It slips in unnoticed. By now I know well enough never to engage in serious discourse, be it online or one to one, never take any important decisions, and never judge anything when one is manic or depressed. You don't even notice the second glance, the double take. You can not seperate it from yourself, because it is you. But after an interaction or two go wrong. After another bruised relationship, then you have to accept that you can't be right.
I had a flurry of argument online with a freind, another bipolar artist in fact, over something neither here nor there. Something neither of us care about. So I closed my Facebook account down. It only served to distance me from my real freinds whilst bringing acquaintances in too close.
Four weeks of back chatter. Four weeks of not knowing what others were saying. If your personality is a river then mania sees it burst its banks, thoughts splashing in all directions. Then this torpid state is a trickle of muddy sludge. Barely able to support life.
Rarely have I experienced proper delusions. Other than the daily denial that keeps us all going, anyway. We all pretend life means something, that there is more than meat walking to its burial and decay. Because we have little choice. It is denial, or the playing out of a fantasy version of our lives that makes them bare able. Perhaps depression is the wrong word. Or the wrong understanding. Perhaps it is just truth. The stripping of the veil. The removal of delusion that brings this animal paranoia. Perhaps when this veil is ripped away and we see raw truth we begin to die. Perhaps only the illusion of meaning can prevent collapse. They say those who survived the nazi concentration camps needed one thing more than luck. They needed to believe in something beyond themselves. This could be the need to see a sister again, the need to let your mother know you were still there, the belief in god or a higher power, or belief in a further destiny. Something beyond yourself. This acceptance of a higher power is a requisite for AA. But they will allow say, nature, or the species, something beyond the self, though, otherwise they can not help. For this is depression. The loss of empathy. The placing of ones own suffering before all else. The loss of curiosity in others. Depression is a despicable disease. Self loathing gathers the loathing of others. Mania is self interested too. It is after both that the guilt kicks in, right along with the empathy.
I have heard it said that if you can tether the beast of mania, reel in its worst excesses, then the following depression will not be so severe. There is wisdom in this, but after four weeks of misery when the light sparks up it is too desire able. The early, lower rungs are just too exciting. A little irritable, perhaps, but otherwise an abundance of time for others, but a deafness to their words. Most of my life is normal. Bipolar is a poor description as mainly I am in one place. And the madness, in many ways, when it comes is a compounded depression. I feel it, like a fluid on the brain. A membrane of cling film between my brain and skull that stops any thought of reading. Cross chatter, too many thoughts, fighting for attention, like an unruly classroom of ADHD eight year olds, all wanting a one to one with the teacher.
There is no good in it, no saving grace. Stability on medication may be boring. It may sap your strength, lower your sex drive, kill your spark. And you quickly forget and succumb to the attractions of the foothills of mania once again, knowing you'll be walking the mountain peaks before you know it, and its a long, long way down, a long way from home.
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