I wrote this a week ago and never got to publishing it. I feel a lot better now and it’s hard for me to believe that only a few days ago I felt utterly miserable, but still want to post it as a reminder of how easily my moods can swift.
Somehow during the past week I spiraled into a mood that I hadn’t experienced since I started taking lithium. It took a while before I was able to admit it, but despite the meds, I’m feeling pretty damned depressed.
By now, I experience depression more as a nuisance than as something I should be worried about. It hardly ever lasts longer than two weeks and I’m usually able to still go to work and do just about enough to keep everyone around me oblivious of what’s happening inside of my brain. But when my workday mainly consists of me staring at the computer screen without being able to figure out what to do, and occasionally having to go to the bathroom for a five minute sobbing break, there’s no denying it’s there. And I hate having to face it again.
Of course I knew that sooner or later I would experience mood swings again, but I guess part of me still hoped that the lithium had killed all the bipolarity in my brain. This is just one of those many moments where I can no longer deny that this disorder has more influence over me than I’m comfortable with – and that I’ve only just begun to understand it.
I’ve always been a logical thinker, but logic seems meaningless when you’re depressed. I tried forcing a smile on my face to trick my brain into thinking I’m happy, but ended up feeling like a pathetic clown. Talked to as many people as possible – making as many jokes as possible, although most of them turn out rather cynical – to get my reward system going, but I feel like it’s just given up on me. My boyfriend’s texts and jokes, that usually make my whole body glow with excitement, don’t seem to make any of the neurons in my brain react. There’s just a whole lot of emptiness where the feelings and motivation used to be – so all that’s left for me to do is to lock myself up in my room and curl up like an armadillo.
Despite all that I don’t feel as hopeless as you might expect. Although I can hardly believe it right now, I know that this is not me. I usually have feelings, loads of them, and I am a positive person who loves life. I also know that my depressions never lasted longer than I could take, so I know that somehow I will feel like myself again within a couple of weeks or days – maybe even tomorrow.
What bothers me most is the inability to concentrate at work. Lifting my hands to type feels like an almost impossibly difficult task, let alone being social enough towards colleagues to leave my miserable mood unnoticed. Even though some of them know about my diagnosis and seemed understanding when I told them, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be understanding when it actually gets in the way of the work I’m supposed to do. Or maybe my skeptical depressed brain is just making me distrust everyone.
The only thing I do know is that this isn’t the time for me to make any big decisions – like ending my life, or something crazy like that –, so for now you’ll just see me hanging around waiting for this rubbish to blow over.
Bipolar Bear 