HOW DOES IT FEEL.........

Today I am going to give you a taste of my experience of the depressive side of bipolar......This is a note that I wore on my Facebook page a couple of days ago.


I guess it is a fact that people who don't have bipolar disorder really know how it feels like and even I don't always have the vocab to explain what it feels like to be in a mood swing....But I am going to attempt to do it now so that people kinda get what I go through at times and am currently going through. For me, even though as much as I try to control my mood swings through medication and for the most part, I do succeed, there comes a time like now, where for whatever reason, whether it is an excess of stress or just the fact that my body has become used to the dosage of meds or just the plain simple fact that this disorder changes throughout my life, when I begin to have regular mood swings again.

For me(though not for everybody), I tend to go more on the depressive side than on the manic side and then veer back to normal.It is not a nice experience to go through as you can well imagine.For me it manifests itself as exhaustion. I feel tired and lethargic...... don't want to do much. Yes, there are a lot of negative thoughts about myself when the depressive mood swings roll in.I don't like myself much and don't see the dreams I have for myself coming true.it is also very difficult for me to read, process the written word and concentrate. For a voracious reader like me, it is very frustrating and doubly so because I gotta study. I also don't enjoy music as much and if I am really bad not all. Thankfully so far,this time, the enjoyment has lessened but not completely gone.My relationship with God has taken a blow as well because I do have a lot of guilt at time for not being more positive.

I guess the one of hardest thing to deal with in this phase is my reaction to people around me. I need people around me more than ever at this time but I also know how hard it can be sometimes for people to be around someone who is depressed and not happy or worse yet, someone who seems ok one minute and then very needy or very quiet the next.That is why in many cases, if I am going through a downward mood swing , I may conceal it and force myself to appear normal if I don't have to be around the people for too long or just stay quiet.If it gets REALLLY BAD, I go my bed and just lie down and turn my back to the world. This time I have made a concerted effort to reach out to people when I am in my normal mood as opposed to just isolating myself completely.And I get smart, I spread the interaction around. And don't depend on any one person. Someone is always going to be having a bad day and not be willing to deal with me. That is life. I am learning not to internalize this and just move onto other friends.But it is still not quite nice when it does happen.

Still the hardest thing about this illness is that you don't quite know when things are going to go wrong, you can try to control it and try to do everything you can to do( doctor, medication, prayer,etc so but ultimately there is going to come times when it is out of your hands and it affect your energy level and productivity.For me, the driven type, it is frustrating as hell but I gotta learn to live with it .So there is an insight into what goes on. Don't feel though that any good thoughts or reaching out is in vain though. It is very much appreciated.