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.