Being Bipolar Is...
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December 2, 2017 - 2:47 pm
Being manic depressive is like flying a helicopter: If you fly too low, that is dangerous. If you fly too high that is also dangerous.
When we have Bipolar I (with potential suicidal episodes and manic psychosis), or Bipolar II (with depression and suicidal episodes interspersed with moments of enthusiasms and creativeness that can become exaggerated and problematic), then doctors actually advise us to keep careful track of our feelings, even using online tools to do so.
The reason is simple: Bipolar people can get into trouble if we let our emotions and enthusiasms run wildly low or high, so we must constantly watch ourselves to see what our minds and feelings are suggesting to us, and what that means about the upward/downward trends of our mood states.
Many of us must take prescribed medication regularly and must have a cognitive behavioral therapist to reality-check our thoughts, plans and perceptions, and address our moods.
There is no easily-read altimeter in the bipolar brain. In fact, in Bipolar I, the brain tells the excessively-high pilot that "high is great and higher is even better". Above higher is where psychosis awaits.
A lot of people are “moody”, but not to the extreme of being at risk for despondent self-harm, or of singularly momentary and, indeed, astonishing flights of eternal bliss and enlightenment, like my long-since disappeared older brother, Dan. He flew away.
If you know someone who is Bipolar I, you might not understand their perspective, unless you have flown a helicopter while high on LSD.
If you understand their *illness*, then you will understand why they are sometimes utterly irrational and detached from any reality that you can possibly share, even when they spend hours feverishly describing it to you. All you can know is that they are "up there".
Lately, for me, BP II, in addition to a calming anti-psychotic and an anxiolytic, which sedate my central nervous system, allowing me to sleep, I’ve been taking Prozac to relieve depression.
It seems to be working well, although my release from depression might simply be characteristic of “rapid cycling” (going very fast, very often, from enthusiasm to despair). At the moment, I feel neither great enthusiasm nor despair.
I might just be alright at the moment, since I do not feel an urgent need to solve or change or fix anything.
I *do* firmly believe the cat feces on my couch will be easier to clean when it has thoroughly dried right where it is.
When we have Bipolar I (with potential suicidal episodes and manic psychosis), or Bipolar II (with depression and suicidal episodes interspersed with moments of enthusiasms and creativeness that can become exaggerated and problematic), then doctors actually advise us to keep careful track of our feelings, even using online tools to do so.
The reason is simple: Bipolar people can get into trouble if we let our emotions and enthusiasms run wildly low or high, so we must constantly watch ourselves to see what our minds and feelings are suggesting to us, and what that means about the upward/downward trends of our mood states.
Many of us must take prescribed medication regularly and must have a cognitive behavioral therapist to reality-check our thoughts, plans and perceptions, and address our moods.
There is no easily-read altimeter in the bipolar brain. In fact, in Bipolar I, the brain tells the excessively-high pilot that "high is great and higher is even better". Above higher is where psychosis awaits.
A lot of people are “moody”, but not to the extreme of being at risk for despondent self-harm, or of singularly momentary and, indeed, astonishing flights of eternal bliss and enlightenment, like my long-since disappeared older brother, Dan. He flew away.
If you know someone who is Bipolar I, you might not understand their perspective, unless you have flown a helicopter while high on LSD.
If you understand their *illness*, then you will understand why they are sometimes utterly irrational and detached from any reality that you can possibly share, even when they spend hours feverishly describing it to you. All you can know is that they are "up there".
Lately, for me, BP II, in addition to a calming anti-psychotic and an anxiolytic, which sedate my central nervous system, allowing me to sleep, I’ve been taking Prozac to relieve depression.
It seems to be working well, although my release from depression might simply be characteristic of “rapid cycling” (going very fast, very often, from enthusiasm to despair). At the moment, I feel neither great enthusiasm nor despair.
I might just be alright at the moment, since I do not feel an urgent need to solve or change or fix anything.
I *do* firmly believe the cat feces on my couch will be easier to clean when it has thoroughly dried right where it is.
I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me.
Being manic depressive is like flying a helicopter: If you fly too low, that is dangerous. If you fly too high that is also dangerous.
When we have Bipolar I (with potential suicidal episodes and manic psychosis), or Bipolar II (with depression and suicidal episodes interspersed with moments of enthusiasms and creativeness that can become exaggerated and problematic), then doctors actually advise us to keep careful track of our feelings, even using online tools to do so.
The reason is simple: Bipolar people can get into trouble if we let our emotions and enthusiasms run wildly low or high, so we must constantly watch ourselves to see what our minds and feelings are suggesting to us, and what that means about the upward/downward trends of our mood states.
Many of us must take prescribed medication regularly and must have a cognitive behavioral therapist to reality-check our thoughts, plans and perceptions, and address our moods.
There is no easily-read altimeter in the bipolar brain. In fact, in Bipolar I, the brain tells the excessively-high pilot that "high is great and higher is even better". Above higher is where psychosis awaits.
A lot of people are “moody”, but not to the extreme of being at risk for despondent self-harm, or of singularly momentary and, indeed, astonishing flights of eternal bliss and enlightenment, like my long-since disappeared older brother, Dan. He flew away.
If you know someone who is Bipolar I, you might not understand their perspective, unless you have flown a helicopter while high on LSD.
If you understand their *illness*, then you will understand why they are sometimes utterly irrational and detached from any reality that you can possibly share, even when they spend hours feverishly describing it to you. All you can know is that they are "up there".
Lately, for me, BP II, in addition to a calming anti-psychotic and an anxiolytic, which sedate my central nervous system, allowing me to sleep, I’ve been taking Prozac to relieve depression.
It seems to be working well, although my release from depression might simply be characteristic of “rapid cycling” (going very fast, very often, from enthusiasm to despair). At the moment, I feel neither great enthusiasm nor despair.
I might just be alright at the moment, since I do not feel an urgent need to solve or change or fix anything.
I *do* firmly believe the cat feces on my couch will be easier to clean when it has thoroughly dried right where it is.
When we have Bipolar I (with potential suicidal episodes and manic psychosis), or Bipolar II (with depression and suicidal episodes interspersed with moments of enthusiasms and creativeness that can become exaggerated and problematic), then doctors actually advise us to keep careful track of our feelings, even using online tools to do so.
The reason is simple: Bipolar people can get into trouble if we let our emotions and enthusiasms run wildly low or high, so we must constantly watch ourselves to see what our minds and feelings are suggesting to us, and what that means about the upward/downward trends of our mood states.
Many of us must take prescribed medication regularly and must have a cognitive behavioral therapist to reality-check our thoughts, plans and perceptions, and address our moods.
There is no easily-read altimeter in the bipolar brain. In fact, in Bipolar I, the brain tells the excessively-high pilot that "high is great and higher is even better". Above higher is where psychosis awaits.
A lot of people are “moody”, but not to the extreme of being at risk for despondent self-harm, or of singularly momentary and, indeed, astonishing flights of eternal bliss and enlightenment, like my long-since disappeared older brother, Dan. He flew away.
If you know someone who is Bipolar I, you might not understand their perspective, unless you have flown a helicopter while high on LSD.
If you understand their *illness*, then you will understand why they are sometimes utterly irrational and detached from any reality that you can possibly share, even when they spend hours feverishly describing it to you. All you can know is that they are "up there".
Lately, for me, BP II, in addition to a calming anti-psychotic and an anxiolytic, which sedate my central nervous system, allowing me to sleep, I’ve been taking Prozac to relieve depression.
It seems to be working well, although my release from depression might simply be characteristic of “rapid cycling” (going very fast, very often, from enthusiasm to despair). At the moment, I feel neither great enthusiasm nor despair.
I might just be alright at the moment, since I do not feel an urgent need to solve or change or fix anything.
I *do* firmly believe the cat feces on my couch will be easier to clean when it has thoroughly dried right where it is.
I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me.
Joined: 08-11-2012