The inability to complete projects: A delightful bi-product of Bipolar

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend and he said "I listened to your podcast" and I said "What podcast?"

I had completely forgotten that I had started a podcast. I have hundreds of unfinished short stories and novels, my blog gets a visit from me once every blue moon. Why is that? My beautiful bipolar brain.

Many times I've made big plans to start a new project, but sometimes there are so many ideas in my head all of which are unfinished and every time a new idea comes it gets abandoned half way for another one and another one and another one. Imagine children running out of school on friday, that's how thoughts feel in my head sometimes, just racing thoughts all of them blurry and random and none of them have a beginning or an end or any logic or reason whatsoever. My mind is so scattered sometimes that even if i try to write things down, by the time I have 5 words down about my new idea for a novel my brain is already analyzing why captain america didn't become the king of Asgard.  Hypomania means having one thought and being able to complete but the evil counterpart of that, which terrifies me, is something that's called Dysphoric Hypomania.

Dysphoric Hypomania is the obsession over one thought and the inability to get rid of it. It becomes like a haunting in your brain that you can't shake or move on from and it is debilitating. I often find myself for hours on end unable to get rid of one thought and it is always horrifying "I'll never be able to achieve my goals" is a thought that I'm sure has passed through your brain every once in a while, or something that you think about sometimes and then try to create a solution for.

For me, I could be having a good day, skipping around like an idiot, whistling the harry potter theme song. Letting my brain run amock when it turns a corner and there it is. A gigantic monster, with eyes like the devil staring right into my soul, "REPEAT AFTER ME," It whispers in my ears through it's telepathic abilities "YOU'LL NEVER BE LOVED." and then that same monster turns into mist and engulfs me, until everything around me is black, all i see is darkness and all I hear is "YOU'LL NEVER BE LOVED : BECAUSE YOU NEVER FINISH ANYTHING" and then "YOU'LL NEVER BE LOVED: BECAUSE YOU'RE SO SMALL" and It goes on and on and on for days and sometimes weeks on end, and when that happens I truly can't think of anything else. It consumes my being as a whole and incapacitates me.

Now i'm not gonna say that I've found the solution for this, but here's what I personally do. I'm what knows as a Rapid Cycling Bipolar, which means my depressive and manic episodes tend to last 2-3 month each or sometimes even less. Through a lot of therapy I've been trying to learn to spot those patterns and get my work done when I'm manic and allow my self to not get anything when I'm depressive. The problem with that is if you don't know that you're bipolar and you suddenly become to depressed to do anything, the fact that you're not doing anything makes you feel more depressed and it becomes a vicious cycle of depression,inability to act, more depression and so on.

So I allow myself to not do anything, sometimes for weeks on end, which seems lazy to people and which also add to the magnificent monster in my head "YOU'RE LAZY" but I try to let myself ride the wave until my manic comes and get work done there.

So here it is, I just wanted to share what it's like in the bipolar brain sometimes. It's not pretty I know, but it is beautiful. 

The Unbearable Heaviness Of Being

My heart feels heavy. The temptation is too strong. I can feel the green heaven whispering to me, telling me that if you have me everything will be ok. And I'm certain that if I do enter into the green, in a way, it will be, for me. I try to know my faults,  learn my shortcomings, live with my irrational need to be wanted, to be liked, to be loved. I know that I must love myself before being loved by someone else. I know that with my brain, but my heart still feels heavy.

I try to be good, I swear I do. But I just can't understand people. They make no sense to me, or maybe I make no sense to them. Is it so hard to be my friend? Am I even my friend?

I hurt people without knowing that I have. I somehow manage to mess up every good thing to ever happen me and I feel the green waiting for me. How I miss that delicious taste upon my lips and that elevated dimension in my head. Because in the green, life is not real. In the green, nothing is real or unreal. In the green, time doesn't exist, it doesn't matter any more. In the green, there's peace. False but true at the same time. Present and absent. I can feel it! But the feeling is distorted by visions and monsters and madness.

I just don't get it! I can almost touch it! It's so close. It's just beyond my grasp, but I just don't get it. I wish I know what IT is. I can feel that there is an IT. And I can feel that I am capable of finding IT. I just can't seem to do it. I wish I had religion.

Life must be so easy when you can just say "Because God wills so." To every question you can ask. Imagine how simple must that be to actually believe. To actually think that there is a higher power that is leading you, and that everything will be great.

The sad part is, we all had that at one point. Or most of us did anyways. That thing when you're a kid and you look at your Dad, or Mom, or guardian and feel like whatever goes wrong they can fix it. Or a little bit after that when they teach you about a God, if they do, and you feel like whatever goes wrong that God can fix it. Or even if he can't fix it you feel like you can try to fix it for Them.

But now there are many more questions than there are answers. I tried to find answers in the green but that didn't help.

Someone just told me today that they're not good enough of a person to be my friend. That really stung. I don't know what it is, maybe it's my bipolar that lets me go all over the radar with people. But again I don't want to blame anything on anyone or anything other than myself.

What really hurts is that I really do try to be a good person. But it's so hard to be a person to begin with, much less a good one. Being a person means that you have habits, likes, dislikes, wants, needs, desires, insecurities, hobbies, skills, abilities, responsibilities, fears, vices...... and the list goes on. Being a person on its own is exhausting. I truly imagine that if all the information about one person was a code, that code would be infinite.

Just as an experiment: sit down and start writing everything you know about yourself, I promise you it'll take you days, maybe even weeks.

And by everything, I do mean everything! Which side of the bed do you sleep on? How many socks do you own? Do you buy lighters or do you borrow from people? What is the longest you went without talking?

There's just so much to being a person that just being in itself is exhausting. And then comes other people that you know and you know information about them. She's a vegetarian! He works from this to this time! He smokes this specific kind of cigarettes! She sings very well! He love reading science fiction!

It's an immeasurable amount of information that just ebbs and flows around in your head in the most tiring way imaginable. Add to that philosophy and morality and the complexity of interaction, not even touching the actual "facts" that you learn, like science, maths, history, geography..... all together they make being a full time job.

Maybe that's IT, maybe it's just a job. I mean I do enjoy the job a lot of the time, but it's still a job. You still have to wake up every morning and do it and the next day do it again, and again, and again. Even if you like it, which a lot of people do, it's still a job. And it's heavy, it's just...... heavy. 

Merry Christmas to you but merry what to me?

During the holiday season I always feel something odd. A feeling of exclusion almost.

Today is for many people a very important day, it's a day where you get with family and exchange gifts with friends, spread love, eat a lot and buy cheap electronics. But growing up in Syria, today was just another Tuesday where you went to sleep at 9pm to go to school the next day.

I've always the idea of a holiday but I couldn't really identify with any. When I was in Syria yes I of course celebrated the two Muslim holidays Eid al fitir and Eid al adha. But since I left Syria about 6 years ago I just couldn't connect with these holidays anymore. My family wasn't around me, and I became an Athiest and felt very removed from the nostalgia of a religious holiday.

Many people I know who are western Athiests still celebrate Christmas which I find wonderful because it proves that some tradition bring us closer together no matter what. But unfortunately it's hard to include yourself in a tradition when you didn't have it growing up.

I just want to say that being away from home is hard but what's harder is feeling like you have no home. I can't really call Syria my home unfortunately, yes I grew up there but I was mostly unaccepted by my peers because of they called my "Western ideology"

I remember one time I told my father that I believe in equality amongst religions and he yelled at me and told me that the only religion is Islam. How could I fell home in an environment like that?

And since then I've been on the move so much that I barely got a chance to breath. I have been in Istanbul for 4 years now and while I do feel very comfortable and safe in the city. I know the ins and outs of it, I have fantastic friends and an amazing job. But I just don't feel like it's home. That's why I can't enjoy the holidays here either (The Bayrams).

The silver lining is that my friends here accept me the way I am and never judge me. While most people need special days to have fun and get together with the people they love for me any Wednesday can turn into the best night ever because of the people around me. 

So for those of you enjoying the holidays, Merry Christmas! And for those of you away from home, just look at the people around you. If you have people who'll pick you up when you fall down, well that's your own Christmas!

The Quest For Death

Life came to me the only way she knows how, as a surprise. I didn't ask for her, no one does I guess.

When it came she brought with her friends,enemies, and complications. Complications that, simply, appeared before my eyes one day. I opened them and there she was. Fantastically huge and horrifyingly new. Everywhere I looked, life looked at back at me. Almost mockingly really. As if to say "I'm everywhere, and you can't run away."

 Even when I close my eyes and I try to go to sleep. She lives deep within my mind, relentless and unhinged. Every second of every day, there she exists.

I decided to go on a quest after years of holding Life's hands and feeling all that trouble that comes with this universal relationship that we all have. All the anxiety, pain, suffering and all the happiness, laughter and glee. It's a relationship just like any other with a lady as big is life itself because well.... she is. My quest was for death.

There's only one way to break up with Life, to get out of that relationship. You have got to meet Death. But lady Death is as illusive as she is inevitable. When i knocked on her door, she opened. Clad in black and scythe in hand.

"Help me!" I pleaded.
"It's not your time." she replied.
"Why? Why is it not my time? I'm ready!"
"It doesn't matter. It's not your time."

And suddenly I found myself back with Life.

What I did then,was try to find Time. Because I needed to convince Time to be mine. I needed it to be my Time. But how really can you find Time? How really can you knock at time's door? Knocking at Death's door is easy, knocking at Life's door is easier. But knocking at Time's door.......

I buried my self in metaphysics, philosophy, theology and every other science about time that I could think. I even turned to drugs to try to open my mind but it was all for naught. The knowledge of being enable to know drove me mad. So I knocked at Death's door again, she opened.

"It's not your time."
I begged her "Please take me, I'm done with this relationship."
"No, I can't take you before it's your time."
"Why are you such a stickler for time? What do you owe?"
"Because I and Life were created by Time and we live by it's law. We work simultaneously and side by side."
"Well, where is time then?"
"Our rivalry was frowned upon by Time and we were banished."
"Banished? Where to?"
"To the world! More accurately to the human mind. You see Life and you see Death. But Time decided to stay in the realm above. And it decided that nothing should ever touch it, understand it or control it"
"But Death, I have distorted time myself, I have taken drugs and that changed my perception of time."
"But you haven't changed it, you looked at it differently. Much like a child who thinks that their parent is large when in comparison they're small."
"What is time?"
"Time is everything, and it's the only thing. Life and Death are your window to witness Time. Because Time rules all and time ,by its well created, all. Before it there was nothing, and after it there will be nothing. Time gave you a gift. It gave you Life and it gave you itself. But time is tricky, time is the only thing that you have until it becomes yours. Because when it becomes yours, I become yours."

How my father's cancer affected me. And why his recovery didn't.

Cancer is one of those words that no one like to say, hear or think about. There's an underlying evil surrounding the word, whenever you hear someone has it you imagined death standing behind them. Scythe in hand, big ominous smile, red eyes piercing your soul and the world turns grey.

It's rare to catch a death in a hesitant state like that. I've dealt with death before, but it had always been with his magnificently executed, and already done, handy work. Never saw her actually in action. It's almost attractive watching it. My father was diagnosed with cancer a few month ago and the second I heard that I saw her. Death looked at me

It was so odd, I've always viewed death as a pertinacious force. Comes, reaps, smiles, nods and leaves. When she nods, you nod back in respect. But this time it just lurked.. almost precariously.

When I heard about his cancer a sense of restlessness befell me. I never even liked the guy really, nor he me. But thanks to good old evolution I'm apparently supposed to be threaten when my genetic predecessor is ill because that means I'm susceptible. Or at least that's how I rationalised being part carefree part depressed. I know, how can you not care and be depressed at the same time you ask. Well I honestly don't know, and not knowing made me feel angry. Not really being as sad as I should be lead to guilt. The amount of sadness I had ended up in depression that didn't really help the guilt. So I end up feeling depressed, guilty and angry.

Not angry at the world or at a fictional creature that gave my dad cancer, there's a perfectly rational reason why he got cancer. Not he the individual, he a human. But angry at my self for not knowing why I'm angry and that's a dangerous slope.

I alienated people, lost some friendships, destroyed relationships.Eventually I stopped writing, stopped recording my podcast, barely made it out of the door most days. Made his illness about myself and felt even more guilty about that.

But here's the great news, he's better. He did his surgery tomorrow and the doctor said in a few months he should be back to his old self, the old self I didn't like and still don't.

When they rolled my dad back from surgery, I was there in the room, I looked at my mother's face and it was easily a 9 on the happiness scale. I swear she looked younger when she saw him. I didn't even need to look at my face to know that it didn't even twitch, my heart told me that.

I watched as the colours seep back into my mother's world... I actually saw her pupils widen and let those colours splash back into her mind. And I looked at death dragging behind him, looking disappointed. She nodded respectfully at the doctor, he nodded back. She recognised that he won a battle, he recognised that she'll win the war. And she looked at me and winked mischievously.

I don't know why she did that, I feel like she wanted to tell me that we have an unspoken connection, like I know that she's there, she's not going anywhere. She just went to grab a cup of coffee and she'll be right back, she'll be everywhere always and forever.

His illness made me stare in her eyes, it showed me the grey. His recovery didn't bring back the colours it merely put them in perspective. I'm glad he's ok, I might even dare say I'm happy for him and my mom. But I've already peaked in her eyes, we made that unbreakable bond, the bond we all try to avoid.

Yeah I'll be back to my old self soon, I'm already writing, planning to do the podcast again, maybe try to fix some of the relationships I messed up. But that bond, that wink she threw me... that'll live with me until it's time for our date.           

The Male Empath (Athiesm)

And here we are, the conclusion to the Empath series.

 Since this specific topic is quite controversial, I thought I'd start with some disclaimers. First and foremost everything I've written in this series is purely personal and not to be taken as scientific or factual. I've simply written how I personally interact with the world. Secondly, this post is not meant to offend anyone's faith or religion, it's merely a telling of how I felt about faith.

 Faith has always been tricky to me. I grew up in a very VERY religious family. Like "Music comes from the devil" religious. I went to the mosque every day since I was four years until I was about 16, I learned the entirety of the Quran and actually memorised all of it. But faith in itself has always baffled me. You see as an Empath there are all these feelings floating around all the time and I like deconstructing them, but with faith I could never get a finger on it. I don't think that faith is a feeling per say, it's more of a state of being.

 When I was at the mosque listening to our various teachers teach us about Islam I could tell how they're feeling. They all had conviction I have to admit that but I never really felt their "Faith". Neither with my family, whose emotions I learned to read much better than others. It was always hard to pick faith from amongst other feelings. I felt a lot of conviction but also a lot of doubt and worry. Not doubt in God per say, just general doubt about the meaning of life. And it baffled me because I thought following a religion should remove that sense of aimlessness that we all feel.

 Every time my family talked about or practised religion I really wanted to pick up on their faith but there was always that existential crisis in all of them. When I was lucky enough to go to Europe and meet Christians and Jews and people from other religion, their energy was pretty much the same. I've felt like to most of them faith and or religion was more of a safety net, whether they know this consciously or not I could not say but I've always felt it being used as a safety net.

  I've had various conversations with people who are still in their religion just because their family is even though they never practised it. I even know Christians who have never been to church or ever read one word in the bible to begin with. You see I've been told all the time the faith is supposed to bring you calm and a direction, but I've never felt that from other people. Especially my father, who I think is the most religious person I know, I've never felt like religion brought him peace of mind in anyway, it certainly never brought me any peace either.

 All of the factors above, really made me questions whether religion is something that's real or if it is just an emotional safety net. Religious people always have a sense of belonging I have to admit that but they also feel alone a lot. So I came to the conclusion that if religion can't give a sense of belonging the way it should, or a sense of peace the way it should then what's the point?

 Why should I submit myself to an entity that has never really done anything for me? and slowly I realised that there's nothing that'll stop a human from feeling alone or from questioning life. Because we are born without asking for it, given a conscious without asking for it. And live with that state of self-awareness without asking for it. Religion or not, when you give something self-awareness they're gonna be scared and lonely and confuse. Plus I know it's not a very valid argument but there are 4200 religions in the world... so the chances of any one of them being right is 1 in 4200.

 In conclusion, I've never felt that faith really helped people around me too much, it gives a lot of people a sense of safety but so does having good friends or a family.

 Thank you so much for everyone who has read this series, it was very hard for me to share all I've shared.

 Today I'm feeling: Relieved because I'm bouncing back from an illness. Unsure about my career choices. Glad that I stuck with this series and finished it. Nervous about money like always. Anxious about a few job applications.

Thanks again.  

The Male Empath (Dating)

It's time to get personal again, thank you everyone who has discussed this blog series with me, it's been oddly satisfying to write my feelings and share how I see the world with.

What a nightmare... dating an Empath! I guess for many people the hardest part about dating is to get your partner to open up with you about how they feel, cross your fingers and hope to god it's good. Or telling them how you feel and hoping they feel the same. So much hope, they hope you feel the same way as them you hope they feel the same you as you.... hope is good, it's fun for a relationship it adds anticipation and excitement.

Now imagine a scenario where you go on a date and the moment they show up you immediately know how they feel about. Here's a story of a first date I went on that went so horrifyingly badly:

I met a woman doing stand-up, she seemed pretty cool and she was a lawyer so I took her number and I asked her on a date. We were gonna meet in kadikoy for a drink but she shows up an hour late and high as fuck! Here's how she was feeling "I only said yes because I had nothing better to do, he's probably boring so I'll get high to have fun either way."

 I can't explain to you how I knew she felt that way it's impossible, my "ability" if that's the right word to know how people are feeling changes and evolves. When I was a kid it used to be a single emotion (He's Upset, She's Happy) it was simple like that. But the older I got it kinda got more complicated and started to unfold more complicated thoughts (She's upset because she feels like she's underappreciated) and these thoughts don't even happen in my head, I just have them as raw feelings. If I'm with you and you asked me (How am I feeling right now?) It'll probably take me a good few minutes to gather my feelings. Yes I used the word "feelings" again on purpose, because it's not a thought process it's really just feelings that I have to translate into thoughts. But I digress, back to dating.

Through out my most successful relationships, they usually go well for a while. You know beginning of the relationship blah blah blah, but they usually end horribly for me because I see it coming. Let me explain to you how. My Empath power doesn't always work on everyone, some people are harder to read, maybe because they have less feelings or they're better at guarding themselves or maybe it's the tinfoil hats they wear... not sure yet. However when I'm dating someone and I spend so much time with them, their feelings become so clear to me they basically become my own. So the moment they decide that they're going to break up with me I immediately know... just immediately! It has never failed. And that's why dating is insane for me, imagine knowing how your partner feels about you or about others all the time, all the doubt they have feeding your insecurities, all the tiresomeness and anxiety befalling you like boulders. It's truly horrifying.

Every time I'm with someone, even if their excitement wanes a little bit I know immediately, even if they try to put effort to hide it, effort which I should appreciate, I just can't shake off the fact that their eyes don't look at me the way they used to. My heart chooses a beat that it shouldn't and it goes down a dark path fast.... really fast.

And now we come to dating the Sociopath. I can honestly write a book about dating her. She was the first woman that I dated that I honestly imagined spending the rest of my life with.... yeah I know it's insane, let me tell you why though.

Our relationship was extremely dysfunctional, we spent a lot of our time talking about death, existentialism, how life is meaningless and how the world is a cold horrifying place. I enjoyed those talks more than I enjoyed talking to anyone in my life, her Sociopathy gave her an intellect I'm yet to see paralleled. Our sex life was a disaster, let's just say we weren't compatible sexually which is a huge deal for me, yet despite all of that I still wanted to be with her and I'll tell you why. When I'm around her, I felt very little. Not towards her, I was intensely in love with her, it's just when I'm with her (And it took me so long to figure that out) I felt my emotions go down immensely. Even though she showed a little bit less amount of emotions than others, it wasn't anything too blatant, however when I'm around her I almost felt like there's no emotions to be felt. What I learned when I read the book about Sociopathy (confessions of a sociopath) I learned that a lot of the emotions they show are actually simulated because they want to fit in with society. So when I was around her, I tried to feel what she's feeling and got little to nothing which made my own emotions go down, she was like an emotional dampener and I LOVED IT.

You see having so many feelings all the time is just inhumanely tiring, many people can cry for a few hours and then feel emotionally numb afterwards, most Empaths can't because our existence is fuelled by how we feel about things. That's why a lot of us are obsessive about certain things, because if our bed isn't made or if there's dirt we actually fell negatively. And our obsessions always manifest differently, you get the over-cleaner, the over-dresser etc... My obsession is I'm an over-thinker which leads to me being and over-talker, I just need to get the emotions out there because otherwise I'll just obsess about it and think it over and over and over until it consumes me like some sort of parasite.

And that's why I was in love with her. Imagine the relief I felt around her, the relief of emotional numbness. That is a feeling that no other human or thing has ever induced in me. You know how most people want to be happy? I really prefer to just feel nothing.

wow that was a depressing note to end with, well you know I'm just sharing how I feel so sue me. Anyways, if you ever do find yourself dating an Empath don't lie to them about your feelings, if you feel less excited about being with them tell them that, because if you lie they'll start obsessing about why you're lying to them. Just tell them exactly how you feel, because they already know and they'll appreciate your honesty.

Thanks a lot for reading and next week I'll be talking about how my Empathy lead me to Atheism and how most people I know who are Empaths happen to be Atheists or Agnostics.

How I'm feeling today : Relieved because the production I was working with was amazing and it's over. Excited about the upcoming rap battle. Hopeful for the opportunity of an upcoming job. Confused about a relationship that is developing in a very odd way.

Thanks again for reading and see you next week.