What is Bipolar Disorder?
A Layperson's Definition of Manic Depression
(Excerpts)
by Marcia Purse
- Refusing to get out of bed for days on end
- Sleeping much more than usual
- Being tired all the time but unable to sleep
- Having bouts of uncontrollable crying
- Becoming entirely uninterested in things you once enjoyed
- Paying no attention to daily responsibilities
- Feeling hopeless, helpless or worthless for a sustained period of time
- Becoming unable to make simple decisions
- Wanting to die
- Feeling like you can do anything, even something unsafe or illegal
- Needing very little sleep, yet never feeling tired
- Dressing flamboyantly, spending money extravagantly, living recklessly
- Having increased sexual desires, perhaps even indulging in risky sexual behaviors
- Experiencing hallucinations or delusions
- Feeling filled with energy
Hypomania - a less extreme form of manic episode - could include:
- Having utter confidence in yourself
- Being able to focus well on projects
- Feeling extra creative or innovative
- Being able to brush off problems that would paralyze you during depression
- Feeling "on top of the world" but without going over the top.
Hello. For the purposes of this blog I, your humble narrator, will hereby refer to myself as Jake. I have kept a journal in the past, though not for many years, and have decided to return to it publicly for a variety of reasons. I quit recording my daily life about 8 years ago, before I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I found that when I would be suffering from a manic episode, my entries were full of an almost palpable angst that made me feel ashamed to have written about in my own hand. I would rediscover page upon page of suicidal thoughts and fantasies and sexual exploits and find that I had little to no clear recollection of any of them having taken place. Granted, I was smoking a lot of pot then and drinking my fair share as well. But over the years and with the aid of quiet reflection and a bevy of "head meds", I've come to understand that shame is merely a reaction to something invading your "even keel", like when you get a bit of dust up your nose and sneeze. Only sneezing is involuntary. Our reactions, my reactions, are not. So, shame be damned. Though I'm more "even keel" now in my mid 30s then I've ever been, I still have my dark days. I'm still very much an observer in my own life, and sometimes have to stare myself down in a mirror like a cat as if I'm in awe that It is doing the same things I do. With the advent of the internet came the freedom to share our stories and perhaps help one another on a very personal albeit global level. If in tracing my steps and reporting my fight against bipolar disorder I get through to someone else, great.
More than anything, this is my grafitti.
Yours,
Jake
Jake,
ReplyDeleteYour words are of very great interest to me for near uncountable reasons. It wasn't long ago that i had written about 18 poems that were nothing more than a pure reflection of my insides that no one knows, understands or even cares about. There were some [three] people that I somewhat knew that had bipolar, yet I never really had very much understanding of exactly what is it was within the mind other than stories of strange things that they did. It was as if they took their meds things were ok, but if they were to stop, well, spending sprees, calling sprees, going places and doing strange things. That was what was on the outside, but I never knew much of what was on the inside. One of the reasons that I can so well relate to you with feelings is because I had a bad head injury 21 years ago, and a small portion of my brain was removed. Since then and through my life I have had a very difficult time, and difficult as in many of your own words of where your mind comes and goes. At least you have people that care and medications. I am on my third day with very little to eat, my ears ring, and my temper takes very little to set off. Coffee is my greatest need for the past 39 years, and I don't even have that and its killing me mentally along with a thousand other problems that no one anywhere give a hoot about. I study, pray, watch world events via Internet, and just exist within four block walls and my own little world of much confusion. I am an immigrant that owes about 55,000 peso. I want to work but just have no way to do it. I feel as I just don't know how to do anything right anymore. In so many of the words that you wrote it was as a reflection in a mirror. We are both different, yet were both the same in many ways. I remember way back when I used to have to see physiologists for years, and now all I see is them as they were. Worthless and out for the buck. With that I only have trust in God and Mylene, and that is because even with very good understanding of God and His truth, the world of Christianity has been the cruelest form of the human race that I have ever seen. I actually say to God, forgive them Father, for they know not what they do. You tell them that your hungry, naked, sick and in the prison of life, and they all send you the same written verses of their love that they send to everyone else with never even one personal word of genuine care, and they say praise God, we love you, and then spit in your face, slam the door, and keep sending you their verses of love, when in truth they are to selfish to even spare a crumb from their plates. Many a time I will ask God to just please let me die as I have no purpose whatsoever. To me with understanding, that is just as Paul was asking God to remove his thorn to give him some ease. But God says no, so I am just stuck against a wall with no way over, under, or around, and within a world where no one cares above lying words, and it hurts very badly because through my life I gave so much money away to help others that my broken brain never stopped until near $400,000 was all gone. Jake, I am sorry for what you have to deal with daily because I can very well relate to a mind that wanders in confusion. My own battles are all within my own mind daily, and I am totally alone, judged, not liked, and stabbed in the back on a regular basis and treated worse by whom I am to love the most which are pastors, reverends, brethren, and all godly people that can’t be found. There is but one thing that I have that keeps me going, and that is God because of my strong and un-wavering faith. I hope we can become friends. Look ay some of my writings, photos of the universe, and pictures in the Philippines at my free website, www.timesoftrouble.webs.com and perhaps we can talk some from time to time.
And it you feel like a friend, drop me a line via my email. ttimesoftrouble@aol.com
By the way, I am 54.
Take care Jake,
Jeff