Meh

Sorry I haven’t answered comments and visited your blogs for a couple of days or three. I’m suffering from hyposadgitation™, but coping better than  I was when I last whinged here. I want to catch up with your posts soon, I go into withdrawal very quickly. Rapid cycling blogger? And I haz two questions for you…

Do you tend to surf hypomania before you fly off the manic waves? What’s the difference between the two for you?

This expresses the infinite paradox of bipolar disorder beautifully for me. I think everybody (except those whose surname is path) walks that tightrope. It’s called The Balance and it’s by Christian Schloe).

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blahpolar

battlescarred, bright, bewildered, bent, blue & bipolar

99 thoughts on “Meh”

  1. When I’m hypo I clean maniacally-as mom put it so nicely-and then I “stabilize”. Mania can hit out of no where. Right now, I’d give my bad arm for a bought of hypo before my surgery. As I look into Morgue’s Magic Hateball, it says, “Not gonna happen, Tootsie” bastard balls

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        2. Hope you feel well soon. Look forward to your engaging you for your cleaning services (LOL). At our local county meeting, there was a woman with OCD, social anxiety and agoraphobia who built a business cleaning homes and was successful at it. She would not meet the homeowners in person.

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    2. Strongs buddy – when’s the op? If I could have bottled my 3 days hypo and mailed it to you, I would. I’ve crashed so fucking hard today. And of course, it’s fucking inevitable, no matter what. Fuck the h8ball and it’s accuracy….

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  2. I only experience hypomania, not full blown mania. For me hypo varies. Sometimes it’s really uppiddy lalalala I’m the best thing in the world,,invincible, happy idgas attitude WOO-HOO!! Other times I’m evil ~ an irritable, irate, bitchy “stay away from me” hurricane!

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  3. I think I do surf the hypomania before crashing into the manic wave and then it takes me a while to surface because I don’t have anyone in my life to give me feedback. As far as I can tell I am a very slow burn. But the challenge is that fully medicated (i.e. now) I have no energy to do anything but something I really want to do and even then maintaining focus is a challenge. My doc is going to see if we can trim the meds a little but then we hit that balancing act. I sometimes wonder if I am only truly functional at a mildly hypomanic level. But where the hell is the baseline??? When you live within this disorder, it’s hard to know if you are even on that damn tightrope. I mean who is to say that hanging on under the rope and slowly crawling along hand over hand is not NORMAL? Who defines normal anyway?

    Hmm, clearly a little unresolved stress around this very topic from my end. Dink jy?

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    1. It is a challenge to find the balance, and it changes. What is tolerable or necessary to tolerate for our well-being is unacceptable at a more stable time. Unfortunately treatment is still trial and error. Best of luck getting up on that rope. Dragging yourself hand over hand with no net sucks.

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    2. Ja broer…. What is your baseline, do you know? I wish I was slow burn, I’ll trade you my ultradian shit, I’m so good at depression that I feel more comfortable with it uninterrupted. Try not to step on my hands when you walk that tightrope, I’ll be the one dangling like a goddamn dingleberry. Now I just grossed myself right out.

      Lief jou.

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      1. I don’t know how you determine your own baseline because you are inside your head. I know my sleep and thoughts (distractability, excessive daydreaming) mark a shift and are much more easily triggered as I start to ramp up but I worry that being stably medicated is being consigned to being sponged from the bottom and the top. The slowburn has meant that I could function marvelously with a little extra juice for a long time. But that masks that dangerous climb upward. I think that’s why I went so fully manic twice, it was a gradual, not an overnight, shift so no one noticed until I was making everyone miserable.

        I am not sure what my “new normal” is now. I may have ruined that by being remarkably unstable for almost a year (Nov 2013- Nov 2014). I have no fucking idea where balance stands. It’s not like I am taxing myself right now… could I hold a full-time job? I don’t think so. Yet.

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        2. I guess I know mine simply because I’ve been depressed and wanted to die since I can remember. I might even be a shiny happy person and just not realise it, because the dark cloud I live under has grown comfortable. Maybe there’s an inner Pollyanna trying to get out. Remind me to get a can of Pollyannaway™ asap.

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  5. Looking up the criteria to be considered for a diagnosis of hypomania and manic made me want to put every scientist in a room with me for a month. My “manic” episodes are fewer as I get older. I like them and hate them at the same time. I hate them because I know what’s going to happen when it’s over, my depression will be worse. You would think with all the science today they could come up with a better way to ease the suffering for some of us if I was having Erectile Dysfunction they’d be racing to find new answers. By the way I do not have a penis it was an analogy. lol

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    1. Thank you so much for your comment, it made me laugh (but only on the inside, because I’m depressed now – still quite a feat though and I’m grateful to you for it). Very glad to hear you don’t have erectile dysfunction; that added to bipolar would just be too much.

      And strongs for you…

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      1. Unfortunately I am also depressed with bouts of I don’t know what. It changes from hour to hour or song to song, interaction to interaction. I have my Dr. Frankenstein to thank for this. He had no idea as I was leaving his office that we had or I had been taken off Brintellix & put back on Viibryd. This left me stranded w/out anything for 4 days of lovely behavior. When I told his secretary that my patience was growing thin her response was “What? You mean with all of his mistakes?” and laughed. So I’m not the only one to notice. It helps to know it isn’t completely in my head. Hang in there! Easier said than done. I know.

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          1. I said it in a recent blog. The state I live in has 2 large healthcare organizations that all doctors belong to. I would have to report it through Medicare & it would be in my records for all past & future doctors to see who belong to these healthcare “Networks”. I’ve been labeled a “problem patient” already due to my Urologist. Other doctors have not called me back because of it. No winning here.

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            1. I do read you mate, it’s just that my memory grows ever more shitty, thanks to bipolar and menopause. I did remember the problem patient rhingtwhen I read your comment though. And it sucks donkey balls :(

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              1. I hear you on the memory thing. Sometimes I forget who said what and when. I have to play the Alphabet Game in my head to remember someone’s name. Last time it took 2 days & happened while I was brushing my teeth. I got toothpaste all over the mirror because I was so excited & yelled it out loud.

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  6. Can’t tell the difference. I have stretches when I don’t sleep for more than 4 or 5 hours, lots of energy and confidence. Then I have times when I’m sleeping about 7 hours but still moving too fast and angry and bitchy, to boot. I can be unable to sit still and cry for no reason. Can’t really sort any of it out; I’m in it too deep. Good to hear from you, Blah.

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      1. I’ve still not got the stamp of officialdom from bipolar land. I can say I go too fast a lot. A lot a lot, lately. Been on the up side since I pulled out the last depression, which ended in April or May and began in September or October the year before.

        I do cry if I talk about stuff. Any counsellor who’s seen that has said ‘oh, you’re depressed’ but I don’t always FEEL depressed. I KNOW my depression. It’s waking up with tears in my eyes. It’s not being able to raise my head to LOOK at anybody, much less hold a fucking conversation. Yadda, yadda….Like they’d listen to me. Tears = depression, at least to the people I’ve seen so far. I dunno. Watching a video of puppy dogs playing can make me fucking cry.

        I just is what I is. :)

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        1. Stamp of officialdom? More like a stamp on the head by an angry rhino eh? I can relate to crying easily. I didn’t cry for years and years, but when the dam got bust I think it got bust for life. (no, autocorrect, not busty ffs)

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  7. Yeah I can’t tell the difference. I believe that I’ve had two or three manic episodes in the past but I can’t be sure because the doctors don’t seem to distinguish unless they see you like that. I think hypomania is where I have enough energy and am so excitable and singing in the kitchen and sleeping less (but sleeping) and everything seems like the Best. Idea. Ever. What little focus I had before goes out the window. Sometimes I seem to be psychic. But I don’t know where it crosses the line into mania, I can’t tell whether it’s just severe hypomania or not. I don’t want to be assumptive and use an overly dramatic word without knowing it’s appropriate so I just call it all hypomania and get mildly annoyed at people who call it mania when they spend £10 in Tesco. But then it took me 28 years to use the word depression to describe my suicidal tendencies because I don’t believe that’s necessarily what it is. What’s your opinion on it? Do you differentiate between mania, hypomania “mild depression” and depression?

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    1. Excellent questions. Everything is a matter of degree along a spectrum. The distinctions sometimes seem arbitrary and other times obvious, depending on where on the spectrum you are comparing. I’ve found the distinction of BPII vs BPI less useful personally over the years. That’s up just me, though. Obviously, some of us have it much harder than others. As for depression, nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to the hellacious deep suicidal depression I experienced at 18. Moderate depression in comparison seemed normal and no big deal. I know to take care of myself better now.

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      1. From what I’ve read, 2 is just as bad as 1,because it has longer periods of depression. There is some conjecture that there are more suicides associated with 2 than 1. All the distinctions within the word bipolar are so fucking nebulous, don’t you think?

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        1. I have heard it two ways – either that II is more depression than mania, and I is more mania than depression, or that II is no mania (only hypo) and depression, and I is full mania and depression, and cyclo is hypo and “mild” depression. I got categorized as II because I’ve never been sectioned. I think that’s the only way they make the distinction in the UK tbh but since they’ve discharged me from the Early Intervention team (because I’m getting private therapy) and closed my local psych hospital (they’ve literally sent nearly everyone home), I don’t think I could get sectioned now if I turned up at a police station in a toga and declared myself emperor of Thrace. I hardly ever have depression but when I do it’s usually more like a black cloud than a severe all-consuming depression (but I do get full depression sometimes), and I’m far more prone to hypomania (pretty much 60% of my life is spent elevated) but they don’t have a mental illness category for that so they put me down as type II. Who knows?

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          1. DSM just sez bp1 has mania and bp2 doesn’t. Eh, whatever.

            PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE wear a toga* pop in at your local nick and announce that you’re the Emperor of Thrace. Do it thrice and make sure it gets filmed. You’d send the whole tribe hypo with that video.

            *royal purple toga, obviously.

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            1. They’d probably just stick me in the drunk tank for a few hours, that’s what happened when I ran around the local hospital (medical not mental) after my second suicide attempt, dressed in a snow white costume declaring “I can fly, I can fly!” and climbing on the beds. They don’t arrest anyone for anything in my town.

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    2. Lol@ £10 pounds in Tesco.

      For me, hypomania = no damage, mania = damage. After hypo, the only thing is the crash, after mania I have to start sending out apologies, change my name, leave town….. And depression is my baseline, below that is melancholic depression, which is when I have zero sense of humour, as well as more pain.

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        1. Maybe I should’ve said full speed, turbo charged damage – can’t do fuckall when depressed. Ah shit and I left out mixed episode damage too. Bi-winning eh…..

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          1. Yeah they don’t categorize mixed eps at all on the DSM. It’s like they don’t think they exist. My damage tends to be the sort of stuff I wouldn’t make public on the internet (and given what I’ve made public – ’nuff said) (speaking of irresponsible, I have to return my licence to the DVLA today because when I changed my name, they gave me a free motorcycle test pass – made up a pass date and everything – despite the fact I’ve only ever been pillion my whole life!!!! I mean it’s nice ‘n’ all but I’ve never operated a motorbike in my life and have no clue how to ride a Hog and if I’d been more elevated this week I might well have been tempted to try, now that’s how these things always start out).

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            1. they’re in the DSM 5 as an afterthought, “mixed features” – sounds like someone with an ‘interesting’ face. Motorbike licence wow, that’s not like the British government, giving away something without money and suffering.

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              1. They wrote to me telling me to send it back, telling me my licence was “incomplete or incorrect” but wouldn’t tell me (when I phoned) what was wrong, said it was something to do with my name. On scrutiny, I apparently (according to my licence) passed my class A (full size) motorbike test in 2013. Funny how you forget things as time goes on LOL.

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                1. Rofl! That’s a remarkable manic superpower, wish I’d known you when I took my driver’s test. When I started reading your comment, I thought wtf, who’s asking her to send her bipolar back and where can I get some of that. Oops.

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              1. I know, people might call me and ask for… telephonic favours (although y’know, that’s the stuff I *do* talk about openly lol). I can just see it now if news got out (eyes look off to the right for a Scrubs-like fantasy):
                Man: “Hello, do you… um… still… um…. take calls?”
                Me (sounding like an American 40s femme fatale): “Not really, sweetie, I’m tired.”
                Man: “Could you… um… make an… um… exception? I’m really desperate.”
                Me (flicking my Marcel wave then remembering it’s glued down with hairspray): “Daddy baby, you’re just not selling it to me.”
                Man: “I’ll… um… make it worth your while.”
                Me (still in a 40s American accent): “Look, darling, you’ve got the wrong girl. I got out of that business a long time ago, and I ain’t never lookin’ back.”
                Man: “But I’ve got 5000 beds to get rid of and none of my call handlers turned up today, you’ve gotta have a heart and help me!”
                Me: “Oh, fine, but just the one, and I want payment upfront in cash by the telephone and I’ll count it before I lay a finger on your receiver. And don’t you dare get fresh with me or I walk.”
                *cut to train going into or out of tunnel, then two people having a fag, then someone dipping a breadstick in a big bowl of soup, the Flake girl biting a Flake, a hand going into a glove, and then we fire the archivists for not being able to find the stock footage of a call centre and rolling all that other crap out instead.*

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  8. For me, hypomanic episodes creep in slowly, and I feel more energetic, creative, and able. But a manic episode hits like a ton of bricks, out of nowhere, and then I’m fuckin’ awesome, fabulous fun to be around, happier than a pig in poo, getting signs from the universe, the sexiest bitch on earth, sleeping maybe 2-3 hours a day. Its awesome, and I love it when its happening (for the most part), because I’m totes delusional (and want to crawl up my own arse when I recall my behaviour when I’m plummeting back down to baseline) but coming down from that full-on manic episode is an emotional rollercoaster – up and down like a yo-yo, and it takes me MONTHS to level out to my low-level depressed baseline. And then I have no energy, no motivation, no interest in any-fucking-thing – can you tell that’s where I’m at right now? Yeah, nah. I could do with a bout of hypomania right about now.

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    1. Haaaa, I can so relate to your mania. Your comment defined mine perfectly, I want to blog about the distinctions between my own cycles – ta lots for the inspiration. Haka time heheh.

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  9. I hate hypomania. I’m afraid of my emotions and now that I know I have bipolar, whenever I swing too far one direction or another, I get scared. Because of that fear, hypomania is a time of irritability, anger and a period when I’m downright mean.

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  10. When I’m hypomanic, I am in touch with reality. But I have tons of energy. Can get lots done. But I am also very anxious. And I cycle through mani my, normal and definitely reseed. A mixed phase. When I tumble into full blown mania, I am out of touch with reality a lot if the times. Still cycling through manic normal and depressed, but out of touch with reality as in a witch in Eastern Europe is using black magic to damage my heart. These are the three bye I think the n my psychotic periods in c mania. In my neighborhood real period in f mania, I fully realize what’s going on and call my doctor and tell him!
    Hope you feel better soon. Xxxooo

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  11. Sorry!!! God forsaken autocorrect!!! Here’s what I really wanted to say!
    When I’m hypomanic, I am in touch with reality. But I have tons of energy. Can get lots done. But I am also very anxious. And I cycle through mania, normal and depressed. I guess this is called a mixed phase. When I tumble into full blown mania, I am out of touch with reality a lot of the times. Still cycling through manic, normal and depressed, but out of touch with reality as in a witch in Eastern Europe is using black magic to damage my heart, and actually feel chest pain! So again I have three parts to full blown manic: the depressed, the normal, and the manic. In my normal period of full blown mania, I fully realize what’s going on and call my doctor and tell him, it’s happening again and I am out of touch with reality! That’s the way it’s been with me since the beginning. Perhaps because I was given antidepressants the very first time I ever had any mood symptoms, a severe depression. Antidepressants cause mixed phases.
    Hope you feel better soon!!! Xxxooo

    Sent from my iPhone

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    1. You’ve analysed that incredibly well for me, the distance to and from reality is a great perception. I’ve been on antidepressants for decades, still am – and I mix like a magimix on steroids.

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  12. I do both. always wondered why they tried to assign hypomania or mania to the two types of BP. I suffer from both and I have more depression usually than mania, but they can’t decide which I am because I suffer from both types of mania. Hypo from my understanding is linked more to BP2, but I usually get more mania than hypo and during hypo I tend to be hyper, very hyper.

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    1. I get more depression too, I guess I got the bp1 tag because of the presence of mania, but it’s all so freaking variable innit? Bastard bastard bastard bipolar.

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    2. Hey Tessa – to clarify for you, Bipolar I must have had at least one episode of mania, but individuals may experience both mania AND hypomania – depression is not even necessary for a diagnosis of bipolar… Bipolar II requires hypomania and depression for diagnosis, but NOT mania (essentially, Bipolar II is the “lesser” of the bipolar’s). And if the manic episode includes psychotic symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, disorganised thoughts), then it is, by definition, a manic episode (as opposed to a hypomanic episode – but, mania does not necessarily have to include psychotic features)

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  13. Honestly, I get nervous when I start getting hypomanic because I know I’ll get irritable and overdo it and crash. I don’t think I really go full-blown manic. I’ve rapid cycled and had mixed episodes. I’ve had thoughts that are not “rational.” Once I was full blown manic, but it was all insomnia and racing thoughts of mystical, scientific & mathematical content. Interesting stuff, actually. Part of me has wondered where I might go if I succumbed to the madness.

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      1. Here, I’m not quite sure, because I’m something of a skeptic believer. I identify as a both a mystic and a skeptic. I straddle the fence here, realizing that my mystic experiences can be explained psychiatrically or biochemically, but still believing (with pause) that they may also hold a greater truth that we cannot yet fully measure scientifically. I consider myself extremely sensitive and believe that some people experience things we do not yet fully understand. Difficult to reality test given this HUGE grey area.

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          1. Better to treat the psychosis than to try to mine the episodes for insight. Healthier. Exhausting. As you’ve pointed research shows each episode damages the brain. I’ll take a healthier brain, thank you very much.

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  14. How interesting that the image and caption defining this post is one of Carrie Fisher. I’m currently reading Wishful Drinking, and find her frenzied writing comforting, her ability to jump from thought to thought appeals to my hyperactivity. Before giving you my answer to your question, I do have to tell you how much I enjoy your writing. It’s mesmerizing. I seriously can’t get enough of it. As for me, I don’t surf the hypomanic wave before I fly off the manic one. It’s either, or. Sometimes I can feel a gentle push within my gut telling me it’s time to move more quickly, and with that comes the urge to obsess over Pinterest or Instagram and become the best at that. The mania, however, wakes me in the middle of the night, and has me online shopping or booking trips (which we don’t have the money for so when my card gets declined I’m still very surprised). I make life changing decisions, for instance I have left my husband 3 times in one of these states. It’s just the most extreme of the extremes for me.

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    1. I think I reviewed one of her books here and then gave up, because the poor thing appears to rewrite the same themes and anecdotes every time. I love her to bits though, and there are always, always priceless gems betwixt and between it all. And wow, thank you so much for your truly lovely commentpliment. I can TOTALLY relate to obsessing over pinterest and instagram. I have to be disciplined in my use of social media, or I just jump down the fabled rabbit hole never to be seen again. I seem to have the (dis)ability to have the either/or episodes you talked about, or hypo rushing inexorably like a freight train to mania. Don’t even ask me how many times I’ve upped sticks and moved between here and the UK in that state. Ack, I’m waffling. Thanks again.

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  15. Hmmm. Hypomania, can be lots and lots of fun. If I got paid a Canadian penny – currently no longer in circulation and a pain in my ass because now I must “round up or down” – every time I had a “brilliant” idea, a business idea, I’d be loaded. The reason rapid cycling is such a bitch is because it yanks you from the blissful daydream state to a doomed sense of reality and depression in which nothing can ever manifest. The ideas never incubate long enough for the cute little yellow fluffy chicks to emerge. It’s sad and pathetic and frustrating.

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