Feeling a Little Blue

This is part of my life

I have bipolar disorder — Bipolar II to be specific. This means that I have hypomania — a feeling of exhilaration and irritability — and some pretty severe depression. I take a cocktail of medication to keep me on an even keel, but sometimes the erratic moods break through.

Down or depression?

I’m feeling a bit down right now — sleeping too much, waking up tired. Feeling uninspired. musing over the past (there is a lot of it) and crying inside, not feeling inspired. Rejections are weighing heavily on me and I’m second-guessing everything I write. This feels like depression.

Which depression?

Generally, when talking about depression, there’s two basic categories — situational and biological. The former is depression based on external events; the other is internal. It’s hard to determine which is which.

For example, is my pile of rejections the cause of my depression? It very well could be I tend not to react very badly to single rejections, but I’ve had a string of them lately, and I can’t find the right thing to fix them so that they’re accepted. I feel like giving up. This could be the cause of my depressions.

It could also be that a biological depression (that is, bipolar depression) could create the stress and negative feelings toward my life. (Right now my brain is diagramming this as a path analysis (a type of social studies research equation) as if I could quantify each factor and measure and research. Not now, Satan.)

The only way to tell

The only way to tell if this depression is biological is to sit with it for two weeks. Given the relatively minor nature of the situational roots (rejections can be let go pretty easily) I should be done with it by then. If it lingers after two weeks, I call my psychiatrist and we tweak the meds. I’ll be bummed (oops, I am already) because this med combination has been working wonderfully for at least three years.

But this is bipolar disorder. Untreated, and it’s like someone else is running my life, laughing my laugh, stoking my rage. I won’t let them do it for too long.

Handing it to you

If I have anyone who identifies with this and wants to comment, please drop a comment.

Is this depression?

I am fighting a down mood that may or may not be depression. The seasons can set people with bipolar up with either mania or depression, and this article suggests that there is definitely a link between manic or depressed state and weather.

I won’t know if it’s a true bipolar state until I’ve held it for two weeks or more. This came on rapidly on Friday, and it’s hard to tell whether it’s an actual mood swing or just me beating myself up over something. I can be negative on myself sometimes. Or it could be a bad few days, which I’ve had. Or it could be burnout, because a lot of us in education are going through it after COVID.

So I’m resting and being patient with myself. I’m accepting that maybe the inner nagging voice is right and I’m a bad teacher these days, but I still have worth as a person. Maybe that will get me through.

The Feeling of Living

Daylight Savings Time. And a storm. On a Sunday. I slept until 7 because the sun did not peek through my windows.

I almost stayed in bed all day. I just about asked my husband to bring me breakfast (pancakes and turkey sausage) in bed. But if I had, I would have missed Bowie Symphonic Blackstar through the speakers and the sight of the trees bending in the wind under sodden grey skies.

I have plans for today. I will work on the pre-beta reader edit on Kringle in the Night. I might binge watch Monsters Inside Me because of its medical drama and wonderful illness simulation. I can watch some Babylon 5 with my husband and gaze at the porch swing rocking wildly.

This is how I can tell I’m not depressed, because there’s something to come downstairs for. I seek out productivity. I try to make things happen in my life because that’s who I am.

A touch of depression

Trying to wake up after 12 hours sleep. I feel like I could sleep more.

This is the sign that I’m in a bit of a depression, although whether biological or situational I don’t know.

I’m convinced that I get into this state every end-of-semester, and that I can hold it off until then. My end of semester wasn’t until now because I had an intense summer class I just got over with.

So what does depression look like? At this stage, it feels like sleeping all the time and wanting to sleep more, and avoiding email. Feeling a bit down about things and not wanting to engage. Taking things a bit harder than I normally do.

The trick here is to not go in further. Get the things done I need to get done. Not take 2-hour afternoon naps (although that’s hard). Try not to think too negatively. Do cognitive exercises if I need to. Push myself to write.

If I don’t get this knocked down in a couple weeks, it’s time for me to see my psychiatrist for a medication adjustment. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

Feeling discouraged about my writing

I’m feeling a bit discouraged about my writing this morning.

All I’ve been doing is editing, and editing more than one work’s beginning. This gives me a pretty myopic view in many ways, as I’m focused on the first moments of the work, trying to give my readers a setting to react to.

I’m feeling very discouraged. I’ve been doing this for, what, seven years? And I’m still fixing mistakes. And I don’t know, through all this, if I’m getting any better, if my work is getting any better. I don’t know if it’s worth it, because I don’t know if I’ll ever get published. Or, if I self-publish, if I’m good enough to get published. I don’t want to be published until my stuff is good, really good, and I don’t know if I’ve got what it takes to get there.

I need a breakthrough, not a breakdown. And I don’t know if I can find my way to it.

In Search of Small Happinesses

How do I kick myself out of these blahs?

These aren’t bipolar blahs, they’re just plain blahs. Lots of rejections, one dead cat (RIP Snowy), nothing exciting to look forward to. Except my birthday, and I have my psychiatrist’s appointment that day. So lots of reasons to stay blah.

If I want to stay blah, I can rehearse my hurts and aches and pains, hoping that I can win some sort of concession from God (“Look at all this crap that’s happened to me. I deserve some compensation!”). Note: It doesn’t work, and it keeps me from seeing good things that could be happening.

It’s my responsibility to do what I can to get into a better mood. I wouldn’t say happiness is a choice, because that’s unfair to people like myself who face depression. But I can help myself until I feel better or. in the case of depression, till the meds kick in or I can talk to someone else. When I’m depressed, it’s so much harder to think of these, much less do them. Work helps me connect with people, and that helps a little, as does forcing myself to write. These things don’t get rid of the depression, but they take the edge off it.

What can I do? I think I’ve talked about this before, but I need a refresher, so here I go again:

Gratitude journaling — three things I’m grateful for every night. I admit I fall behind on this, because at night I generally want to sleep.
Walking — I could walk to coffee this morning. That might be a good thing.
Pet therapy — with five cats, this isn’t hard to do.
Getting out — I’m contemplating the Board Game Cafe, as usual.
Accomplishing something using my character strengths — I have a story I’m writing which I’m not currently in love with; I can send Whose Hearts are Mountains off to dev edit; I could come up with a new story. Or submit more queries/submissions.
Connecting with people — Board Game Cafe works.

So I’m off to take care of my mood.

Being Bipolar

I’m feeling a bit down these last couple of days, sleeping a lot, probably a letdown from the really successful first week. I hope it’s that and not my moods crashing.

Being bipolar (bipolar II — without full-fledged mania), I worry about these things. I’m pretty stable on my meds, until I’m not. There are a number of triggers that can knock me off balance — not enough sleep, stress, certain medications (pain meds and Benedryl for example), missing a couple doses of meds, more than a tiny amount of alcohol … some of these things I have control of; others are out of my control.

Too much sleep is a sign of a downturn, and I’ve done a lot of sleeping the past couple days. On the other hand, I stayed up late Saturday night, and — did I mess myself up there?

Probably not. There’s such a thing as temporary sadness, or a down mood —

That’s one of the problems with having a mental illness — having moods, even normal ones, is seen as a chargeable offense. Admittedly, losing control of bipolar can result in mania, which if full-fledged scares others with its unpredictable behavior. Depression is its own disruption — it looks less scary on the outside, but can result in suicide. It’s really hard for a bipolar person to know they’re in one of these states because they feel real.

However, even in a bipolar episode, there are things I’ve learned to do to keep me functional during upturns and downturns. The biggest one is to contact the doctor for a medication adjustment. Making sure I’m getting to bed at a consistent time each night, using cognitive journaling to separate moods from real life, and getting to work every day helps until the med adjustment takes hold.

So if this ends up being a depressive episode, I know what to do, and that is to manage things as if this were any other illness.

Slump

Oh, I really need to get out of this slump!

It’s like I’ve forgotten I’m a writer, and all I want to do is nap all day. That sounds like depression to me, but I don’t feel depressed. Just tired, and relaxed, and totally meh.

This, I remind myself, is not who I want to be. I want to be a writer. I want to get a novel published, and maybe some short stories. I have two short stories and a novel (still Prodigies at DAW) out there, and a third short-short that should be announced any day now (I doubt I’ve won that one, but maybe I’m a runner-up?)

I’m wondering if winning the short essay contest at A3 has satisfied my desire to get published. I’m wondering where my drive to go further has gone. I’m wondering if I need a change of scenery, but the cafe is closed today.

I’ll push myself to write today, but maybe a bit later.

Garden update

I’ve been fighting depression again lately, and a touch of illness, but —

I get to plant things today!

I just got a plant order in from Richter’s Herbs in Canada, a combination of prosaic (Italian parsley and lavender), intriguing (nepitella, which tastes a bit like an oregano-mint) and fun (scented leaf geraniums). Most of these will go on “the hill”, a dirt-covered rip slope whose sparseness actually duplicates the origins of many of the herbs we love.

I also have to harden off my indoor seedlings so they can be planted without sun damage. Tomatoes and peppers and flowers and more herbs!

I will probably plant my roots and greens this week, which is the breathing room between end of semester and internships/online class/other things I need to do. Then I will spend an hour each morning making sure I give my plants the attention they deserve — weeding, picking produce, etc.

Some of the weeds we will eat. Lamb’s quarters taste better than spinach when cooked. I considered eating the poke sallet that keeps infringing on the shady spot I want to transform into a hosta garden, but I just can’t warm up to a green that you have to cook three times over to make it non-toxic. I’ve also not cooked dandelion greens this year — by the time I notice them, they’ve flowered, and they’re too bitter to eat.

The other thing I should mention — everything I plant is edible, one part or another. This year there will be an exception — I am putting in a moon garden by request of my husband. The moon garden will be romantic but deadly, which sounds like a stock antihero in fiction, doesn’t it?

I am hoping the summer hours and the gardening will get me out of my depression. I don’t tell you a lot about what the depression is like, so you’ll have to take my words for it. Wish me luck.

Summer productivity

My school year officially ended at noon yesterday, after I finalized my grades and finished my office hours. Now I’m officially in summer mode.

That means I have some uninterrupted blocks for writing. This doesn’t mean I’ll only be writing this summer. I have a class I’m taking in administration of disaster mental health programs, I have at least twenty interns to supervise, I have research I should do, I have classes to put together for the summer, I have my gardening …

Professors don’t really have the summer off, we just have more freedom to schedule things as we need them.

So, writing. I’m celebrating the end of the semester with a writing retreat in a cabin at Mozingo Lake next week for two nights. I’m hoping the change of scenery will help me get ahead on the rewrite for Apocalypse.

I’m talking this all out loud because the concept of planning out this summer productivity is new to me. Before my bipolar diagnosis, I pushed myself hard at the end of the semester, usually swinging between hypomanic and depressed, then collapsed on the finish line and slept for two weeks. Or longer. A lot of summers went by when I could barely function to do my summer work.

Being able to enjoy productivity on my own terms is a very new concept for me. And I plan to enjoy it.