avoiding mania

I don’t want to go manic.

I have a mood disorder, Bipolar I, and generally have both a depressed and manic spell each month.

I go through this cycle often.

I absolutely welcome not being depressed anymore, as I came out of the darkness last Thursday. Subtly. But on Saturday, I saw my first flashes of “fast time” though. I immediately checked in with dudes in my support group, some in recovery and one who is clean/sober and also has bipolar. I made the commitment not to eat sugar or take caffeine, as suggested by one of my dudes. Sugar is like cocaine to the manic brain. Same for caffeine. Those are two of my last devices to cope with. Sugar especially when I have depression.

I’ve done well with that so far. I also started my walks again. Walking is good for both sides of the spectrum, of course. I walked for an hour yesterday. Today, 45 mins.

Here’s where it gets tricky: SLEEP. I went to bed Saturday around 10:30pm and made it a point to turn my wi-fi off to help fight my compulsion to be on my phone. I used my meditation app Simply Being and got some rest. Then I woke at 2:45am…

For the day.

I played my church job which I am super grateful for for many reasons. I avoided caffeinated coffee and the mmmmm lovely Shipley’s doughnuts at the church. After a father’s day gathering with the dad’s on my wife’s side of the family, I left to get home to work on a paper that’s due today. I wanted to work all day with no naps but that wasn’t going to be possible.

I am grateful I could nap for an hour. What I must keep in mind is that my illness is getting better. It really is better. When full-blown manic, sleep is quite elusive.

By 8pm, it felt like the middle of the night and I pushed through to write about and listed to Debussy’s Pagodes more. 

My goal was to sleep 10-6am then get up and work for the day. Instead, boom! I’m wide awake 3.5hrs later.

I’ve gotten some good progress and have to question why if I haven’t blogged in months am I doing so now?

It is because I’m frustrated and tired of this. I don’t want to have bipolar disorder. I just want to be cool. Maybe a little up, a little down, but not this shit. Depression is for the fucking birds and I can fight it, but I cannot seem to beat it. It’s as if I’m going to be depressed for at least 10 days out of the month. Ugh! And mania, well, although everything feels good, I often lose track of time, spend money I don’t have, and other painful things.

Having written that two things come to mind. It is getting better. I am on an incline where the spectrum of mental health is concerned. I have more tools to cope than when I was diagnosed with BP in 2010. So… I’ll keep taking my meds, I will check in with my doctors, I will carve out time to walk everyday, I’ll go to more meetings, I will stay connected, I will schedule meals (I forget to eat), I will meditate, and lastly, I will avoid caffeine and sugar.

I don’t have to go full blown manic, I can harness my superpowers for good.

I will write a good paper on my analysis of Debussy. It’s 4:25am and the world is quiet. Class isn’t until 2pm.

I don’t like this last “I will” statement… I will stay offline until this evening. #yikes

Thank you for reading this.

Caffeine free

I learned something yesterday. After going 6 weeks with no caffeine, I drifted back into use and had a rather large 1/2 caff in the morning. Bad idea. I was mildly manic and eventually wasn’t able to sleep well at all and, the tremors which had all but been gone during the caffeine fast returned. And the blurting out.

So I’m back to caffeine-free Henry. This was confirmation that I have no business messing with caffeine. I gave up alcohol and drugs, then I gave up smoking, and now… caffeine.