In the Beginning

In the beginning, there was hypomania and days I was up and days I was down.  When I was little, I thought the ups and downs were tied to something.  Like every other time I wore a shirt I would have a good day and every other time I had a bad day.  All you know is you have good and bad days and times and parts of years but you don't understand why.  Every spring I was able to lose some weight with no effort.  Summers felt good and falls and winters were tough. 

And then there were periods of depression.  Depression meant staying in bed and carb cravings.  Not being able to do things, crying, and then, eventually, wanting to die but too scared to do so and hating myself for the whole thing.

Then, when I got a little older, there was self-medication.  Self-medication ended the depression but gave rise to anxiety attacks, which I am told is part of being bipolar. 

Then came a time when I finally tried to seek help and ended up with severe mania.

For the beginner, bipolar disorder is periods of depression interspersed with periods of either mania or hypomania.  There are variations and some people mostly get one or the other or cycle so fast you don't know what they have, or get tricky with it and mix them up, but that is the basic ghist of it.

Depression=wanting to die, eat carbs, lie in bed and not doing much of anything.  You sleep a lot.  You couldn't flirt if it would save your life.  You don't have money because you can't get yourself to work. 

Hypomania= feeling good, getting a lot done, including whole new projects, losing some weight, shopping starts to feel a little extra enjoyable, you buy a pair of shoes and life is good.  You sleep a little less.  And maybe you feel a little flirtatious.  You have lots of money because you are doing great at work.

Mania = feeling too good, you bring home a bag of shoes (or sneak it in when your spouse/boyfriend is not looking), losing a lot of weight, not really feeling like you need to eat, large projects (your whole house gets redecorated including many art projects).  You don't sleep that much.  You feel very flirtatious.  You may do well at work but you are also spending that money.

Super duper mania mixed with alcohol = speaking in tongues, taroh cards, special powers, everybody is your best friend, you say a bunch of stupid crap, your clothes from junior high hang loosely off of your super skinny self, you get kicked out of a bar for the first time in your life and you super freak people out. You don't sleep, period.  You feel slutty and don't care.  Thank god you are not working.

Then comes the medication.  For a while it doesn't work good enough.  Maybe the side effects of the first medicine are bad.  Then you (hopefully) get more or different medication.  Some people don't stay on the meds because they like to feel hypomania.  Some people stay on meds because they fear the mania or depression or feel better.

Either way, you feel a lot different.  All of a sudden you are this weird, eerie calm version of yourself.  Some people around you don't like it, they liked the old you.  Hypomania can mean a lot of personality.  Suddenly, it's gone.  Who the hell are you now?  It takes a while to get used to.  Sometimes you feel a little like a zombie but that goes away.

Finally, you can start with a whole, new calm life.

But wait, some people are weird to you because they hear what you are.  Bipolar.  Isn't that what manson and dahmer and that guy who dressed like a clown and that guy you heard about in the news you just lost it and obliterated a mall/workplace/school have?

Um, no. 

This is when you find out that some people who are older don't act like grownups.  A lot of people.  A whole lot of people.

And suddenly, you do.  You really do.  So what now?