Mania: The Maddness of the Mind

 You rapidly tap your hand against your leg. Thoughts fly through your mind so quickly you have to strain to grasp onto one long enough for it to make sense. A brilliant idea suddenly strikes and you jump to your feet in excitement. You skip to the cabinet and hastily pull open drawers, tearing through their contents, searching for what it is you were looking for. It's not there. You swear it was there just earlier today but now it's no where to be found. Frustration bubbles up in you and you kick the items that are now scattered all over your living room floor. Cursing you move on to another room to look for it. Your thoughts are racing quickly again and now you can't even remember what it is you were looking for. Another idea pops in your head. Air. You think. I need fresh air. You scurry off to your bedroom and throw open your closet doors. The outfit that you are wearing simply won't work for this occasion. You change into a new, better, cuter ensemble, throw on a hat and some lipstick for the final touch. You burst outside and spin around, lifting your face to the sun. The fresh air softly kisses your skin and you sigh happily as you wander off down the road. You have no idea where it is you are going or what you plan to accomplish but right now, in this moment, you have never felt more alive.  

Mania is a funny thing. Sometimes it brings with it a type of happiness that fills you up and leaves you overflowing with excitement. Other times it turns your mind into a twisted cobweb of thoughts that blend into each other, racing by too quickly for you to grasp hold. This leaves you feeling frustrated, useless, and slightly insane. No matter what you do, you can't seem to gain control of your own mind. It can be a terrifying feeling. The rest of the world seems to go too slow and you find yourself easily irritated at the smallest of things. This irritation only feeds into the racing thoughts and lack of control you are feeling. Which in turn bumps up your level of frustration. You want to scream. Or throw something. I instead normally close in on myself, digging my nails into my arms, wishing I could crawl out of my skin. 

There are times when I am manic that you can tell by taking one look at me. I'm pacing around; there is a desperate need to be constantly moving. I'm babbling on about something, using my arms and hands to make gestures to emphasize the incredible passion I feel about that particular subject at the moment. Other times I'm sitting off to the side, fidgeting incessantly, mostly or completely silent. This is because I can't concentrate enough to make sense of anything to form a semi coherent sentence to add to a conversation. 

Leading up to full blown mania, I usually have a decently long period of hypomania. This is the part of being bipolar that I actually enjoy. When I'm in this frame of mind, I get things done. I normally find very little need for sleep, taking a few long naps here and there rather than getting a full nights rest. This leaves me with extra time to accomplish all of the projects that I coming up with ideas for. My most creative work is usually a product of this time. I clean like crazy. And organize. Oh how I love to organize. I also tend to spend entirely too much money on completely unnecessary things. But in the moment they seem like I absolutely need them. And I have to get it now because if I don't get it now then I won't be able to finish this brilliant project that I just came up with and who knows how long I'll have this much energy and motivation to do things so it needs to happen now. That can get me into a bit of trouble. 

While hypomania can be productive and actually rather enjoyable, it cannot be maintained. (Trust me I have tried.) Eventually one of two things will happen. I will either come crashing down into a period of depression or it will suddenly start escalating into full blown mania, which at that point things get messy and completely out of control. I make embarrassing choices that reflects a person that is completely different from who I am and what I believe in. I blow through crazy  amounts of money. (I don't have a credit card in my name for this reason.) I act impulsively and put myself into sometimes dangerous situations. It wreaks havoc on every aspect of my life. When I come crashing down from my high, picking up the pieces of my life that I so carelessly tossed around leads to shame, guilt, and anger towards myself. Full blown mania is not fun. You may have some fun times while you are in it but when reality sets back in, it is not a fun place be at. A few days of mania has the potential to completely ruin everything that I have worked so hard these past couple of years for. That terrifies me. 

Luckily I am learning how to prevent myself from getting into a full blown manic episode. Meds of course are crucial. Keeping myself in somewhat of a routine also helps. (This I'm not super fond of. I've never been one to like doing a consistent pattern of things day in and day out, but like it or not it's what's good for me so I'm doing it.) On days where my mood is kind of all over the place I will get a water instead of a drink when I'm out with friends. Having a couple drinks now and then is fine, but there are certain days where I know adding alcohol into the mix of my life would not lead to good things so I have to say no for that night. Taking notice of when the hypomania starts to sink in and talking about it with my psychiatrist and the people I trust around me helps to hold me accountable as well. If it starts to escalate and is getting to be completely out of control I know I would at that point need to be in the hospital while meds are being adjusted. That hopefully will not need to happen but I am aware that it is a possibility. 

I think Carrie Fisher describes mania very well: 

When I am teetering more towards the manic side and I am waiting for my med adjustment to start working I have found it helpful to surround myself with people who will not judge me but instead help me work through those frustrating few days. By staying with people I trust I am prevented from acting as impulsively as I would on my own. I have found it's good to have a few different people you can rely on because when I'm in that frame of mind I am kind of exhausting to be around. Plus I get bored very quickly so switching things up constantly keeps me from getting aggravated over the little things I would normally never care about. When my thoughts are rapidly spinning out of control I close my eyes and say to myself:

Saying that doesn't always mean I get a reprieve from the maddness of my mind (Although sometimes He does give that to me). And a lot of the time when I am saying it I am certainly not sitting still. But it reminds me who is in control. And I trust that my God will make everything work out just the way it should be. I don't always get an immediate answer, and sometimes what I get is not what I was expecting. But I have found that He can take even the messiest of situations and turn it into something good. So no matter how fast my world may be spinning I will cling to Him because He is the only one with the power to truly slow it down. 

            

That Girl In The Mirror

Disgusting. Flabby. Gross. How did you let yourself get like this? You pick apart every part of your body finding flaws everywhere. It doesn't matter what other people say. When you look in the mirror this is what you see. 

Society today has come up with this ideal image that is nearly impossible to achieve. There are ads everywhere pointing out your flaws and telling you they can fix them. It's absolutely ridiculous. 

I think it is safe to say that everybody has their own body image problems from time to time. You feel bloated and don't like how a particular shirt fits you. You saw a picture someone tagged of you that was not the most flattering. Your jeans fit a little tighter than you would like. You aren't happy with your body. But you know you can't immediately change it so you move on with your day. 

Some people with an eating disorder don't suffer quite as much from poor body image. Or at least some claim not to. For me personally this has always been one of the hardest parts. 

Throughout the time I have had my eating disorder my weight has widely ranged. Sometimes I was very underweight. Other times I was decently overweight. A lot of the time I fell somewhere in the middle. It didn't matter what weight I was at, I absolutely hated the girl in mirror staring back at me. Most days, I still do. To look in the mirror and see yourself looking so disgusting and then have to get dressed and go about your day can be incredibly difficult. All you want to do is crawl back in bed and hide under the blankets where no one can see you. Or run around your apartment like a crazy woman in some lame attempt to get rid of all of that unwanted fat on your body. 

Other people will not understand this. Especially if you aren't overweight. But even then they will tell you, "You look beautiful you're overthinking it." "You have the best body....I wish I had your body." "You look fine, relax." People will think if you say anything hinting at your warped perception of your body that you are just looking for attention. Which is very frustrating because the last thing you want at that point is attention. People will tell you that you just have to believe what other people say. And they are right, you do, but that doesn't mean all of those horrible feelings that come along with looking in the mirror go away. They are still very much right there. And that little voice inside your head that points out your every flaw follows you around all day. Picking and nagging,  "Suck in your stomach. Stand up straight. Don't you dare think of eating, have you looked in the mirror lately?" 

I can't begin to tell you the number of events that I have missed because of how much I hated what I saw in the mirror that day. And not just social events. I've skipped class. Called in sick to work. All because I felt like a 500 pound whale that day. That's ridiculous. I know how incredibly stupid that is. But sometimes the shame and negative voices win, leaving me paralyzed to do anything but curl up in bed where I mentally beat myself up for missing whatever it is I'm missing. The mental scolding normally goes on to reach pretty much every aspect of my life. Not exactly a healthy way to spend the day. 

I have learned that on some days I have to avoid mirrors. Because I know the mindset I can so easily get into if I look to long. I also have started to do something that at first felt very strange. I started to thank God for giving me my body and for all of the amazing things that I can do with it. I may hate my legs, but with them I can dance. My arms can reach out to help other people. I found the more that I looked at what my body could do for me, the easier it was to hate it a little bit less. 

I also know that God made me. And God doesn't make mistakes. 

Beauty is fleeting. What is more important is the type of person you are. To have a beautiful soul is far greater than having the perfect body. (Some days I need to remind myself of this quite often.) So even when I don't like what I see in the mirror I can look at myself for the kind of person I am becoming. That helps me to feel a little bit more beautiful. 

So there are days when the mirror makes me feel unbeautiful. I know even as I recover from my eating disorder there will still be those days. But my worth does not come from my appearance. My true beauty comes from within. And the mirror has nothing on that. 

Keep On Pushing Back The Dark

This is one of the most frustrating parts about being bipolar. You finally start to feel like you are getting yourself into a good place and then all of a sudden you feel all of those good things and the progress you have made start sliding out of your grasp. You find yourself falling into the same black pit you just worked so hard to climb out of. It's like quicksand dragging you down and you are frantically reaching out to find something, anything to hold onto to keep you from going back in that hole. You know that you have the tools to get you out but your mind has become a little foggy and it's hard to remember what you need to be doing. The people around you get frustrated because they have seen this routine before. It's a vicious cycle and it needs to stop. You want it to stop. You want it to stop more than anything.

I was headed straight for that place a few weeks ago. I felt the switch turn. But for once instead of sinking into it and letting it control me, I got mad. I got really angry that this was happening right when all of the pieces of my life seemed to be falling into place. That darkness, had I not fought it, would have taken all of that away from me in one big swoop. I have worked entirely too hard to build myself up to this point to let that darkness win now. So I fought back. 

One of the things I have learned along my journey is that if you are going to win the fight, you cannot be fighting alone. People aren't mind readers. They aren't going to know you need a team of warriors on your side unless you tell them. This for me is one of the hardest parts. 

Lets take a minute to look at what the typical person's thoughts and feelings are when they find themselves in a bad place. You may have made a few mistakes that you were even warned to avoid making but you didn't listen so now here you are stuck in a kind of "I told you so" place. You grasp at straws hoping you'll find one sturdy enough to get you out of this mess before anyone realizes you are there. You quickly realize that's not going to happen. And soon that feeling of shame starts to sink in. And you are going to have to sit there with all your vulnerabilities on display for the world to see as someone helps you back up to your feet. It's not a fun place to be in. Nobody likes to admit their weaknesses.

For people who struggle with mental health issues it can seem like this is all you are doing. You start to feel like that person who always has something going on that is just a little too much for people who don't understand what it's like to live with a mental illness to want to deal with in their lives. People like people who are positive. They want to be able to go out with friends and forget about their stressful day and relax. You don't want to burden people with your stuff. You try to tell yourself you can fight this alone. But at some point you are going to have to set aside your pride and admit that you need people in your corner.

Once you have found those people who are going to be there fighting right beside you are going to have to start sharing some parts of you that you really would rather the world never see. You are going to have to tell on yourself, expose your weakest areas so those warriors beside you can have your back when the fight is too much for you to do alone. It sucks to admit to those things that you have tried so desperately to keep hidden from the world. Heck you tried to hide them from yourself and pretend they weren't there. But they don't go away by pretending they don't exist. So you share those ugly thoughts, those self destructing habits, you tell the people around you what you once swore no one would ever know. Because then those thoughts and those behaviors start to lose some of their power. Now you can fight them on a much evener playing ground. Sometimes you will win. Sometimes they will win. But somewhere along the line you start winning more. Those warriors you had gotten to fight along side you and sometimes for you, have now become your cheerleaders as you gain strength you never realized you had. You start to feel proud of yourself for fighting back instead of sinking in. 

That darkness does come back every now and then. Sometimes it tries to show up a lot. And each time you have to make the choice. Am I going to let this define me or am I going to fight back? I once thought I could never be the person that could fight back. I got mad at people who told me I should be fighting back. I felt like I was fighting. And in truth I was. My fight then was that I just kept surviving. That I made it from one day to the next. At that time, that was me giving 100% of my effort into holding back that darkness. I pray that I never end up that deep in the darkness again. I wake up every day and make the decision that today I'm going to fight. It's going to mean letting people see the messy, broken sides of me. As I have shared, so many people have in turn shown me their own messy, broken sides. We all have our demons that we fight with. It is only by embracing each other that we can fully conquer them. 

So I challenge everyone who reads this (I'm not sure all that many people do lol) to expose some of your messy, broken pieces to someone you trust. Ask for help on some bad habit you want to break or something you have been struggling with. See what it is that they have been dealing with. Ask them what's going on in their lives and be prepared to really listen. To encourage. To bring hope. To shine some light into the darkness of their mind. Because if we want to be successful we have to be in this together.     

Just Because You Trip, Doesn't Mean You're Going To Fall

Throughout the course of my life I have learned that I am not always the most graceful person. I trip over my own two feet. I run into things. I drop things. I have been known to run into the occasional glass door. There is a running joke  in my family that I really should have been named Grace. Each time I trip or fall down a couple of stairs I get right back up, laughing at myself, and go about my day. I am beginning to see my journey in recovery is going to be a lot like that. I'm going to trip over those little bumps in the road and maybe not be quite as graceful as I would like. 

I have been known to look at situations with a very black or white frame of mind. In fact back in day when I was working at the dirty bird (a.k.a. Red Robin) some of my team members nicknamed me Mega; I was very extreme, one way or the other; I was all in or I couldn't care less. In school I had to be perfect getting all As or I simply stopped going to classes taking all Fs instead. If something was going to be done, it was going to be done perfectly or else I didn't want to do it at all. I took perfectionism to both extremes, excelling and failing. The concept of finding a balance was completely foreign to me. I knew logically there needed to be a middle ground. But for some reason my brain has always tried to tell me if I wasn't doing something perfectly it was worthless. It wasn't good enough. I was going to have to redo it anyways so I should just stop trying, accept the failure, sit in the failure, and  pretend I wanted to fail all along. Act like it didn't matter, or I didn't care. That became much easier to do trying to be perfect at everything 100% of the time. 

Since I looked at everything in my life like this it's no surprise that was how I approached recovery as well. But recovering from an eating disorder is not black and white. Living with bipolar isn't either. And if I took the black and white, perfect or completely fail approach, I was going to be failing. I did that for awhile. I would have spurts where I would put 100% into recovery, into being healthy, into life. But as soon as I hit a bump, I dove into that pothole. Thankfully God nudged me while I was laying down by my pothole, covered in cuts, bruises, and scratches because you know, I didn't half-ass anything; when I failed, I failed big. So there I was laying on the ground having given up any hope for my life to get better and Jesus shows up gently reminding me that this is not what my life was made for. He started to heal some of my wounds. It was fantastic. For the first time I started to feel like recovery from my eating disorder and managing my bipolar was possible. But then I tripped a few times. And when I saw the pothole, I let myself fall in. I sat there for awhile and even started to lay back down, but again I felt that gentle nudge.

This time I argued. I didn't want to get back up just to trip and fall again. I've had enough of that. It was exhausting. Not to mention humiliating. I mean it's not like I was sitting here stumbling around by myself. My family, my friends, people who didn't even know me were getting one heck of a show from graceful walk through life. I was tired. If I got back up, I wanted it to go perfectly. Jesus very kindly told me it wasn't going to work that way. I was going to have to find a balance, a middle ground. I was skeptical to say the least. I knew from experience I was not good with middle ground. Finding balance was not a skill of mine. What He was asking for was great in theory. But I couldn't do it. And that is when He told me while reaching out his hand, "You're not going to do it, we are going to do it."

Well with an offer like that I couldn't exactly say no. I already knew what it felt like when He had healed my wounds before. And living life laying by the pothole was not exactly the life I was hoping for. So I took His hand and let Him pull me back up. We were walking along quite well for awhile. Maybe that's why I didn't see the pothole. But this time the pothole didn't make me fall. Because I had Him right there to catch me. We started walking again. I was a little unsteady at first. It wasn't long though before we were back to our familiar stride. After awhile I tripped over a few rocks. And slipped on another pothole. And again there He was to catch me. I took a few wobbly steps but got myself back into our normal stride much faster this time.

I'm starting to learn to see the potholes while they are still a distance away. When I see them I know I need to watch my step, or maybe look for another road. I know each road will have rocks that I trip over and potholes that will try to make me fall. But I also know that I'm not walking this road alone. I have my Savior here to catch me when I fall and guide me back to the right path. And for that I am forever grateful.