Hi @BlueBay @oceangirl @eth and anyone else hanging around on this lovely Australian winter's day...
I hope this post finds you all well...
I wrote a poem today, for the first time in about 2 months... I would like to share it with you all. It deals with my experiences of bipolar hypomania, with that old favourite bit of imagery, the phoenix, as a big part of it...
I've been flying high for quite a while now. The particular flavour of bipolar that I have been gifted-cursed with usually manifests itself as prolonged hypomanic episodes up to a year and a half to 2 years long (with some brutal short depressions, rapid cycling and the thankfully rare mixed episodes thrown in randomly or owing to life events).
The old pattern I repeated ignorantly for nearly 30 years would then see a profound and lengthy depression set in after a rather messy and nasty crash and burn, as I over-extended myself in my professional work as an electrical engineer. There was never a shortage of projects that required long stretches of ridiculously long hours to complete, as our company's salesmen promised the world, and us poor sods on the ground had to deliver the near-impossible....
I was undiagnosed (it would be another 9 years before I got my first diagnosis of depression, followed by rediagnosis to bipolar). I saw my boundless energy and racing mind to be a great strength, and it allowed me to do things that, standing back now, I wonder were even possible...
But alas, as we know, the highs come at a cost... and the lows always follow, and they are as breathtakingly fierce as their loftier counterparts...
Crash and burn... rise from the ashes... thrive... over-reach... crash and burn...
That was the pattern that burned its way across the landscape of my life for the best part of 3 decades...
Now, I am learning that the key to managing my bipolar is to focus mostly on managing the highs, not the lows...
The higher you fly, the harder (and deeper) you fall. I can attest to that truth with the bruises on my very soul...
I've been working full time for 2 years and 3 months now, and I just received news yesterday that the contract has ended, but a new one will begin in July. So, the longest single stretch of continuous functioning in my life is about to get even longer, and I believe I owe it all to the fact that I have taken many steps to ensure I manage my hypomania before it turns into a non-functioning depression.
So far, so good...
Anyhoo, without further ado, here is my poem... thanks for reading... hugs and happy vibes beaming to you all...
Again The Phoenix
Burned by the eternal fire
Of my own funerary pyre,
On thermals rising higher,
To new heights I aspire,
Wingbeats never tire,
I'm no angel with a lyre,
And hear no heavenly choir,
Heed me I'm no liar,
My ascent will transpire,
My quill will fill this quire,
My path a drawn wire,
The heights my only sire,
The only thing I desire,
So far above the mire,
I strive before I expire
From invisible wounds so dire,
To be something I can admire.
With my brain and blood afire,
My thoughts rush all haywire,
Ascent pauses for this flyer,
For this I must inquire:
What does rising higher acquire
Beyond what I was prior?
Perhaps better to retire,
Before I become a born-again fryer,
To the inner war I call ceasefire.
As all my demons fiendishly conspire,
To drag me into the eternal hellfire
Of my self-doubting quagmire,
I stop being the amplifier,
And turn to the role of pacifier,
This fire is my purifier.
Bang!
A shot like sudden gunfire,
The thought that made my mind rewire.
