask.

At home is an entirely different story. There are still things that we keep under wraps even with friends and family members; but after spending all day trying to maintain that facade at work, it comes off because it is so much energy and work. So if Jenny, Jr. spills some milk; the rational response of “Clean up after yourself” instead pours out of her mouth with hate. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You can’t do anything right. If you can’t fucking pour milk right then you don’t deserve it.” And throws the open milk against the wall.

Does escalation make this behavior acceptable? No. But if the person is undiagnosed, how are they supposed to realize how awful they are acting? Or that there is even an option to act differently? A person who lives with this as their “normal” doesn’t necessarily have the context to understand just how awful they are acting until they balance off enough to see clearly.

A Question Of Perception

I have touched on perception a bit previously. Perception is at the heart of Bipolar Disorder and managing it. We nutbags have to understand how the Disorder warps and distorts the way we perceive life. To function through unwell cycles while you are around friends and family members, the Bipolar needs to try and keep some of their masks up so they are actively thinking about what they are saying and doing while unstable.

As someone who has been diagnosed for about six years, gone through cognitive behavioral therapy, and regularly monitors my mental state- I would look at the above situation very differently. My brain may be screaming at me to tell the little fuck to get the hell out of my way- but all that’s coming out of my mouth is “Clean up your mess.” with me walking away. Why do I know I’m hypomanic? Because I identified it days ago through my physical symptoms of not being able to sleep with no tiredness, arrogance, and irrational irritation. So I know that I need to have my mask on and my defenses up so I don’t tear down the people around me.

Someone that is not diagnosed does not have that benefit. Even if they are, they may still not get it exactly right. It’s a tough mask to try and keep on constantly because it does require a ton of mental and emotional energy. Wearing a version of the mask we wear in public, dealing with coworkers or strangers, can help prevent serious damage to personal relationships.

Understanding that we need to don that mask to minimize the damage to our loved ones comes from education and introspection. If you are mentally ill; continue to build your knowledge base about your mental illness. If you are a loved one; encourage your loved one to research and continue to build their knowledge so they can develop this understanding.

button-facebook-join-me

Subscribe to have blog posts and news delivered straight to your Inbox!


Categories
General Hypomania Uncategorized

Interpreting Bipolar and Depressive Thought Processes

Thanks to Ashley for the idea for this post!

Being the friend or loved one of a person with mental illness is extremely difficult. Normals are used to dealing with typical emotions and thought processes from a well-minded perspective. I find that they assume that the mentally ill person in their life should follow similar thought processes. Confusion and hurt feelings is the general result as the mentally ill person’s mind acts in unfamiliar ways. So let’s talk about a few things that will help normal minded people interpret these thought processes more efficiently.

– Don’t jump to conclusions until you know all of the facts.
Facts are the most important tool in dealing with mood disorders (and several mental illnesses). If you don’t have a factual reason to reach a conclusion; then don’t jump to it. Let’s say a mentally unwell friend ceases communication one day. They aren’t responding to texts or phone calls and you don’t know what to think. What conclusion do you draw from that? Is the person in crisis? Or did they just accidentally drop their phone in the toilet? Don’t spend days wondering and letting that stress eat you up. Stop by their house or get in touch with a mutual friend to see what’s going on. Get to the facts of the situation. Your stress will go down a lot.

– Not every contrary action indicates a potential unwell period.
Unwell periods happen. It is important to remember that the mentally ill person in your life is still a person. They do still have regular thoughts, feelings, passions, and annoyances. If they get angry about something; it doesn’t necessarily mean they are getting unstable. Ladies- it would be the same thing as your getting upset about something and a guy asking you if you’re PMSy. You don’t have to be chemically imbalanced to angry or sad about something. What you actually want to look for is irrational thinking. If a person’s words or emotions aren’t fitting a rational narrative then one should consider their potential unwellness. “Fuck, I hate my coworker!” (Rational) vs “Fuck, I hate my coworker! I’m going to go wait for him until he gets off work!” (Irrational)

– Not every suicidal or self-destructive thought is cause for emergency.
I understand the point of the medical profession that every suicidal thought or self-destructive action should be treated with the utmost seriousness. But alerting authorities every time? If someone had done that to me every time I had a dark shift I would still be hospitalized. The fact of the matter is; we nutcases deal with self-destructive, suicidal, and self-harm thoughts on a pretty regular basis. If a person is voicing threats and is clearly unstable- by all means get authorities involved. But a person who is just expressing some dark thoughts- well that’s the kind of thing I would be inclined just to listen to. You can prevent a lot by just being present. I understand the need to ensure nothing negative happens; but that help isn’t free. Sinking someone 4,000 in debt from a half day hospital stay where they do absolutely nothing for you isn’t going to help the person at all. And yes, that shit happens regularly.

– We do not expect you to have all of the answers.
A mentally ill person that confides in you may not be looking for answers at all. In many cases, we know that you don’t have any answers. We are just trying to get some of this shit out of minds and try to let someone else in. Your response can either open the way further or close it back up tight. In the event that the person actually is looking for an answer that you don’t know, just say “I don’t know off the top of my head, but we can look for it if you want.” There’s a lot of quality information on the internet but you sometimes have to really dig for it. Or hell, if you’re reading this you pretty much know where to find me. Leave a comment, send me an email. If I know I’ll be glad to share it with you. But you will find, more often than not, the person is just trying to express some of what is going on in their mind.

– Counter hopelessness with knowledge and understanding.
There will eventually come a time when you are faced with your loved one being hopeless about their life and situation. Being mentally ill is not a death sentence or condemnation to a shitty life. Yes, our challenges are complicated. Yes, it’s not fucking pleasant at all quite a lot of the time. Many of us can live productive lives with self-management, medication, and hard work. A person dealing with a massive downswing in their mentality is stuck in the right now. The way to move them past that is to get their focus shifted towards their future. Remind them- “You can be well. You may not have a typical life, but it can be good. We just have to keep working towards it together.”

button-facebook-join-me

Subscribe to have blog posts and news delivered straight to your Inbox!


Categories
Depression Hypomania

Bipolar Perception And Its Impact On Relationships

Perceiving the world through the eyes of a Bipolar person is a difficult thing to do for those with typical minds. This is especially problematic for the people who love or are friends with a Bipolar person. The question I hear most often from these folks is, “How can my loved one do such horrible things to me when they claim to love or care about me?”

Let’s explore that conundrum. Bear in mind I’m using the following example in an extreme to hopefully drive the point home. Many of us Bipolars usually float around in middle ranges unless we’re severely unwell.

Sarah and Jack are a married couple. Sarah is Bipolar. The two share a healthy, loving, attentive relationship while she is well. She loves Jack with all of her heart. A Bipolar unwell period warps the perception of Sarah. Her mind starts feeding her misinformation about the world and her life around her.

Her mind starts picking apart everything Jack does. Did he spend too long smiling at a waitress? He wants to sleep with her. Did he answer a wrong number late at night? It was the woman from work that he’s sleeping with. Late coming home from work? I knew he was sleeping with her!

The longer Sarah is unwell, the more her mind will play with these thoughts and feelings; spinning them out of proportion. Then her mind may start dredging up all of the other things from her life with Jack that didn’t go as planned. Didn’t get to finish college? Jack’s fault. Miscarriage? Jack’s fault. Work a job that she hates? Jack’s fault.

Most likely this will culminate and explode. Sarah will get into a huge fight with Jack or find some other way to lash out at him for all these wrongs that her unwell mind convinced her that he is responsible for. Now comes the verbal barbs and possibly worse. “I hate you. You’re horrible. You’re worthless. I wish I had never met you.” and liberally lace it with profanity.

This is the point that many people get wrong. They ask, “If my loved one knew they hurt me, why wouldn’t they apologize?” Because they haven’t rebalanced yet or they don’t know what to say.

When was the last time you apologized to someone you hated? At this point in time, Sarah hates Jack because her brain has fed her lies and twisted her perception about the way their life has been. She doesn’t love him right now and may take it out on him in a number of ways- a revenge affair for his “infidelity”, physical and verbal abuse, or whatever her mind may cook up.

An unwell mind will normalize eventually. She will return to her baseline and be just as in love with Jack as she always was, except now- she has this laundry list of whatever horrible things she’s said and done to him while she was severely unwell. And at this point, most of us Bipolars will be watching the ashes of yet another important thing in our lives slip through our fingers. A number of us will go silent on the matter if we don’t understand our illness very well because what can you really say? What could possibly make up for those horrible actions? “I’m sorry” is often a pale shadow compared to the wound.

That does not mean that this is how things have to go- it’s just the way they normally go because people don’t educate themselves enough on the Disorder and how to manage it.

If you are Bipolar- you need to learn to identify the indicators that you’re getting unwell. Bipolar Disorder is a mental illness; as an illness there are symptoms that signify when you are getting sick. When you are getting sick, you can then begin to pay more attention to your own thought processes to rationalize your way through them. Almost all of the above examples could have been derailed if Sarah had realized she was getting unbalanced and stopped to really examine what she was thinking. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, you won’t always get it right. But you can prevent a whole lot of damage by being critical of your own thoughts if you identify that you may be getting unwell.

If you can, look into Cognitive Therapy. A therapist can help you learn and refine these skills. You will have to work hard to learn how to manage and defuse these thoughts but it is a skill-set that you’ll use the rest of your life. You either own Bipolar Disorder or it owns you- there is no in-between.

If you are a friend/loved one- you need to know you and your limits very well. The Bipolar person in your life will probably push them and walk all over them. Being called obscenities by someone that is normally loving can be a shock; but ultimately they are just a couple of words. Keep an eye out for drastic changes in behavior. A big change in sleep patterns is a very common indicator. Any major change in moods or personal habits could be indicative of an unwell swing.

And that leads me to communication and trust. The Bipolar person needs to be able to accept that they are Bipolar, they will have drastic mood swings, and they need to be able to communicate with their loved one if they are getting sick. The well person in the relationship needs to feel comfortable with bringing up that they think the other may be getting unwell. You can learn to read and identify your partner’s symptoms. Communication can prevent a lot of needless hurt stemming from unwell thought processes because the well partner can introduce facts and reality that the unwell partner desperately needs.

Loving someone with a mood disorder isn’t always pleasant. Never take on more than you are able to. Each person has their own lines and limits that they know can’t be crossed. It’s not unreasonable to expect the Bipolar in your life to work to minimize the damage the Disorder does. Just be aware that they will probably fail horribly at it from time to time. We all do. But- the Disorder can be managed and you can have a fairly normal relationship/friendship with the person. Every relationship has challenges, ours are just a bit different than typical.

button-facebook-join-me

Subscribe to have blog posts and news delivered straight to your Inbox!