Mental disorder. Those dreaded two words can make what seems like a simple string of bad days or an unexplained feeling make a crystal clear picture that you understand all too well.911Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP1rTWQIdey
My psychiatrist recently diagnosed me with a mood disorder, overruling what we both thought was a simple anxiety disorder. I did some research on my own, and I found that bipolar disorder was the best description I could find for what I experienced. This demon is nothing new, but now it has a quite obvious label for me, which helps considerably.911Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5tjXmu4wwK
If you don't have this, or even if you do, you might not be able to understand what I go through during it. For me, a tidal wave seems like a really accurate example.911Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOSoX7nD5Jn
911Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtYUutPWruz
Scary, huh? You haven't even heard why yet. I tend to use sinusoidal equations to explain my moods, which are commonly used to predict tides, hence this analogy. If you've been to a beach you may have tried body surfing or wave jumping before. It depends on the beach and the severity of the waves, but my emotions are a big wave, akin to a tidal wave, but nothing to evacuate a beach over. Just, big waves, like there's a storm out at sea. And I'm in the waves, because I love being out in the water, and I've gotten used to the chill, and I'm enjoying myself. And then the wave comes. It's big, nearly bigger than I can jump over, and it rips the sand from beneath my feet, making it harder to jump over.
And I miss the jump. The waves hits me smack in the face, and pulls me under in its current. This is my depressive face, which is really, really severe most of the time. Self-harm and suicidal type of severe if left untreated. I can't open my eyes because of all the salt, meaning I'm swimming, blind, holding my breath, trying desperately to swim my way out to the surface. I get slammed into the sand, and pulled back out into the water where the waves keep me pinned down, gasping for breath wherever I can get it. After a bit, I can usually run, or crawl my way out into the shallows of the tide depending on how far out I was, but I can never walk, because that just pulls me back in. I'm coughing and sputtering, and my legs are usually weak as I make it to ankle-high water. This is where I get into my hypomanic states (that's a watered-down mania; same symptoms to a lesser degree. I've never had a full manic episode.) Much like I would be in an actual beach, I drag myself out and sit down, shaken from the experience, but grinning all the same, the adrenaline now purely pleasurable rather than something I need to stay conscious. These are much shorter than my depressive states. Once I'm recuperated from the awful experience, I continue on my wary way, knowing it's not long before my depression sets in again, but powerless to stop it, literally because I can't escape my own chemicals, figuratively because I always think that I can do better on the next wave. But I never do.
This is why I take medication. This demon is a force of nature, my body fighting itself. The medication stabilizes my mood, so rather than a tidal wave, I have many smaller waves, possibly coming quicker but much more manageable. Without it, any little thing, even a character dying in a book can make me depressive, but with it, it takes something much more serious to shake me.
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