I have not been feeling very well for the past few weeks. I
was mainly depressed but in a very agitated way. I felt all the feelings of
despair, hopelessness and emptiness but I didn’t feel all lethargic and slowed
down. Instead I felt agitated, anxious and wired up. But my mood all changed
again a few days ago.
As I am on a break from university due to my health, I
thought I had better add some structure to my day. Besides, I needed to do
something that I felt was worthwhile. My self-esteem is pretty low right now
and I needed a boost. So I joined a creative writing class. Big mistake. I had
hoped that the class would mainly be a taught one. I expected to have to write
a story for homework each week to be marked. Perhaps some volunteers would read
their work to the class if they wished. However, the class wasn’t like that at
all. We were asked to write something on the spot and then read it out. I was
so nervous and could barely think straight enough to write anything down. I
managed to come up with something that made people laugh but I felt so utterly
exposed that I felt devastated. My legs wouldn’t stop shaking throughout the rest
of the class. I kept trying to move them in to different positions so they
would stop moving but they wouldn’t. I could barely breathe for two hours.
I found out that in the other weeks there would be more of
these exercises and that everyone would have to have their homework read out to
the class to be critiqued. My worst nightmare. All those people staring at you and judging
you on something you had put your heart in to creating. I left the class
feeling absolutely shattered and emotionally frail. I didn’t talk to my husband
on the way home. My brain was all over the place. However, when we got back a
strange thing happened: I started to go manic.
I know that, like depressive episodes, manic episodes can be
triggered by stress. However, it still seems like a really strange thing to
happen. How can you go from feeling incredibly anxious and distressed
to high as a kite? But that is exactly what happened. I started laughing wildly
and jumping up and down around my husband singing songs. I pinned my husband to
the bed because I felt playful but he told me that I was being really creepy. I
somehow picked up on this word and started mimicking him by screaming ‘creepy’
over and over again in funny voices whilst touching his face. This lasted for
about half an hour. Eventually I stopped and just stared straight ahead at the
wall in a complete trance. I didn’t talk for a long while and when I did tears
started rolling down my face.
I went to bed later and woke up feeling depressed again.
However, this strange pattern has repeated itself over the last few days: lethargic
and depressed in the morning, with agitation increasing as the day goes on,
followed by an eruption of manic energy around dinner time. Yesterday for
example, I started laughing excessively and making jokes. I am told that my
voice went all loud and high-pitched but I barely noticed. However, my eyes
felt like they were popping out of my head. I was staring wildly at my Mum and
my husband, trying to get them to ‘play’ with me. I sung silly songs and said
strange things. Sometimes I erupted angrily to various things they had said.
For example when they said I should calm down I would scream at them that I was
calm and hit my hand on the table. Obviously I proved myself wrong!
Joining a creative class then has sent me ‘mad’. Strange
that such a minor event to most people could lead to such a rollercoaster of
mood swings. But there you have it. It is the nature of the bipolar beast.
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