I’ve mentioned in the past that I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and PTSD. I’ve mentioned it, but I’ve never really told you all what it means to be BIG CAT constantly fighting a battle with this shit. Lets start with what has to be the most annoying ass symptom.
I am bipolar, I don’t have a VW Bug in my head with all of the safety features, I have a Lamborghini with a hair trigger gas pedal and shitty ass breaks. Take your average Joe who dwells on a thought for a couple hours and this one thought spreads to a new thought and then a new one. These thoughts add up and puts average Joe in a mopey ass funk after a day maybe two, maybe a week. Enter bipolar motherfucker, now the chain of thoughts that took mopey boy a couple days to really fuck him up takes the bipolar motherfucker all of a minute because of the way thoughts race through his mind. In my experience this is by far the key to this mood disorder, because thoughts generate emotion and when thoughts come popping off in rapid fire succession the emotion builds just as fast.
Now before I go on, I want to take a moment to describe for you the two manic states. There is the happy, full of energy state. I have been in this sort of state before, this is the one where emotional shifts are probably the most visible and again, the racing and sometimes shifting thoughts I find are what causes this. The second manic state is driven by all of the negative emotions and is really the equivalent of HULKING OUT. The second type is the one most prevalent in my case. In truth for the most part, I have very rarely managed to get in the first type of manic state without medication. * POINT: Medication never really prevented any of the symptoms in me, they just seemed to trade off the type of manic state or they changed up what symptoms showed themselves. No matter which manic state you find yourself in, it is while in the manic state that such other symptoms like Insomnia, and the dreaded Panic Attack occurs, as well as another annoying one for both the person in the manic state as well as those around them EXCESSIVE WASTED MOTION. This last one makes it real easy to mistake someone in a manic state for a crack fiend, though drugs don’t have shit to do with it. As for me I pace……. like a lot. 😀 Just one of those things that led to taking the name BIG CAT.
How emotion effects ones physiology. Okay for this I will take you step by step through the manic state I most commonly deal with. A thought that sparks anger either initiated in my brain, or triggered by the acts of another sets off the chain reaction of thoughts that generate ANGER. Now remember the key to the mood disorder, is the thoughts popping off in rapid fire succession and so when it comes to ANGER, I can go from 0 to 90 in a matter of seconds. All muscles get rigid and tighten up, or draw up more accurately. Think of how a dead spider draws up into a ball. The heart rate increases pumping the blood faster causing a rise in body temperature, the next thing that happens is you start to feel like you have fucking Pop Rocks going off all through your insides and the worst fucking part of it all. Your brain is still firing those thoughts BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM, BAM. They won’t stop, they won’t slow down, it causes frustration to add to the overall effect and it all happens so damn fast between the initial trigger and the point all of this takes place that it is damn near impossible to catch it before it goes. * NOTE: Some of the ways to catch it is to focus on a physical act, such as walking, the natural state of the body in motion can sometimes cancel out what your body is going through and can provide a distraction from those thoughts that are causing it. If you jam the tide and insert a good thought you can sometimes trick your brain into resetting itself before meltdown.
What comes next is what I call the Bipolar hangover. Now instead of your brain firing off rapidly it locks up, by this time you have ran from ANGER, to DESPAIR and it’s like trying to start a car that’s been sitting in 3 degree weather. This is the down swing and it can be a motherfucker to fight your way back from. You can’t hold focus, you can’t get motivated, your ass tends to stay tired and unable to do much without forcing yourself. I think that while the manic state is caused by the racing thoughts the downswing is most likely caused by the burnout from the manic state. The down swing can last for days sometimes weeks making it a pain in the ass to get anything done.
PTSD: Now I want to take a minute and introduce you to what is most likely the primary reason that I have the HULK OUT type manic state more than the happy one. It is also why it is so easily triggered, most especially by things can be associated with what caused the PTSD in the first damn place. This too is a good source of panic attacks, Insomnia, My personal favorite NIGHTMARES, and a good dose of body shock which is like a type of numbness both emotional and physical, it’s like being here without being HERE. Another of my favorites JUMPINESS most especially at unexpected physical contact. * YES another one of those traits that led to taking the name BIG CAT.
Over the course of the last year with going through divorce, homelessness, and a Felony case. I have had so many fucking triggers set off it wasn’t funny, and it damn near overwhelmed me more times than I can count. I have been without medication for well over a year now and somehow I STILL manage to function. Barring having to deal with idiots who have no clue why pissing me off is not a good idea. 😀 You’re going to trigger something inside of a motherfucker and then act like he’s the bad guy, rather than being reasonable or sensible in how you handle things, That’s all well and good, but don’t fucking cry when I lay into you. But that gets into a whole nother thing, that gets into how one MENTAL DISORDER can trigger or RELY on another to function.
I have a wall that I have to climb in order to accomplish anything, and that has been the main reason for my breaks in productivity as I attempt to write, and run two Face Book pages and two twitter accounts for both my writing and this blog respectively. Because as an independent writer PR falls to me as well. Sometimes I falter. Sometimes I fall behind, BUT most importantly sometimes I actually get the shit done. If I have a message in this it is simply that.NO MATTER WHAT, YOU CAN COME OUT AHEAD. – Love BIG CAT
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