So Far So Good

I have Bipolar 2. Some people call it Bipolar Light, but to be truthful, the lows are just as devastating as they are in Bipolar 1. The highs are less extreme but can still be damaging as high moods lead to irritibility, impulsivity, and dysfunction.

The idea behind treatment is to even out the moods — cut the highs and the lows. Some of the medication I take targets lows, some highs, some both. Most people with bipolar take a fine-tuned cocktail of meds to optimally target their mood swings.

About two weeks ago, the doctor had to take me off the mainstay (lithium, the gold standard) because of damage to my kidneys. They’re weaning me off it, and I honestly don’t know how stable I will remain. They’ve upped another of my meds to see if it takes care of the problem. I know that if I start having trouble with my moods, I’ll be able to call my doctor and see if my meds need more tinkering.

This is scary to me, because active bipolar makes it harder to function. Depression is horrible; hypomania is fun until I’m not getting any sleep and overwhelmed with projects.

So far, so good.

Ever Vigilant

I’m irritable. I have a crush on someone again^*. It’s a change in season. An ordinary person would think nothing of this, but I have bipolar disorder (bipolar 2), and this makes me worry. Am I becoming manic (hypomanic)? Do I need to check in with my pdoc? (Actually, checking in with my pdoc would be a good idea, as our last appointment got canceled.)

I’m probably overreacting; I often do. It’s easy to overreact when one has bipolar disorder, because the mood swings wreak havoc on one’s life. Even hypomania puts strains on relationships and budgets, and the full-fledged depression can make wanting to live difficult.

The states of bipolar mania/depression are hard to explain. It’s hard to explain that my judgment is great unless I’m in one of my extremes, and then I need a trusted voice to walk me through things. Even then, my judgment is not impaired but influenced by intense moods. I do not act on my moods as much as I suffer frustration.

As I wrote this, I got a call in to my pdoc and made an appointment, which will be in two weeks. If I’m still feeling like this then, I’ll bring it up to him.

^*I know I’m married; I still get crushes. I have a crush on Jason Momoa; nothing’s going to happen there either.

The Positive Moment

Positive Psychology vs Toxic Positivity

I teach a class in positive psychology. However, I am very skeptical about it. Toxic positivity is often mistaken for positive psychology. It’s not positive psychology that possesses us to walk up to the depressed and say “Don’t feel so bad, it’s a beautiful day out!” or to the woman who has lost a child and say “You can have another one!” That is toxic positivity, and true to its name, it’s toxic to the well-being of the person who has every right to be angry or sad. The person spreading toxic positivity does so to not have feelings themselves, and they shut down the feelings of the sufferer as if they have no right to exist.

A Magic Conversation

I had something happen to me yesterday that was the opposite of toxic positivity, and I’ll describe it to answer why. As my readers know, I am in the middle of experiencing the 10-year anniversary of a time in my life where a psychiatrist diagnosed me with bipolar II and the emergency room referred me to inpatient. The behavioral health ward is a pretty quiet place, but the lack of autonomy — no cell phone, no computer, no shoelaces — accentuated the feeling that I was a pariah. (I don’t even want to talk about the worst bed I have ever slept on, and I have slept on the floor on an air mattress). I mourn my life before its complications, even knowing that I suffered from deep depression.

Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com

Yesterday, I ran into a friend for the first time in a while (she stuck her head in my office) and we caught up. I told her I was in the middle of my 10-year anniversary of my hospitalization, and she paused for a moment to share that feeling with me, and then she said something that totally surprised me. She said, “You need to go out and celebrate.”

My first reaction was a moment of incomprehension. Celebrate? Celebrate what? I must have looked confused, because she said, “Most people (with bipolar) can’t say that.” A glee bubbled up in me. I was not a sufferer, I was a survivor! Suddenly, I knew where I wanted to celebrate and what item on the menu I wanted.

A Cause for Celebration

Why was her statement positive psychology and not toxic positivity? First, because she gave me space to feel. That’s important, because toxic positivity shuts down feelings. Second, because her suggestion to celebrate acknowledged my bipolar rather than demanding an escape from it. Third, because the positive related to my effort to stay out of the hospital instead of fatuous praise.

The conversation was an alchemical moment, and I now look at the hospitalization as the first step in living a stronger life.

Anniversary of the Worst Time of my Life

Ten years ago this season

I read a Facebook Time Hop today in which, ten years ago, I wrote about the last Family and Consumer Sciences banquet at Northwest Missouri State University. It was the last banquet because my department got axed that spring for reasons that never quite made sense. Our enrollment was healthy; what was not healthy was the scorn society heaped on our existence. For we were the very unsexy formerly known as home economics. That, I think, was enough to cause our demise.

It’s also ten years since the most horrible semester I’ve had here at Northwest, because as my department’s demise brought a very clear fear of being left in the unemployment line, I also had my definitely hypomanic moment. I was hardly sleeping, putting large amounts of work into a project that wasn’t supported by the leader. My gradebook was a mess. I was going fishing at 2 in the morning by myself. I was angry — at the university, at my coworkers, at Richard. This led to a Bipolar II diagnosis and a few days in inpatient care to level out my meds. My semester ended early, but I had become passive, inert from a medication that didn’t work for me, and which incapacitated me all summer before my new psychiatrist and I realized that the tiniest dose made me into a zombie. My husband and I bought a house somewhere between the end of the semester and the internships I would not be allowed to supervise; I was one thing we moved into the house.

I’m superstitious

I have been pretty stable with the meds for the past ten years, if “stable” means having periods of moderate depression (but no suicidality) or months of hopeless crushes (but no stupid midnight dates with catfish — real catfish — at Mozingo Lake). Sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don’t, but I’m pretty stable. The gradebook is always neat in case I become unstable again.

But I’m superstitious. I have been stable for ten years, but this year’s an Anniversary. When I see the light through the curtains, I worry about my job falling apart. I smell Spring and remember growling at Richard until he let me go fishing before the sun came up. Beauty is suspect, because the greens of mania scintillate with colors brighter than life.

It’s been 10 years, and I still feel like that Spring long ago broke me. Who I am now seems diminished, and my writing was a way to transcend the mousy older woman I’d become. It hasn’t worked.

It seems like I’d have gotten used to the “New Normal” by now, but having spent 48 years in at least cyclothymic and bipolar 2 state, those highs and lows were my personality. Now I need to find the personality that remains when the highs and lows are taken away.