What It’s Like to Be Hypomanic

Like an olde tyme machine with different sized gears, all flying fast, barely staying in place, and the smokestack constantly whistling.

Like an electrical fire inside my skin.

Like a hyperactive toddler who really wants to play minigolf instead of doing the things that need to be done, who doesn’t care that it’s 97 degrees and humid as hairy armpits. Minigolf, minigolf!

I wish I could actually describe to you what being hypomanic is like. But it’s a state of consciousness, so unless you’ve experienced it, the best I can do is approximate it.

Alone, I switch gears fast and flap my hands. With safe people, I talk and talk and talk. Out and about I suck it in, keep a lid on it, smile too much, am extroverted and quickly disengage because I don’t want to appear CRAZY IN PUBLIC. I’m exhausted and exhausting to be around.

I am in treatment. I am doing all the things I’m supposed to be doing. All of them. Still, I am hypomanic as balls right now, as very hypomanic balls.

I am also on Xanax, which is supposed to help, but which feels like putting an angry racoon in a sleeping bag.

The saving grace about rapid cycling: maybe tomorrow it will be different.

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Rapid Cycling

To earn a rapid cycling badge, a person has to have four or more episodes in a year. Good times! I can’t begin to imagine what that’s like with full-blown mania. Hypomania and depression are enough, thanks! Before I got an accurate diagnosis and serviceable meds, I rarely went two weeks before starting a new episode. Up, down, up, down, up, down. It took years of work to figure out my baseline, i.e., what it feels like to just be me. I still have 4–10 days every few weeks when I’m very up, very down, or first one and then the other. I know some of my triggers: stress, lack of sleep, too much alcohol or caffeine. But some episodes come out of the blue. Rapid cycling means you never know. It means you can be in the middle of an exceptionally bad day before you realize, “Oh, this is depressive irritability” or whatever. And then you’re supposed to have the presence of mind to apply the tools that help you minimize any damage. Which is to say, it gets the jump on you, and because...

What Bipolar Does to the Brain

I’ve been researching what bipolar does to the brain and seriously—fuck. There’s both a lot more research than my 25-year-old B.A. in Psychology could assimilate and not nearly enough. A layperson’s book on the subject is sorely needed. Here’s the gist. * There’s solid evidence that the dysfunction during depressive and manic states causes changes that persist into our baseline states. * There are several neurotransmitters involved: dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, GABA (gamma-aminobutyrate), glutamate, and acetylcholine at the least. And hormones that act like neurotransmitters are in the mix, too, like endorphins and oxytocin. * Brain structures yet discovered to be involved/affected include areas of the prefrontal and temporal lobes, the hippocampus, thalamus, and hypothalamus. * Bipolar affects both grey and white matter, meaning both the structural elements of the brain and the connective tissue between them. And by affects, I mean corrodes over time. There’s mor...

Sleep

All of my life, nighttime has been my favorite time. I’m most at peace, most relaxed and myself at night, when the world has gone to bed. When there is no more work, no chores or errands, and the phone can safely be ignored. Loved ones sleep soundly, needing nothing from me, and I am free to write, to read, to watch old movies, to unwind completely, stay up late in the quiet dark, and simply be. But the number one signal/trigger of a bipolar episode is disturbed sleep. My respite has consequences. So now my sleep hygiene (such a Dr. Kellogg kind of term) is perfect. A good eight hours every night (drug induced if need be). No caffeine after three, if at all. No alcohol. No wild nights out. The choice is follow the routine or lose even more days to the disorder. Be good or else.

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