Ah, yes. You have arrived. I'll ring Carson to bring the tea.
Welcome to my nightmare, my dreamscape, and everything in between.
This is my place to vent and express what I cannot pour forth from my feelings, innermost soul, and chaotic, batshitty cobwebs of my mind in face-to-face interactions with my family, friends, and community.
Be prepared to meet Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde and see the raw, naked grotesqueness of Dorian Gray's portrait.
In this arena, I am uncensored and unabashed. If what you see here with your eye offends thee, pluck it out. Or at least leave the page. That's all I ask of you, which is very little in comparison to the massive depths of my soul I have allowed you to explore. You, Susie Q. of Duluth, Minnesota, who I will never meet or even be able to identify from a criminal photo line up from a casual glance, have been granted a privilege. I do not open this part of myself to just anyone. If you are here because I invited you to this page, please be gentle in your judgments of me. That I have let you this close to my innermost workings means that I have a high level of trust in you. But if you are an anonymous stranger who stumbled onto this page and you have nothing constructive to say about what I have posted, you need to step off. Big time. I have a lot going on in my turbulent psyche, and I don't need to deal with trolls. If you do say something unkind, it will not devastate me or destroy me (I am strong enough to brush off episodes of douchebaggery), but it will reflect poorly on you. After all, I do not know you from Adam, and I have no basis for judgment of you other than what you have posted to my page, yet you still feel that you have the right to go out of your way to say something negative about a person who you also know very little about. Petty, wanton meanness reflects a fundamental lack of empathy that I find disturbing. (As do others.) If you are compelled to be hateful, I can feel nothing but compassion for you. Being hateful never flows from a lush, beautiful place in the soul--it comes from a landscape as harsh and ugly and hardscrabble as any barren desert or epicenter of wantonness and urban decay. And if you have a place like that within you, I am terribly sorry for you. I am not inclined to personal negativity towards others, so I cannot understand what causes this psychological defect or spiritual flaw, but I am truly sorry that you have it, regardless of its genesis. Especially when I explain what is going on with me psychologically.
I am bipolar. Specifically, I have bipolar II disorder. This is supposedly the "kinder, gentler" form of bipolar disorder: my cycles are not as severe and long lasting, they occur less frequently, and I have never had a truly psychotic episode. I consider myself fortunate that I have the less extreme version of bipolar disorder. People with bipolar I disorder swing wildly from one extreme of mania to another extreme of depression, and each end has psychotic features, and they occur frequently. I can only imagine their personal hell. I only swing from hypomania (mania without psychotic features) to mixed states (a combination of mania and depression features) to depression. My episodes last usually a few weeks or maybe a month now that I have found more effective and more consistent treatments, but they are pure hell.
One of the biggest misconceptions about bipolar disorder is that your cycles are from happiness to depression. That is not the case at all. Initially, mania and hypomania can be fun. You need less sleep, you're full of energy, you're motivated to go at 200 miles per hour on all systems, you're funnier, you're more charming, you're sexier, other people are funnier, more charming, and sexier, you accomplish more and take more satisfaction in your accomplishments, everything seems to go your way, and life is great on every front. But then, things start to go wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong. The need for fewer hours of sleep turns into all-night insomnia that, no matter what you try or take to aid in somnolence, will not abate. High energy devolves into grinding, maddening exhaustion. Excitement turns to agitation, and then anger--sometimes even pure blind, shaking, foaming-at-the-mouth, irrational rage at everyone and everything. (I once got so furious when a good friend was visiting that I was literally seeing red about the fact that though the day was sunny, there was an unseasonable chill in the air, and the fact that while I was waiting for my friend to finish competing in a certain athletic event in my area, people who had dogs on leashes dared to walk near me. I am not anti-dog or tired of my friend or any such thing, I was just furious from the moment I woke up that day. I actually had to cut my friend's visit short by retreating to my bedroom in my home and avoiding everyone until I calmed down several days later. I feel rather guilty about that. I feel like I ruined my friend's visit and that was very unfair since he drove several hours one way to come and pay a visit to me to try to lift my spirits.) Paranoia sets in. (I constantly get the feeling when in my hypomanic states that people are watching me, judging me, and going out of their way to dislike me.) And then--KABOOM!--the bottom falls out from under you, and you have entered the depths of depression. Dissatisfaction abounds. Apathy sets in. Sometimes, you sleep too much. Other times, not at all. Anhedonia, a total loss of interest and pleasure in things you enjoy, envelops your soul at all levels. You eat too much. Or not at all. Suicidal thoughts and death wishes creep into the crevices of your mind until they are insidious and every thought you have is "pain, suffering, self-loathing, misery, sadness, boredom, death, Death, DEATH!" Sometimes you try to end it all, and sometimes, well, you lack even the initiative to even do that. I've attempted suicide more times than I care to count. Over the years, it's been over 10 incidents that I can clearly remember. But I know there are more. Many, many more.
And then you begin the uptick. And the roller coaster starts up again, each time getting faster, more extreme, and more dangerous.
Being bipolar is hell. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Ever. It is as exhausting physically as it is psychologically and spiritually. People who go through it, well, you don't want anyone else to go through it, either. It's so overwhelming to be just me sometimes. I know sometimes I act out and frustrate you, my dear friends and family, but please try to forgive me. I don't act out of malice. I'm just as frustrated and confused and unhappy with myself at times as you are. Just know that I love you and care for you very deeply, and all I ask is for your patience in return.
But this page isn't just going to be about my struggles with bipolar disorder and my inner turmoil. I am more than just a diagnosis from the DSM-V. Like a beautifully-cut gem, I am multi-faceted. Sometimes, I will be funny. Sometimes, I will be passionate. Sometimes, I will let you read my closely-guarded fiction. Sometimes, I'll be ridiculous. Sometimes, I will be serious. I am all of these things.
So, yes, this is, as the old "Twilight Zone" introduction says, a journey from the depths of my fears to the summit of my knowledge. And everything in between, so enjoy.
And now that we have been properly introduced, I encourage you to read on in our anonymous, electronic tete a tete.
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