So I've started writing this mental-health blog ...

Actually, so far I've just been retrofitting it with posts I've made on Facebook and my older blog over the last decade. And there are hundreds more posts buried away in my social-media attics and basements that I want to find and repost here to create a more robust picture of my personal experiences with and observations about bipolar depression.

Unless I have a massive episode or interesting experience to write about, I'll probably focus my efforts here on digging up and reposting older posts, essays, reviews and ruminations for a while. So if you decide to come back, poke around in the labels and archives scrolling down the column to your right to find new old stuff to read.

Getting this blog up and running and filled with (hopefully) meaningful mental-health content is very much a work in progress, and I hope every time you return you find something helpful or interesting or occasionally entertaining.

And I also hope you share the URL far and wide. We bipolar depressives need our validation. And I have dreams of getting a book deal. And eventually a sitcom and a line of action figures. So copy and paste this with wild abandon:

TMIpolar.blogspot.com

Stay healthy and be well!

The tenacity and the fortitude

Sometimes being bipolar means waking up with your head covered in a gray wool blanket in the middle of a hot drenching rain and the weight of it is practically crippling but you know you're not depressed and you know you're not confused and you know you can breathe and you know you're invested in fighting your way out so you treat every blink and every word and every thought as fuel that sparks the next blink and the next word and the next thought and even though you're foggy and slow and maybe even late you're MOVING and no matter how long it takes and how hard you have to work just to achieve your minimum for now you know that it's just for now and you'll sooner than later find your way out of that hot wet scratchy gray wool blanket and you'll know from hard-fought experience that you may not have the power to make the rain go away but you have the tenacity and the fortitude to outlast it and find your clarity and focus again in the warm, restorative sunlight it was trying to hide from you and even though you're never entirely sure you know exactly what that unclouded sunlight feels like you'll always get close enough to know what you're fighting for and how to be stronger and smarter and even more certain of your indestructibility the next time.

Depression will tear you down

from happy to despondent in a matter of minutes and will pin you there with its hands on your throat and its knees on your chest so you can't breathe and you can't move and you can't think and you eventually can't even summon the will to care.

It will override your sense of reason and convince you that despite any evidence to the contrary everyone hates you, you're better off dead and you'd better figure out how to get that way soon or you'll just prolong the agony and the hopelessness and the fact that you just don't matter.

It will destroy you from within, thought by thought, feeling by feeling, certainty by certainty, and leave you battered and bloodied and empty and profoundly profoundly profoundly exhausted whether it slinks away like a fog or sprints away like a wolf with a ripped-up part of you in its teeth so it can hide and feast and grow stronger and lie in wait until its next attack.

It will make you lonely and defeated, desperate for some semblance of validation through a lunch date or an actual date or a party invitation but too scared and awkward and exhausted to follow through until people stop inviting you anywhere because they know you won't show up.

It will dig in its claws and fight to the death the drugs and the counselors and the hospitalizations and the electroconvulsive therapies you eventually turn to in desperation as you endure irritating and embarrassing and possibly permanent side effects and withdrawal effects on your frustrating, endless quest to remember what normal feels like and to attempt to reclaim it.

It will compel you to write alarming texts to your friends and repeatedly, off-puttingly post your graphic, brutal, unfiltered, unapologetic thoughts on social media in a futile attempt to explain yourself, empty your head, get to sleep, try to normalize whatever the fuck is wrong with you so you can finally overcome your choking sense of isolation and think readily and lucidly and productively and walk the earth with confidence and never never never spend another moment foggy and dark and despondent and immobile and alone and sleeping sleeping sleeping and fucking scared you'll do something stupid when you should be breathing and laughing and eating and participating and loving and feeling loved and just goddamned fucking LIVING.

But you know no matter how bad it gets, it will still give you moments and days and maybe even weeks of reprieve where you can see where you need to be, feel what you need to feel, do what you need to do, and memorize this precious knowledge so you can hopefully look at your next attack objectively and learn how to ride it out and minimize the damage and maybe even be embarrassed enough to apologize for the profanity and the disturbing imagery you use when you're buried up to your neck in lava and you're trying to claw your way out and explain yourself so people will understand and maybe help you or at least embrace you flaws and all and help you regain your footing, your dignity, and maybe your place in this bright, friendly, joyous world filled with people and places and experiences eagerly waiting to welcome you with wide open loving inviting arms.

Of Two Minds

I stumbled on this documentary about bipolar disorder last night on Amazon Prime, and it is so well done that I didn't even pick up my phone as I watched it. Which says A LOT.

The film follows the lives of four people living with bipolar disorder for over a year and veers off once in a while to profile a handful of others, which I think leaves viewers with a robust understanding of the commonalities bipolar people all deal with but really underscores the fact that no two people's experiences are the same. Some people (like me) have hallucinations, some cut themselves, some find manic episodes to be thrilling, some (like me) find them scary and exhausting, some experience functional depression, some (like me) fall into depression so deep that it's past the point of functioning and therefore safely past the point of being capable of self-harm, some attempt and eventually succeed at suicide, some hate taking meds and even refuse to fill their prescriptions, and some (like me) can never forget how awful it is to be off our meds and therefore take them religiously.

The people profiled are straight, gay and bisexual. Some are religious and some are atheists. Some have money and some are struggling so much that they can't afford their meds and rent and seriously consider leaving the United States for a country that can offer them healthcare. They live in cities all over North America. The documentary really does a deep dive into the environments and experiences that shape the way people manage their mental health—though my only criticism is that there are only three people of color, all of whom are just one-off side interviews, which I think really misses an opportunity to paint a more robust picture of experiences and contexts and cultures and personal decisions.

It's edited deftly to be thorough and intimately informational but not overwhelming. I was left feeling emotionally connected to everyone—to the point that I rooted for all of them but ended up angry at one person and genuinely disliking another.

If you or someone you love is living (or struggling) with bipolar disorder, I highly recommend watching this. It's quite beautiful.