I've been journaling since I was in junior high. It saved me from my peers that loved to do nothing but tease me. I'd write my stories and poetry inside my journals along with daily happenings. Anyone who read my journals would know me inside out, probably better than I knew myself. After eighth grade I transferred schools, thinking maybe that things'll be different, that I'll fit right in. I did make some friends, had several. I could've easily been considered a social butterfly. Course some of the friends I had weren't the ones that had my best interests at heart and my mother didn't always approve. But the rest of them were the kind you want to have in your life. The kind of friends you can laugh with and share your hopes and dreams with. And I did. I allowed myself, for one of the first times in my life, to open up to people and really let them in. Then in the middle of my sophomore year, they all turned their backs on me. I sat down next to them at lunch and they all got up and moved away from me. I thought 'what did I do to make them not want to be around me'. I went back through my journals trying to find the answers but I couldn't find anything. Maybe it was just that I was always different, none of my friends liked to write the way I do and few of them liked country music which I'm crazy about. My favorite country artist, Taylor Swift, had similar experiences to mine and channels her experiences into songs...maybe that's why I relate to them so much. She may be 7 years younger than me but when you have the same experiences at someone else, the stuff they write speaks to you.
To this day I still journal. I keep a record of how I felt at a certain time, family squabbles and things like that. Every family should have someone that keeps records like that. So the other night when I suddenly felt depressed for no reason I wrote it down. Yesterday I combed through some of my journals looking for similar incidents that I know have happened to me before. There have been times when I'll feel high as a kite (I dont' mean high from drugs) and like I'm on top of the world. But then the next minute, I could be crying. My moods are wonky. I have been seeing a commercial about bipolar disorder for awhile now, they say how it debilitates people making it hard for them to lead normal lives. The more I saw that commercial, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was describing me and my erratic mood swings.
Bipolar isn't something you have to be born with, it can come on at any age. Usually large amounts of stress will trigger it. I've had that in my life, more than I even care to remember. It's characterized by manic highs-those times when you feel like breaking out into a song and dance like in Broadway musicals, and depressive lows-the times when you feel like you've just been dumped but in reality things with your significant other couldn't be better.
I have had both of those. Unfortunately I seem to get the depressive lows more than the manic highs. Neither are good because they indicate a chemical imbalance in your brain. However, I'd rather be happy than sad any day. So what do I do about this? I have attempted a self diagnosis and my diagnosis is that I have actue bipolar. It doesn't hinder my ability to lead a normal life and I don't get so depressed that I think about suicide which in some cases can happen. I'm thinking I should see a doctor about this but until then, I will definitely be keeping more records and exploring these feelings and the circumstances surrounding them when they happen more fully.
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diagnosis is worth it. I have chronic depression, diagnosed almost 15 years ago when I WAS suicidal and also cutting myself, was unrecognizable to myself and family ... umpteen series of tests later, discovered my brain doesn't produce seratonin, much needed for emotional balance ... so now I take a prescription for that, life changing doesn't begin to cover it! And the whole path was evident in my journals, which turned out to be enormously useful to the therapists and physicians working with me. I was actually grateful I had them, as I didn't want to be tossed off as just some hysterical woman ...
ReplyDeleteI used to think I was just depressed as well. Back in high school-most unbeknownst to my family and most friends-I was suicidal as well. Never cut myself or actually tried to follow through but I entertained the idea enough and had theories on the how. I'm pretty much a fighter though and I hate when people call me a quitter. I knew a few people who would've just labeled me a quitter if I had done that so instead of 'taking the easy way out' and giving up I dug deeper into my journals. I didn't pay attention at all to my friends or the outside world I just went into my own shell and started treating myself as much as I could. I had told my mom point blank that I needed professional help but she didn't take it seriously. So all I could do was do what I could on my own. So I started reading psych books, took a psych class, joined this thing as school we had called 'group' and tried to dig myself out. Group was just like a therapy self help group. They taught me meditation techniques and just gave everyone that attended a safe place to talk about the trials and tribulations of life both at school and at home. It helped me alot.
ReplyDeleteUp until a few years ago that's what I thought was still going on. Depression. That one word: plain and simple. Then I met a few people online that were bipolar and when I asked them questions they started explaining it to me. Their highs and lows sounded like the ones I had. Then I started seeing those commecials and that's when I went back through my journals and ultimately led me to where I am now.