It's 3:56AM and I still haven't slept. It's the 12th consecutive night where I've either gone to bed sometime after the sun has risen, or simply haven't gone to bed until exhaustion sets in sometime during the late night hours of the following day...or the the day after that.
Despite the mounting sleep deprivation, I feel mostly pretty great...aside from the pain of overly strained muscle groups and the regret of knowing that I'm behaving abnormally, f*cking up my circadian rhythm, and engaging in real life side quests that I would normally lack the drive and motivation to perform. I have a serious manic episode pretty predictably once per month, but they don't usually persist as long as this one has. Typically a week tops.
"Oh, Knotorious, that must be so awful! Mental illness is terrible!"
Well, "no" and "yes." Mania is pretty f*cking awesome. It's like living your life in "God Mode," accomplishing a month's worth of tasks in one week, feeling overwhelmingly positive about your life, having unlimited amounts of energy and enthusiasm for both work and play, but at the same time, knowing that it's all completely fake. Sometimes I my overconfidence in my decision making leads to regret; sometimes my over-enthusiasm for something leads to overspending; and every single time I have a manic episode, it inevitably leads me balls deep into...
...a depressive episode. What goes up must come down, and as my prefrontal cortex spontaneously over-agonizes dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine receptors (among various other catecholamines and neurotransmitters), eventually, without any forewarning, the party that mania began will eventually drain one's brain of those organic chemicals, creating an enormous deficit which leads to a deep, dark, depressive state.
Everything I ever felt excitement for during my manic state quickly metamorphosizes into a new, less savory feeling of pure and unadulterated regret. The reality sets in that you just lived the last "X" number of days within a total illusion and that, in turn, leads to embarrassment, sadness, and shame. The depletion of neurotransmitters, itself, exacerbates these emotions and leads the sufferer to experience serious amounts of guilt, confusion, and both rational and irrational negative thinking.
The depressive state leads to over sleeping. You first do so in order to remedy your serious sleep deficit, and then you do it simply because you don't want to be conscious because of how confident you are that your life sucks; because you lack the desire to do anything that isn't necessary for your survival. You eat more in order to recoup the calories you lost during your mania, you accomplish a fraction of what you would normally, and your anxiety, rumination/obsessive thinking, and panic attacks terrorize you regularly. Enjoyment no longer exists; you start to wonder if you only enjoy life when you're mentally ill or using illicit drugs (back when I did hard drugs)...because that's pretty much quite accurate, unfortunately.
Manic-depression is like doing injecting cocaine intravenously for days at a time, while believing you have an unlimited supply of the drug, feeling on top of the world, and then suddenly, without warning, you check your coke stash and it's all gone and you start to panic, regret your decision to use IV cocaine, feel confusion of how your stash magically disappeared since you had just been on top of the world, confident your supply would last forever, and you now regret everything and you wish you understood what was happening...
But I can never recognize my manic states until they've crossed some kind of line that makes me seriously question my decision making. The depressive states, however, are MUCH easier to recognize, because they make you wish you could disappear...at least until they subside.
Mental illness is a blessing and curse. Just like everything in this life, almost everything is useful, helpful and endearing in moderation. A manic episode feels exciting and fun until it is no longer, and you realize that what you experienced was a lie, and that, even though you enjoyed the ride, if you could, you would rid your life of mania just so you could avoid the depressive states that come after them. Drug addicts mostly love using drugs; it's the absence of drugs -- the withdrawal -- and the desperation that leads them to lower their moral standards, and to waste money, on substances that usually deters users from continuing down that path.
I just want to be balanced. I've never been balanced. I never will be balanced. This is my life. At this point, the best way to overcome my affliction is to accept it and to cope with it as healthily as I possibly can.
I tend to be very open on here. It's the internet and I give zero fucks about what other people think about me. Writing this was not for you, it was for me, and it was a form of catharsis...so thank you for listening. It was helpful to get all of that out.
If you know, then you know. 4.4% of adults experience manic-depression (AKA bipolar disorder) at some point in their life. And this is just one of my myriad of mental illnesses. My mind is clusterfuck, my self-esteem is horrific, but I am also highly intelligent and extremely capable. It could always be worse. I could be living in a debris hut made from salvaged garbage in Myanmar, self-mutilating my own body so that people will pity me and provide charity so that I can simply eat scraps and drink untreated water in a state of perpetual squalor, with no services to help me advance my quality of life.
My life isn't perfect, but I am still DEFINITELY blessed and fortunate. Shit happens and then you die.
Happiness isn't equivalent to your net worth, income nor social status. Happiness, in large part, stems out from gratitude. And we all -- as Americans; even the poorest of Americans -- have a lot to be grateful for.
~The End (Fin) =-D