Bipolar Dementia Art Chronicles

Having a Head Cold when You're Bipolar

A bipolar friend asked me the other day if I thought having a cold made my bipolar symptoms worse, as it did his.  I was relieved to hear his complaint, because I’ve been suffering with a cold on and off for the past two months, and it’s impact has been much larger than I thought it should have been.  I’ve been beating myself up for not being more productive, focused and energized just because of “a little cold.”

Last night at my bipolar support group meeting, I asked what others had experienced about colds.  “I get depressed when I have a cold,” said one.  “I get a cold at the end of a manic high,” said another.  “The cold brings me down." 

Is the cold a cause or an effect?  Do our bodies give us colds to slow us down?  Before I got this batch of colds, I had started an over-ambitious plan to market my new book, and made up a to-do list that would take an enormous amount of time and energy to accomplish.  From that point on, I would always be behind because there was no way to keep up with the plan except to stay in a permanent hypomanic state.

Maybe my body did me a favor by coming down with these colds?  Maybe it’s time for me to reassess my plan and get real.

Is Aggressiveness a Bipolar Trait?

Is it just me, or is aggressiveness a bipolar trait?  I notice that when I'm in a group of my peers, I often push pretty hard to make my point.  One night this week I was at a meeting of fellow artists discussing how to write an artists' statement, and I gave a couple people a hard time.  They were too polite to complain, but I realize this is a trait I often fall prey to.

It is even worse when I am dealing with authority figures.  When I was working on a PhD in creative writing, I antagonized one of my professors so much that he withdrew his committment to writing me a reference letter.  I always pushed my ideas aggressively in classes, but this time I was at a party and drinking wine.  Getting a little high makes me much worse.  I thought I was simply joining in the sport of argument for argument's sake, but my professor thought otherwise.

Family gatherings are another place where I can get aggressive without provocation.  At our last reunion I was pissed off that my brothers were playing tennis without me one day, so I took it out on my poor sister-in-law, making her play tennis with me when she preferred to be socializing and relaxing.  A couple days later I was so adamant about how we were going to organize the next tennis event that one brother thought I was angry with him.  No, it was just me being my aggressive self.

When I'm on the hyper side, aggressiveness seems to come naturally.  But sometimes I think that acting aggressively is so much fun that it stimulates my hypomania.  We are a very competitive bunch in my family, for the most part, but when I get my teeth around that bone, I don't let go.

Jet Lag Depression

I found myself exhausted from the traveling and the jet lag after visiting California for eleven days.  We'd planned on ten days, but when our flight was delayed, we decided to stay an extra day rather than take a chance on sleeping at the Chicago airport.  There is only three hours difference between California and New York, but it always takes me several days to recuperate.

The first day, I give myself permission to accomplish very little.  Get the mail, open it, read your email, buy food.  But when the tiredness persists, and I face all the work I need to catch up on, I get overwhelmed, and then depressed.  "I can't cope with all this," I think, "when all I want to do is take a nap."

If I let myself, I could quickly slide into a deeper depression as I decide I'm worthless, and that nothing I try to do will be successful anyway.  It's easy to wallow in these kinds of thoughts when you're exhausted.   Thankfully, I took the naps and then finally took a walk outside in spite of the cold and wind.  The walk is what really perked me up. 

I'm still way behind in my work, but I'm slowly getting my energy back.  Two grandchildren will be staying with us this weekend, so that should take my mind off my problems.  The only thing required of me will be to have fun with them and feed them occasionally.  I can handle that.

Traveling with Bipolar Disorder

I am traveling with bipolar disorder because, wherever I go, it is with me. We’ve been on a perpetual trip together since I was a teenager. But what I’m talking about here is traveling away from home, this time to California to visit stepchildren and their families.  So far it’s been delightful. 

We went on a short hike yesterday that turned into a two-hour walk through town, on a path alongside a creek.  We saw some strange steps that went straight up and took them.  They led to a narrow path that we followed to more steps going down.  This was a back-track and didn’t really help us get where we were going, but when you’re on vacation, you don’t have to worry about that.

Not worrying about getting where I’m going is what I need to do more.  The day was mostly sunny, in the high fifties, and felt like summer to Adrian and me.  When we left Ithaca, New York, Friday morning, it was 16 degrees and there was ten inches of new snow on the ground.

After our long walk, we stopped at a café for a drink and rest with our granddaughters, and I felt the pleasure of just sitting, peacefully, without a plan of action.  Later we played bridge, teaching the two girls how to play.

Too often I deny myself these kinds of days.  I push too hard to get to the goal line and punish myself when I seem to be losing yards instead of gaining them.  But this week I’m ready to hike, to sit, to play, and “just be” in the world.

Guilt and Blame at 4:00 a.m.

Last night I woke up at 4 a.m. and my mind immediately jumped to my latest dumb deed, analyzing in great detail every failed step.

"Wait," I told it.  "Don't go there or you'll never get back to sleep."

"Too bad," said my mind.  "If you wouldn't persist in making these mistakes over and over in your life," I might let up.  "But you never change."

"Aw, I'm sorry, you're right.  But I promise this time I will learn from my mistake.  I won't do it again."

"Right."

Thus, I lay there wide awake, reviewing this mistake and collecting others in my net as I sifted through the recent past.  Then, moving back into the distant past, I soon had before me a collection of evidence strong enough to string myself up. 

After a couple of hours I was fortunate to drift into a light sleep replete with disturbing dreams.  What was I doing in a hotel room with my husband's ex-wife where one of my stepsons was in bed with a bimbo named Stephanie?

Tonight I'll skip the nuts and chocolate before bedtime.