So I’ve been on the up and up lately. I thought that the medication would keep this at bay, but as I understand it, it only prolongs the periods between episodes. I have to admit the hypomanic phase is really rewarding and I love feeling it again. It’s like a drug rushing through my veins ~ ~ ~ I am extra attractive, spontaneously witty, ultra productive, irresistibly charming. I feel so God damned good! I can overlook anything!
I drank an entire bottle of wine last night and should have woken up with a terrible hangover, but instead I got up at 6 a.m. and went into work after organizing the entire house for when I would get home. I walked into the lab and the girls complimented me on how great I looked. I thought they were just giving me shit, but no, they were sure that I looked more “refreshed”. I quickly quipped “It must be the run I had this morning”… better than telling them I have bipolar disorder and I am happily in the manic phase.
I took the day and wrote up an entire contract for the operating procedures of the training center, something that I have been putting for nearly a year. My boss was impressed. I was exhausted. Again.
I have the hardest time wrapping my head around explaining this illness to people. Maybe that’s the real reason I am writing this blog. There are so many misconceptions wrapped around mental illness. Most people have no understanding of it and think that its something that you can control if you put your mind to it. I think of it as a heavy subject, which is why I don’t discuss it.
For me, on the medication I realize I have to be on, the mood swings are a subtle shift that most people don’t even recognize. But the thing is, if I’m up I’m rewarded and if I’m down well it’s, “You’re just tired. Give yourself a break”. What people don’t realize is that mania, with all it’s attractiveness, generally winds up making me feel like I want to hurl a plate at someones head, and depression makes me think about that 38 Smith & Wesson, which is why I don’t own one.
I know that being in a position of high stress right now is bringing this on and I’m trying my best to control it from outside of my mind. But I have to be honest… it’s been a long, long time since I’ve felt my old friend mania working the magic in me, and for the first time I understand why people choose to go off their medication for this illness.