If you were to ask me on any given day what the worst thing about having bipolar is, I’d probably have a thousand different answers depending on the day. Today, it’s apathy. Just about all I can summon energy for is complaining about how blah I feel. It’s not the lethargy of depression, it’s somewhere in between, like a purgatory for emotions. Yesterday I was probably a bit hypomanic, and it would have been nice to continue on that streak, brain.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced true mania. I guess if I had, I’d have bipolar 1. I don’t do anything incredibly, life threateningly dangerous while hypomanic. Really the only negative side effects of hypomania that I’ve personally experienced are rapid speech and racing thoughts, but neither have been so bad that I couldn’t tolerate it. I tend to do more destructive things while depressed — and by that I mean binge eating and racking up credit card debt.
Anyway. Yesterday was great, because I got a lot of errands done and I stayed pretty busy and I registered a little over 22,000 steps on my FitBit
I really shouldn’t complain, because I’m nowhere near depressed, and I don’t feel like I’m heading that way either. I know “normal” people have days where they just want to cuddle on the couch with their cats having a Disappeared marathon on Netflix. Sometimes I feel like I’m weaker than them because I cave in to those desires. My therapist has told me that when I’m depressed, I need to go through the motions. Not call in sick to work, shower, take out the trash, do laundry, all the everyday chores that are so easy when you’re stable and so insurmountable when you’re depressed. I know it’s good advice for days like today as well. I just can’t help but think how easy it must be to give advice like that when you don’t go to bed each night hoping that you don’t wake up in a depression again.
I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with all this, but that’s okay — I started this blog as a therapeutic outlet and hey, it’s working! I also take comfort in the fact that I know I’m doing everything I can to stabilize my moods. I started taking Lamictal about a month ago. I’ve been slowly titrating (increasing my dose) and right now I’m at 125mg. For the past month the only effect I’ve noticed is I’ve had a lot more headaches than usual. Recently, as in the past week, I’ve started to feel a bit more stable though, or leaning slightly more towards hypomania than depression. I’d be good with that! When I’m full blown hypomanic I get really irritable and, well, mean. But when I’m kind of hypomanic I’m pretty friendly and best of all, efficient. I go up to 150mg on Thursday and stay at that for a month, so we shall see.
Hm, this has been therapeutic. I feel better. I’m not quite up to conquering the world, but I’m not going to eat the entire contents of my fridge and watch fourteen hours of television, either. Hooray for small victories!
