Adventures in Mania
I’d been feeling off for a few days. “Off” to me can be any sense of emotion outside of the chronic emptiness I feel. Emotions come quick and intense and often leave me in a sense of disarray. I find it extremely difficult to put names and labels to my emotional and mood states…which certainly doesn’t help anything. I’d gone to bed just three hours previous when the house erupted in the noise of smoke detectors going off. I woke, startled, not knowing where I was or who I was. The latter wasn’t so unfamiliar, but I was too disoriented to know what was going on as I clutched my wolf plush and tried to gain some sense of my senses.
Turns out it was all a false alarm, and as I laid in bed in the dark about half an hour later, I could feel the energy pulsing through me. I was still empty, but elevated somehow. It’s really hard to explain that feeling. Sleep didn’t come back for hours, as I passed time with reading and music, but when it did, it was only for an additional hour. Sometime in the darkness of the early morning, I lost my phone to the abyss under my bed and when I awoke I found myself without a sense of reality, but in a worse sense as I didn’t know what time it was, what day it was, who I was…at least this time I knew where I was… So I went about my day in reading, mindfulness meditation, and working on a puzzle.
Somewhere in the empty-manic high that I was experiencing I “knew” that I was “off” and needed to keep myself safe. At one point that meant simply making myself as still as possible, sitting on my bed for what had to have been an hour, just sitting silently with my wolf plush. Burrito has been an incredible grounding tool in the short time that I’ve had him as a part of the “therapy wolves” in my pack. I carry him with me most everywhere to give me a needed sensory, tactile reminder of what’s going on. He helps to alleviate some of the stress associated with my mental health by reminding me: I love wolves and cute/cuddly things. <3
The day was just weird. It wasn’t until much later in the evening that I had an understanding that it was Sunday. And February. Talk about bizarre. All in all, I’m doing ‘better’ in that I am figuring out more ways of keeping safe and not acting on impulse and being self-destructive, and I’m finding that to be true especially in moments of dissociation like that. Mania as I’ve been experiencing might be new to me and scary, but knowing I’m gaining more ground is helpful, in the very least. It also helped to learn that what was experienced at 3:00am was real and that somehow that startled me into an episode. The paired combination of Bipolar Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder make the most sense of where I’ve been, especially in days and times such as these. The more I learn, the more I’m finding a small glimpse of relief.
“There is no quick fix for the time it takes to heal.” And more and more I’m learning these words are true. My faith has helped me stay the course and persevere. I know that Jesus continues to walk by my side even in times of confusion and chaos. One step, one moment at a time, and though the moments fluctuate, for the most part I am in forward motion. One day, the chains will break. Recovery is a process. I press on.
Of Muddy Paws On The Concrete Road 
No trackbacks yet.