Pig, East Asian Museum, Bath, England, 2008.
Dear Internet,
Every week, like a dependable clock, I make it to Dr. P.’s office to talk about what is going on inside my head. Even if I do not feel like going, this is my weekly touchstone so I force myself to go because on occasion, a lot of occasions I should add, I am not a dependable narrator of my own life. I felt totally fine Thursday morning. A little manic in the brain, but nothing I felt like I could not handle. My plan was to wrestle over some ideas I had brought forth earlier, which we did, and then head on my merry little way to work for the day.
[It should be noted he tutted my fears of not having grown as a person. As he explained it, we will have similar feelings at 15, 25, or 55. How we react with those feelings are the strength of what moves us forward as human beings.]
Instead of taking the right fork off of Cascade Road to head to downtown, I took the fork to the left to head home. In the short drive from his office to that point, I had triggered myself into some kind of hyper mania mode in which I tried to drive 60 MPH on a residential street, Google a question on my phone, and make a phone call all at the same time. Coincidentally, none of the events are related to the other. Thankfully, I had caught myself right when this started, threw my phone down to the passenger foot well and put forth all of my effort into driving. My head had started pounding and I felt like I could not think behind the next breaths worth of words. I was snapping in and out of forgetfulness of what I needed to do (stop at the light, slow down, do not hit the car in front of you, put the phone down).
I needed to get home. Now.
Once I was safe, I called in sick to work with the complaint of a migraine which was not that far off from the truth. The spinning of thoughts and the need to do all the things at once can happen with the speed of a whirling dervish. At times, the incredibly intense headaches start pulsating so hard, there have been occasions where I have felt faint or sick.
After coming home and unpacking my work stuff (God. What a waste of war paint.), I grabbed a big cup of tea, the heating blanket, took a Klonopin and read for most of the day in bed. I started and finished one book and put in another 100+ pages split between two others. I knew if I looked at any electronics, the mania would intensify. Case in point: I had nearly $500 in my fab.com cart with the intent of purchasing before realizing what I was doing and putting away my iPad. Shopping, aimlessly shopping for no other reason then to get stuff and spending money, is another symptom of my mania.
As the afternoon ticked on and thanks to the Klonopin, my mania began to subside. I started feeling better, not immensely better, but better. The world started coming into focus a bit more, I did not feel like I could barely speak, and the steady stream of tea and print books filled in the missing bits of the puzzle.
The dog snoozed at my left hip, I dozed in and out of sleep myself and around 5PM, I was feeling strong enough to sort out some afternoon chores. If I could make it through those simple tasks (unload and load the dishwasher, wrap a few presents, get food stuffs ready for tomorrow), I could give myself permission to read, write, or do whatever for the rest of the evening.
Edited note: Morning interlude. Dinner last night was pizza, which I greedily consumed after eating Benadryl and Lactaid before the gooey cheese hit my mouth. An hour after dinner, while I was writing this, the Benadryl kicked in, coupled with the effects of the earlier taken Klonopin, I almost fell asleep with my hands still moving over the keyboard. I kissed TheHusband goodnight, who yelled as I left his office to not forget the bocce ball tournament in the morning with the ladies from the home (his joke on my age). I shuffled down to our bedroom, set the alarm for 6AM as I had to be at work at 7:30AM this morning, took my contacts out, set the heating blanket on 3, turned on Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, and was asleep before the blanket had warmed and the opening credits were done rolling.
I woke this morning on time and feeling fantastic. Not mania fantastic, just regular fantastic. But sleeping for nearly 10 hours, in a lovely drugged effort that allows for no brain interruption can do that for you. I have been rebooted, for the moment.
I edited this piece before publishing to clean up the debris from the night before. Writing when I’m manic, even subdued, reads as if I am concocting my own language. Words are out of order, incorrectly used, or are missing altogether, punctuation has gone to the wayside, and my word retrieval is fucking awful. When I am depressed, it is the complete opposite – suddenly I’m laying it thick like T.S. Eliot and Hemingway copulated and I am a product of that copulation.
Welcome to my inner world.
xoxo,
Lisa
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