On Tuesday, I was able to meet with E for a two hour session. It felt so good to unload on her yet I worry about whether or not she can take it. After telling her everything and hearing it out loud, it really made clear the magnitude of my poor judgement. It took her, exercising a great deal of self control from not “kicking my butt” and saying “this is really bad” for me to realize the gravity of my hypomanic actions.
I asked myself (after session) how I could of lost so much control in two weeks? How could I have been so reckless? I am a good judge of character yet I was so off the mark this time. How could this all have been possible?
I struggle to find the answer. What I have come up with is that this whole two months that I have been dealing with this diagnosis, I have been trying to control and suppress it. I have been trying to modify and modulate my demeanor around others to hide this illness. I keep logs of how I am feeling which day and what emotional season I am so that I can predict what comes next and fight it away. What I have learned throughout my life is that the more you try to control and put a square peg in a circle hole, things start to weather down and crack. The corners start to chip away and eventually if you force it hard enough, it will get through the hole but it will be very damaged and it’ll have lost it’s authenticity of what the structure originally was.
In physiology we are taught that “stress” is a neutral term, yet society tends to put a negative connotation onto the word. Stress is actually a mostly positive until exacerbated. For example, our bones are stressed every day, when we walk, run, jump, stand, etc. Our bones are constantly under stress and are actively remodeling to better support the demands of our physical needs. If the stress is too great and the remodeling is too much, our bones splinter, fracture, and break.
I have been operating from a place of fear. The tighter my grip gets on controlling the bipolar, the worst my depression and hypomania gets. I’m so tunnel visioned on not showing my “true colors” that I am too absorbed. Inversely making me much more vulnerable because I lose awareness of my surroundings.
So while trying to fall asleep last night, I entertained the idea of leaning into the crazy, like we lean into the pain during difficult times. Often leading us to find our “way out” much faster. Maybe by confronting and dealing with the bipolar, dead on, I will learn to accept this and move forward more quickly. What if I let myself be who I am baring it didn’t interfere with my normal daily living? Who cares if I am a little looping and out there? If I want to sing out loud and dance on the strand, why not? If I my words come out a little faster… who cares? Yes, I may be hypomanic but maybe I am also very passionate and excited about what I am talking about. What if it’s both? Is it prohibiting me from operating in a productive way in my life?… If the answer is no, then why am I trying so hard to bury it deep inside. It’s not necessary and it puts added stress, anxiety and pressure in my life.
What if I just allowed myself to be me? Could I prevent it from getting out of hand? Could this possibly liberate me and free me from this big a** boulder I feel is strapped to my back?
What if I stopped being afraid of the bipolar, because as of now, there is not cure. Yes, there’s medication, nutrition, exercise, sleep, yoga, meditation, light therapy, spirituality, prayer, etc to help cope with the symptoms but the underlying issue is not going to go away. I am bipolar. That is not changing. I am not defective. I was given a gift of “extreme” creativity and passion. Sometimes that may feel cumbersome, but hopefully it was intended to be a gift, not a curse. I believe that God does not make mistakes. It is my opinion that God is intentional and while He may seem harsh and cruel at times, I feel it is because we don’t see the bigger picture. We get lost in the details. We are all playing checkers when God is playing chess. I believe it’s tomfoolery to think I can even compete with God.
It is my thought that we are here for a purpose. Mind you, I don’t think that everyones purpose is to “save the world” or “cure cancer” etc. Yes, “Joe the doctor” is here to create a cure for cancer. I also that believe that maybe his “brother Tommy” was put here to be a living example of everything Joe didn’t want to be. That doesn’t mean that I believe Tommy was put here to suffer endlessly. We all have free will and we make our own choices. So maybe Tommy made a series of bad choices that landed him in a bad way but that doesn’t mean that Tommy’s life no longer has purpose. Maybe Tommy’s end purpose to the world was to make all the mistakes and wrong decisions to push his brother, Joe, to be the best he could be. While the details of Tommy’s suffering is hard to stomach, his gift was contributing to Joe’s success in curing cancer. After all, if you believe in or have heard the story of Jesus, you know that God sent his only son to carry the sins of the world and to die on the cross so that we all may live eternally. Whether you believe that too be real or hokum, you have to admit, that’s some kind of unconditional display of love. I would put that up with Romeo and Juliet as one of the greatest love stories of all time. Yes they’re both tragic but love isn’t always about feeling rainbows and butterflies, it is also at times can bring grueling pain and tragedy.
I don’t know why I had to be bipolar. I don’t understand why this has to be part of my journey, but it is. One day, whether it has a good or bad outcome, I believe it will serve some purpose.