Lived Experience Forum

[MoonGal]

I am travellin' ruff today. A week or so ago I wrote about what it is like living with Bipolar Affective Disorder in a poem here.

My diagnoses was not a suprise when it finally came 25 years after onset, it was a neat label given on a particular day by a diagnostic Psychiatrist. The diagnoses included - Bi Polar II  (BP2), with the added features of OCD, Anxiety, PTSD and oh-something else I forget now as I am in a fog.

My variant of BP2 has me in a washing machine on rapid cycle. I go hours and days and weeks in various states, sometimes experiencing a hypo and a depression at the same time, it is truly awful. 

I have spent the past week in a whirl of deep insight (which is a melancholic/difficult but sacred space... ummm, maybe real insight in fact) and learned alot about the nature of Love and how to live that out in the world, but more importanly how to live it IN side myself.  I gained this insight from a non-duality practitioner named Jeff Foster - bottom line, in the deep search for healing I have tried everything, mindfullness, meditation, etc - and his simple message of Just... "Hold, not heal"saw me realise that I was always on the treadmill, always trying to find the perfect solution to my MI and GET WELL. I really needed to accept, just accept and hold that this is my lot in life and to stop running 'Towards the Holy Grail' and 'Away from mySelf'. That is a good insight for me.

Then I was all happy at the realisations and wanted to share them with others with enthusiam (I am very enthusiastic when I am cycling up). Yesterday and the day before I was dancing inside, happy to have come through a time of introspection and having learned something important about mySelf and life. (oh dear cycling up, and up!) I often forget to turn myself DOWN when I am feeling so good.

Then last night I couldn't get to sleep (depsite the load of MI meds I take which usually knock me on the head into sleep). I was tossing and turning, my brain on fire, scattered thoughts, lots of neural firing (I see stars and whirls and flashes behind my eyes when I close them when in that state). And I had a glimpse for a moment that I was in a 'state' caused by my MI, but trying to hold onto that insight is hard when I am in amixed-state, and I just got ratty in my own head - again.

Now today I am sliding towards the abyss, I have turned UP the Silver Dial (a trick I use which I described in my post The Toolkit ) but if I turn it up too far I will flip again into nervous energy. 

This rapid cycling is exhausting. I just want to sleep today, but know I shouldn't because otherwise I will not sleep again tonight. <sigh>

So, today, i just need to be very gentle with myself, eat properly, maybe go for a gentle walk with the greyhounds and pop on a movie or something. Yes, that is what i need to do, unplug.

Thanks for listening.

[Outlanderali]

Hi @MoonGal,

I love your plan to be gentle on yourself, sometimes you just need to look after you! Dog companions are great for those days, they are happy to just chill beside you and let you be you.

Keep up with the self care and I hope you feel better soon.

Outlanderali

[MoonGal]

The weather/mood.

Rain

So many tiny tears,
falling form rents in the universe
finding their way
down my spine
down spiralling time
to rest in puddles
of lost and broken dreams
reflecting the dull leaden sky above.

Hold, this.

Hold.

Image: from wallpaper [dot] com

[NikNik]

Hi @MoonGal

How are you travelling today?

I like your poem - did you write that today or is it from your past?

[Appleblossom]

Sorry things are ruff @MoonGal.

Your presence is valuable here regardless where you are in your cycle.

I have a lot of difficulty turning myself off and spend a lot of time just calming myself down so that I can think clearly and function at all ...

Holding is a good concept ...

[MoonGal]

Hi @NikNik - yes I wrote that yesterday, it was raining and I was crying (softly with the rain). I was not in a terrible place, the travellin' ruff was good in a way - because I had insight, I SAW my condition. I used to just be in it, not aware of it, just living it out. I have more moments of insight into where I am actually 'at' now, This is helpful because it is kind of like I have learned how to swim., I used to just drown (in the tempest of my own bio-chemistry storms), now I can spot the danger and swim between the flags. It is not a perfect science, but it is immense progress. Catching myself as I fall, or if I have fallen picking myself up faster, not having to stay in the torment for so long all of this is progress for me.

For the first time in, oh forever, this concept of holding @Appleblossom is a gentleness. My former reaction to my own frailty was so angry and harsh at myself. It was self-violence, like having an abusive partner (I have lived in DV situation so know that as lived experience) only inside myself - i have been so harshly critical of my own fraility.

This 'holding' of any and all conditions is very helpful, not running away, not trying to change it - just sitting with it, with love and understanding. I have come to see this past week that being angry at myself for being hypo, or meloncholic, or irritable or any of the conditions - is like I might as well be rageful at the weather, What is the point? Weather is weather.

I like it here. Thanks for the calm hand on the shoulder.

[MoonGal]

PS: I slept well last night. Feel calm and centred this morning. The storm is passed. (for now!)

[Appleblossom]

Glad things settled.

They say you cant change others you can only change yourself. But change is really more slippery than dualist "mine" thine" thinking.  We do change, others do change ... but it happens as it does ..

I wont preach acceptance because that became a trigger word for me ... and we shouldnt accept everything ... slogans and short phrases dont do justice to the complexity of life.