So I seem to still be up, but not unpleasantly so, for the most part.
I'm frequently physically agitated and will sit and tap my fingers or jiggle my leg or drum on the table. This is usually the first sign that I'm up or in a mixed state, and it happens every time. Sometimes it's just a background thing that I don't even notice I'm doing, but other times it will ramp up and I'll *feel* very agitated with it, the tapping and twitching is compulsive and I can't stop it, or at least not for long, and it often goes along with a particular headspace, where I can't really concentrate and I feel separate from everyone and everything, and sort of... jerky? Sometimes in films, especially when the character is high or crazy they'll shoot everything in little short bursts, just half a second or a second at a time and then it blinks to a slightly different angle or exposure, the world comes in bursts, little snippets - it kind of feels like that sometimes. My vision isn't actually altered, it's more of a perception thing, a focus thing. Sometimes I'll feel hyper-focussed on my tapping or drumming or twitching and the world will shrink down to just that, I just have to focus on that.
Sometimes I have all this frantic energy but I can't focus on anything long enough to do anything with it, so it's very frustrating and I feel trapped in my skin, like I want to rip it off, like it's what's holding me back.
At the moment I'm at a lower level than that, I'm tapping sometimes, and sometimes it's unpleasantly agitated and sometimes my mind unfocusses or feels separate or overly focussed on the tapping, but not to the level of it driving me crazy and feeling horrible, and I'm currently able to use my energy to DO things.
I spent today tidying my flat with a friend, and got more done in one session of tidying than I've managed in months. Words seem to be flowing, I've written various posts here and there, and I'm aware I've been more open than usual about my life on facebook, about all my debts and the fact that my crazies stop me doing things, and all the things I need to do and all the things I've managed to do... I'm not sure if I'm going to regret it or if being more honest for once is better. I've written a few posts on FB and G+ today about varius things, and now I'm writing here, and the words are just flowing out of me, I'm typing at probably around 100wpm, maybe a little under and I've written everything you see here in basically one go so far with very few pauses to consider where I'm going with this.
I've made lists of things that need doing and things I've done. In the last few days I managed to arrange for my car to be MOTed and put it in and okayed repairs and stuff, I looked up how to tax my car and checked I can do it with the documents I have (and got all those documents together), I've set up my internet banking and checked my finances and figured out how much money I need to try to get hold of to pay my rent and car stuff, I've done the aforementioned tidying, I've contacted the pain clinic to get them to put me back on the waiting list to see a specialist (I've been waiting nearly a year I believe now, and they contacted me a few weeks ago to ask if I still wanted to see someone, and told me I had ten days to get back to them or I'd be taken off the list. They can leave me hanging a year, I get ten days. I wasn't able to get back to them within 10 days what with the whole being severely depressed and then recuperating from trying too kill myself THANG, so they took me off the list. They were fine about putting me back on when I explained I've been ill though, so I shouldn't complain really, it's just that it was one more thing stressing me out because I was worried I might go to the bottom of the list and have to wait another fucking year, not to mention the stress at having to ring them in the first place, given my trouble with phones normally), I rang the DWP to find out where my ESA decision is at and request a copy of my report and see when my last sick note is due to run out... I *think* that's about it? I can't remember very well. And I've spent time with friends.
So yeah, doing All The Things!
Still have wayyyyy too many things still to do, but right now I'm feeling optimistic and ready to at least TRY. Today I feel like maybe, somehow, it could possibly turn out okay? Which is much much better than my usual feeling of being completely overwhelmed and defeated because no matter which way I turn it there didn't seem to be any possible way of fixing things. The odds are still pretty long, there are still so many things that could go wrong and so many things to fix, but I feel like maybe, just maybe, I'm making progress.
As I pointed out in my facebook post earlier today, I only get, what, a few days a month maybe, where I'm able to actually do things. The rest of the time I'm either too depressed or too hypomanic - I know hypomania is supposed to be awesome and useful and lets you do All The Things, and yeah, when it's really mild like this it can be pretty useful. But when it goes past that it's really not, it makes me spend money I don't have and not care about the consequences and want to focus on doing things I enjoy because for once, for fucking once, I CAN enjoy things, that fucking anhedonia eases off for a while, and so I want to do everything that I enjoy, and I feel like I can do anything and so I'll take on more projects and make promises I can't keep, and I'll want to drink and have fun and so sorting paperwork and doctor's appointments and visiting Mind and tidying up and cleaning all gets left for another time. The only times I can actually achieve things are when I'm very mildly hypomanic or only mildly depressed. And that's not very often. And then I'm still fighting anxiety and phone phobia and pain and fatigue and a perfectly legitimate non-clinical level of feeling overwhelmed by all the things I have to deal with.
But right now I can do things. So I will do as much as I can. I have Plans. And I will try to fix as much as I can so that maybe when I next drop there won't be quite as many things to stress me out, and maybe, just maybe, I'll have made enough progress that I won't end up accruing more problems than I managed to fix, and I will actually be making net progress forward, instead of fighting and fighting and fighting to just stay where I am, or sometimes go backwards again. Forwards, even if very slowly, would be very welcome. Sometimes it feels like I haven't made any progress in the past year. It's been more than a year since The Cataclysm (K and I decided that was the best name for when I came off my tramadol and suddenly went batshit - my life as I'd been living it basically shattered into pieces very suddenly, and so the world became split into before and after that moment, and we needed some way of referring to it. My last bad episode we refer to as the Summer Of Crazy. Apparently my mental health episodes are best referred to as if they were LARP events...) and sometimes it feels like for every bit of progress I've made since then, something else has fallen apart, and I'm still in as dire situation as I was then.
I think it might have been that milestone that pulled me down again, actually. I *think* I was doing a little better, was a bit more stable - I can't remember, but I know I reported that to the doctor, so I must have thought I was. And then I realized it had been a year, a year since I'd last worked, a year since I was in a happy stable relationship, living in a nice house with the man I was trying for a baby with, and had plans for a career - was actively working towards the qualification that would get me where I wanted to be, a year since I had a great relationship with my best friend, a year since everything had been snatched away from me. And I'd known it would take time to rebuild and figure things out and make a new life for myself and recover from my relapse into crazy. But I thought I would at least make slow progress. And looking back a year later I didn't feel like things had improved at all; if anything they'd gotten worse. And that made me feel so hopeless. And once I'd had that realization I just couldn't shake it. I'd been trying to focus on one day at a time, and then I looked back and found that one day at a time wasn't getting me anywhere, that I was fighting and fighting and fighting just to stay right where I was. And I was just getting more and more tired. What was the point of fighting and fighting and fighting with all your strength when it didn't get you anywhere, and you didn't want to be where you were? If there was just a little steady improvement, two steps foward one step back, then at least I would be moving and know that one day it would be better. But it felt like putting everything in got me nothing out, so I was stuck there forever, and that was intolerable to me.
Today I feel more optimistic than that. I think I have achieved some things, and I *think* I'm making progress. I'm not sure, and I certainly don't think it's quick, but it at least seems possible right now. I have some hope today. Hope is necessary. I'm scared still, because I know this mood won't last, and I don't know what will happen when I drop again - I know I've had hope before and it's been snatched away so thoroughly that I no longer believed I had ever had it, and I know my brain will do that to me again. And I don't have enough hope that I feel like I can tell myself 'No, this is worth it, I really believe it will get better, HOLD THE FUCK ON, you are happy enough sometimes for the bad parts to be worthwhile'. If I could tell myself that then maybe I could hold onto it, I could write it down and look at it and try to trust my past self even if I don't remember feeling what I said I felt. But I don't have enough hope for that, I still feel like everything could still fall apart, I still feel like I don't know if the ups make the downs worthwhile. I *hope* they do, and I want to try and find out, but I don't have enough certainty to counter the certainty of my depressed self.
But one step at a time, eh? Today I have hope. That's enough for today.
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