The theoretical outline of the book I’m thinking of writing looks like this:
I.Intro and Foreword
II.About Bipolar Disorder
III.Mania and Hypomania
a.Racing Thoughts/Words Piling up like Boxcars
b.Higher than Normal Drive/Project Obsessions
c.Hypersexuality/Sex, Fidelity, and The Other
d.Increased Spirituality/Transcendental Experiences on a Daily Basis
e.Plummet into Depression/The Words Crash Down
IV.Depression
a.Pessimism and Hopelessness/Living Cursed
b.Lack of Enjoyment/The Grey World
c.Feeling Empty/The Emptiness In My Center
d.ComingOut of Depression/Breathing Without Pain
V.About Medication
a.The Toll on my Body
b.The Day I Couldn’t Stop Walking
VI.The Rest of My Story – How I Manage
It’s scary contemplating writing a book about how I experience bipolar through the lens of my creativity. It’s easy to talk about what’s going through our heads when it’s within the realm of normal, but sometimes I live in a different world than you probably do. As I have Bipolar 2 — half the mania, all the depression! — my mania is mild and perhaps even functional, but my depression can be hard to fight. Most of the time my medication works; I have an excellent psychiatrist who keeps an eye on things. But sometimes it fails — I get my dosage wrong, I hit a very stressful time, the seasons change — and I am left to navigate through a slightly skewed landscape. When I am hypomanic, the colors are brighter, the lines sharper, and I imagine the trees glow with knowledge. When I’m depressed, I walk through the aftermath of a forest fire, in the snow.
I hope you don’t see me differently — no, I hope you do see me differently, as someone who is neurodiverse, whose brain is wired a little differently than yours. I hope you don’t see me as a curiosity, as a victim, or as an undesirable. My world takes fantastic turns in the the old sense of the word — tinged with grace and otherworldiness; tinged with horror. That’s all.
I am an associate professor of human services at a regional Midwestern university. I am also a writer of fantasy and romance, hoping to get traditionally published. I have one husband and am owned by four cats.
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I think this is very brave to be vulnerable like this. It may help other people understand a friend or family member who also has the same diagnosis.This is Lanetta
Words Like Me 
I think this is very brave to be vulnerable like this. It may help other people understand a friend or family member who also has the same diagnosis.This is Lanetta
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