Mypomanic Episode: Another Side of Bipolar Disorder
Welcome back, my mates!
My apologies for the extended absence!. I have been very busy with other projects, which I'll have to revisit shortly. Additionally, I would have liked to make sure this article was perfect, because this one's a little tricky.
So far, the majority of my articles have concentrated on depression. As somebody with type II bipolar disfunction, that is the side I know best. Additionally , it's the side that's most straightforward for a person who doesn't have bipolar disorder to understand. Everybody has been bummed at some point. Wanna understand bipolar depression? Take your depression, magnify by about a jillion, and there ya go. Pretty simple to understand, right? The opposite side of the coin isn't as simple. A good metaphor, I am hoping, will make it much simpler to understand.
Let's say the average human brain is a Volvo. The Volvo gets great mileage and is among the safest, most trusty automobiles on the road. You wanna get to work on time, day to day and with minimal fuss and worry? Then the Volvo is the auto for you.
The bipolar brain is more like a Ferrari.
The Ferrari is fast and flashy. It's sleek, fast looks practically demand and can get shallow chicks to sleep with you. It's sleek styling and predatory looks practically beg you to drive at deadly speeds. You would like to make it to work in 40 seconds flat? Then the Ferrari is the vehicle for you. Unfortunately, it drink gas like your Aunt Janie drinks gin and has a tendency to spend a little more time in the store than on the road. The insurance charges are astronomic and you are nearly guaranteed to wrap it around a tree sometime.
Now then... Bipolar depression is similar to the occasions when the Ferrari is in the store. It's up on the lift, and you're going nowhere. You can't even show it off by rolling it into your drive. Not only that, but you gotta walk to work while all of the Volvo drivers practically blaze by at 35 miles per hour. In your mind's eye, they laugh at you as it begins to rain. Your hysteria tells you they're ALL aiming at puddles near you , and the odd sociopath WILL soak you for their entertainment.
But then the shop owner calls. Your chariot awaits! You go down to the store, pay the preposterous bill, and fire up that 16-cylinder Italian ego trip.
"I' ve missed you, Farrah," you say , not caring about the look the store owner gives you. If HE had a Ferrari, he'd name her Farrah, too. Your foot barely taps her gas pedal and she purrs delightedly. She's missed you, too.
"Good girl," you say, then ease Farrah's shifter into first, the action so smooth that instinct alone tells you that she's out of neutral. You pull out of the shop's parking lot and into traffic. Initially, she's just pleased to be off of that awful rack and back on the road where she belongs, but each red light, each school area is irritating . Sand only makes pearls in oysters. Sand in an engine is death, but Farrah complies and stays at the speed limit... For now.
You pull into the car park at work, all eyes turn to you and your beautiful machine. You pull into your space and reach for the key to kill her ignition, but you stop short.
"It's been so long. Just once," she begs. "Pretty please?"
You know this is how it starts, but you're still in control. Just once will not do any harm anything, right? It's not like you are doing anything perilous. Besides , what is the point in owning an auto like Farrah if you can't show her off?
With her gears still in neutral, your foot presses hard on her accelerator and her engine screams delightedly. People who were not looking before actually are now. Many are impressed. Many others are jealous. And Farrah, eventually, feels warm and tingly.
"Ooo baby," she purrs. "You're the only one who knows how to touch me right. Again. Please."
"Sorry, babe," you assert, a little defeated. "I gotta go to work now."
Farrah pouts as you shut off the engine, sputtering just a little to let you know she's put out. You promise her a full tank of premium and a stretch of deserted highway tonight followed by a loving sponge bath. You know that may make her happy, but you can tell she's still sulking.
When 5 o'clock rolls around, you dash into the car park to find Farrah waiting. It's a gorgeous day, so you decide a little sun would be good for both of you. You drop her top, fire up her engine and gun the accelerator - just a little - as you exit the parking lot. No harm done, and at last you are out of the parking lot and on the open road where the two of you are rather more happy... For all of about twenty seconds.
Gridlock. No one's going anywhere fast. The snarl up drives you nuts, but you attempt to grin regardless. You have gotten so many "nice. car, man" comments from the Volvo drivers that both you and Farrah's egos have slipped into overdrive. At last, though, it gets old. You're done with hearing how nice your auto's. You wanna FEEL how nice she is , and in this traffic, how can you? You haven't even been out of second gear yet! You have to MOVE!
Speed isn't Farrah's only top quality. She maneuvers like... Well... Like a goddamn Ferrari! Each time an opening in traffic presents itself, you whip into it. At first, you make sure there's plenty of space, but soon ANY quantity of space is sufficient so long as it moves you forward. Other drivers stop pronouncing "nice car" and begin to say "watch it, asshole!"
"Fuck them," Farrah says. "They're just envious, baby."
Ultimately, you come on a stretch of open road, just begging to be devoured. You stomp Farrah's accelerator and right away know that what she said is true. Who would not be envious of this speed? This liberty?
"At last!" she screams as you tear away from the nightmare traffic behind you. The wind whips your hair as the speedometer climbs. This is what she's DESIGNED to do, you tell yourself. It's simply you and Farrah and all is well in the world. You drive off into the nightfall, winning, exactly like in the movies.
But real life isn't the movies, and sunset only means the end of the day, not the end of the movie. You pull into your garage and park Farrah for the night. You have got to work in the morning, but you're too wired to sleep. You try watching TV. You try a warm shower. Nothing works. Sleep just won't come. Farrah call to you from the garage.
"Sleep is for those Volvo people," she is saying, spitting out the word Volvo as if it had the arsenic taste of sour almonds. "You're better than that, baby. All you need is me. Come on. Let's go for a drive."
But you know better. You have been down this road before. With the help of a few Benadryl, you ignore her voice and drift off, but your sleep is not like real sleep. Your body is motionless but your mind spins like a shrieking tire. Dreams and fact melt together for one or two fitful hours of sleep and traffic bad dreams.
You're awake long before sunrise, but you force yourself to remain in bed till the alarm goes off an hour later, then you're up in a flash. You sing in the shower. You skip breakfast. You rush to the garage to find Farra waiting.
"Good morning, baby," she asserts. "Ready to play?"
"Are you?" you ask, smirking as you sink into a kid leather bucket seat that fits you like a glove. You adroitly slip your key in her ignition and give it a twist. As you pull on your driving gloves, the temperature gauge begins to rise. "Like that, do you?"
"Sailor baby, you get me hotter than Georgia asphalt," she purrs.
You bet your sweet ass I do, you believe as the garage door rises to release you from your jail. Your place isn't your place. Here with her. This is home. Here's where you belong.
Now, there are two alternative ways this scenario can end?
END 1
The garage door is barely up before you are sliding out of the garage and into... Another fucking traffic blockage! No! No no no no NO NO NO!!! You honk crazily. Farrah's engine snarls at any Volvos who get too close. The admiration in the Volvo drivers ' eyes is gone. Today, they look on you with fear as you fight your way through traffic, but you don't give a damn. They're just in your way, anyhow, right? One Volvo makes an attempt to pull in front of you. You stomp the accelerator and he weaves out of your way just in time.
"My lane, asshole," you shout. "Mine!"
Your lane or not, the traffic light turns red and you're stuck. Time stands still. You scream and rev your engine, your foot to the floor, you and Farrah quickly reaching redline. The temperature warning light comes on, but you ignore it. It just wishes to slow you down, too. You smell oil smoke, but don't really care.
"Go baby," Farrah shrieks. "Go! Go! GOOOO!"
KABLAM!
Something snaps. Black smoke boils out of the engine compartment. Farrah's engine chokes and sputters as the light turns green. She has got enough strength to ease on the side of the road.
"This is all of your fault," she asserts, dying. You weep at what your hate has done.
The tow wagon guy clucks his tongue as he winches Farrah's front end into the sky. "Damn shame," he says. "Such a nice car."
In your brain, you finish his sentence. If only you knew how to handle it.
Welcome back to depression.
Or, it might end like this?
END 2
The garage door is barely up before you're slipping out of the garage and onto the open road. Your floor it and Farrah jumps over the speed limit like an antelope. There's no traffic, no cops, nothing apart from miles of open road. You cut each corner closer, although not because you are beyond control. You do it because you're fucking dazzling! Each move you make is the correct one. The world is yours and everything is perfect...
. ...until you run out of gas in no man's land in a thunderstorm and have to stroll to the closest payphone to find you don't have any change, so you have to walk all the way back to your place. Once at your place, you reach into your pocket and find that you have lost your keys somewhere along the way.
Welcome back to depression.
George Carlin, one of the funniest men to ever live, once said the cliche ' phrase "more than satisfied" sounded like a medical problem. Well, it is...sometimes. "More than happy" is named euphoria, and euphoria is commonly an indication of a manic episode. Sometimes, bipolarity feels Superb. At the start of the upturn, you have hypomania, and hypomania can be very good. It's your chance to really shine.
Occasionally, when you are hypomanic, you are the life of the party - interesting, witty, friendly and filled with energy. Your intellect becomes razor sharp, your reflexes like those of a kung fu master. You make friends easily, accomplish incredible amounts of work, and have flashes of brilliance that shock and dazzle everyone around you. I LIKE it when hypomania works that way!
Infrequently nevertheless , it doesn't. Occasionally when you are hypomanic, you're the total buzzkill - cranky, bitter, sullen... And yet still full of energy. Your consciousness is sharp, but it is your tongue that's the razor. You're nerves are so jittery you twitch. Fine silk feels like sandpaper against your skin. You have that keen focus, but all it focus on is the neighbor's goddamn stereo and if you had one ounce less of willpower, you'd crash right over and shove the thing straight up his ass. But that would not solve the problem, because dammit, you are pissed and you're gonna stay that way. I Don't Like it when hypomania works that way... it's almost worse than depression.
Now, if you're type II bipolar like me, hypomania is the ceiling. You hit it, stay there for anywhere from one or two hours to a couple of weeks (dependent on how rapidly you cycle) and then spiral back down into depression. If you're type I bipolar, then hypomania is just the beginning.
Hypomania basically means "little mania," so for a full-tilt manic episode, take my description of hypomania and magnify it exponentially: the infrequent sleep-deprived nights becomes days on end without sleep; the infrequent ego trip gives way to serious narcissism and delusions of grandeur; euphoria becomes psychosis; irritation becomes rage and stress becomes outright paranoia. Some even experience hallucinations.
Regardless of how high the ladder goes, unless you drop dead from exhaustion (which does occur occasionally) or wrap your Ferrari around a tree (yes, those on the upswing really do tend to speed) then you are likely to find yourself right back where you started. For some, that is a relatively normal mood. For others, it's welcome back to depression. Hope that you liked the ride.
And on that note, I hope you, my readers, have liked the ride. I'll be taking a break from this blog now, but I am sure I'll be back I have got so many other stories, poems, film scripts and articles to write. I've got sketches to draw and music to compose. I have a life without bipolar disorder... or at least a life without thinking about it all the time.
The one thing I want you to remember most of all is that nobody IS An ILLNESS. They are people with a disease. Their disease is not their life, at least not unless they permit it to be. Don't do that, folks. It sucks. Be people. People are OK unless they won't turn their goddamn stereos down.
Keep fighting, folks!
About the Author:
Read more about " Hypomanic Episode: Another Side of Bipolar Sickness " on Kurt Pedersen's Blog about Bipolarity, Depression and Anxiety!
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