Bipolar Episode 4 : Tornadoes and Hurricanes in my brain
I struggle through the racing thoughts in my mind I can’t quiet down. I pick up the phone and think through the names I could dial. None of them seem like I should bother. Everyone has their own shit going on, businesses to run, children to run after, illnesses running their course. My racing brain that’s about to explode is not worthy of their precious time. I stare at my contact list on the iPhone. None I could call without feeling shame and guilt. What would I even say? Nothing is going on but my mind is full of thoughts in a tornado I cannot catch them in their spinning. I use self-control and I start on my work, I need to edit my work, I’m meeting my editor in a few days to review the current edits we’re working on, I can’t read the lines. I start reading, I get to the third sentence and see the words but can’t register even one. I re-read it, I re-read it, I re-read it, I can’t read.
I see what my children are up to and I try to do an experiment with them, I can’t focus, I can’t read the small instructions on the leaflet, thankfully my six -year-old can. She guides us through it, the whole time ants under my skin, a restlessness I’m fighting to contain. Just stay here for a bit, the children will take the edge off. Nothing happens, the ants are crawling out of my skin and I start to cry because of the immense guilt of not being able to participate and be with my children. My children start consoling me. The guilt builds, the tornado meets a hurricane in my brain. The heavy feelings pouring down through the tornado. A million thoughts race through my mind, my tears are unstoppable.
I excuse myself to the bedroom where I finally dial my best friend Jenny. I unleash in rapid succession all that was running through my mind, it made sense and not all at the same time, I was sobbing and I was desperate to calm the tornado at the same time. The hurricane lets up with Jenny’s sweet voice, “ It’s ok, you’re alright. I’m here for you. You can call me anytime, I’m never annoyed no matter how many times you need to call me. I’m here.” I sob and share all the unworthy thoughts in my mind that I didn’t deserve that constant attention, no one else needs to talk to someone all the time, why am I like this? I speak nonstop for the next five minutes not allowing a space for Jenny’s voice to speak. It pours out of my mouth, listing every single thing I did yesterday and today and all I was planning to do, how I had planned on getting this episode under control, how I was feeling like a failure for not being able to do any work, how I was feeling guilty for not being present with my children, the guilt I had for allowing my children see me cry over their experiment they were so excited about. I was going and I couldn’t stop. Jenny is silent. I suddenly realize the monologue I was presenting on the phone after calling her needing to talk to her, guilt and embarrassment came over me. This is not how you have conversations, Amelia. “I’m sorry, I went off on you, you have no idea what I’m talking about do you?” I ask her to pull her back into the conversation to correct my selfish stunt verbal vomiting on her. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter honey. You need this, I’m here for you,” she said assuringly and I know she meant it but now my mind was racing with thoughts of how I was a terrible friend always needing her in my episodes, not in a way she has ever needed me. The tornado and hurricane decide to calm to a measured wind storm, calmer than it was a an hour ago. Jenny had been on the phone with me for the past hour. An hour of me pouring and crying and yelling and her steadfast love for me kept her on the line talking me down the cliff, distracting me with fond memories we’ve had together, with the goings-on of her life, with tarot cards, with news stories, anything she knew that could pull my mind away from the plague of the sickness in my mind. My hypomanic episodes don’t scare her, the rapid speech doesn’t make her flinch, the negativity in my elucidations don’t bring her down, my fear of the illness does not scare her. She reminds me of my strength and offers up her ear should I need it again as we hang up.
I carry on with my day mostly in the seclusion of music in my ear buds and in my office. I sit to write this as my mind is spitting out the words. At the same time the tornado is creeping up again with the thoughts of the million things I need to do between now and next year, I start to do some of them then stop short as I’m distracted by the next task prioritized by my brain and then another and then another. I have ten things started but none close or in progress to completion. I’m torn and disappointed in myself. I try to edit my book again, I can’t think to make the edits on the line edit prompts. I’m staring at the screen and an hour goes by, this I know because the alarm for my next appointment comes on. I take the appointment, I talk and I talk, thankfully this is one they want to hear what I have to say.
I get off that call and sit staring at my computer, my mind is racing through my brain scraping grooves I can feel the pain, it buzzes in my brain and my head feels like its about to explode. I pick up my phone again, I don’t want to be alone, this time I call my mother-in-law, “Mom, I’m not okay. I’m manic and depressed. I’m having a mixed episode, it’s hard. It’s so hard.” She sighs softly, she’s been here before, ”It’s okay baby, breathe. I’m listening. Tell me what you got. Let’s talk through it.” We talk, well, I talk and she listens and offers short assurances that calm me down as if I was laying in her arms. I could feel her warmth, I could feel her hand on me. I know she loves me and she knew this was coming as I had been calling her to talk several times a day the last couple of days. She worries when I don’t call her because that’s usually depression, when I call her a lot she knows mania has come a knocking. Another hour and a half later I’m talked out and calmer, we hang up with more assurances I can call her when I need her.
I still feel restless but I don’t have the focus to do anything, can’t read, my mind has a million thoughts I can’t put on paper, my heart is racing, my heart is heavy, I feel like crying but I can’t. It’s a mess in here. My phone rings, yes another conversation to be had for all these words spinning in the tornado to get out. It’s Lindsay, she calls me on her breaks at work sometimes to chat. She’s my biggest cheerleader and full of positivity it is contagious. I’m praying it transfers to me today. We start talking and I pour my heart out again, all my insecurities and ugliness that’s weighing me down. She is the optimist, “You’re stronger than this babe, you got this. You’re talented and you’re kicking ass at this. Don’t doubt yourself, I believe in you.” I feel flattered by her insistence and my rational mind reminds myself that I am to receive this information at face value. She means it. I thank her and we hang up. I feel a little lighter and the fog clears out a little bit.
Suddenly I feel inspired and I write and I write and I write and I write. I get entirely proud of myself, elated beyond words, I was so happy and excited and exhilarated with the fact I wrote so well. I loved everything I wrote, I thought it perfect. Then I sat to read it, then I read it again, then as I read it again, the tears and the buzzing in my head returns, the self-doubt loud as hell, the thoughts of myself being self-indulgent, talentless, insignificant, a loser. The tears return and the anxiety to fight the illness is present with a vengeance, Mortal Kombat of my mania and depression in a ring in my brain. A war between the tornado and hurricane. All I feel is the urge to scream out my lungs till my brain explodes. This is the ugly side of mixed episodes that sometimes appear to torment me.
I take my medication and force myself into meditation. I pray for the episode to pass. I will my brain to calm, to quiet down. Perhaps I will find it in the next few days. For now, I will be on phone calls and I will sit in meditation, I will reframe thoughts as best I can, I will reel back celebrations, I will pull back from overstimulation, I will try not to be too happy or too sad. I will ride this mixed episode through. I will be okay. This too shall pass.
Posted by
Amelia Zachry