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At the end of 2008 my psychiatrist said she thought I was “bipolar 2”.  Kayla looked it up on the web and said it was repeated depressions without the manic part of the cycle.  It totally freaked me out.

(Written in January 2009)

I think what’s being so hard about the bipolar 2 diagnosis is the feeling of being helpless and vulnerable to the ebb and flow of brain chemistry.  With PTSD — understanding the physiology gives me a way to manage symptoms, and some action I can take that will bring some healing and improve my ability to live with ease and grace and compassion.  And I have some sense of a real self, a core self that I can return to and rest on.  But if feeling like my “real self” is dependent on medication, then who am I really?  Is there any “core self” that provides me with an axis for my integrity?  How am I different from the alcoholic who drinks to make the difficult feelings go away?  Well, at least I’m not creating havoc and misery in the lives of people around me.  I also think of the father, dying and in coma, who emerged briefly before he died to say to his daughter “Tell your mother I love her, and that I’m all right.” When the autopsy was performed he had almost no brain left.  So the mind is not the same as the brain, and the self is not confined to the body.  Maybe what I am calling my “core self” is something larger than the body, the morphic field, a consciousness that rides my body as a person rides a horse, that chooses direction, that chooses not to go down the path of catastrophizing, that keeps reminding me to stay in the present, to invoke lovingkindness, to “soften around” whatever is happening.  This part of me can’t choose to feel differently, but I can choose where to put my attention.

(Written in January 2009)

I feel like my courage and strength have been broken by this last ordeal, that I have been unable to bear the magnitude of the pain entrusted to me.  I think well there are lots of others who have collapsed under pain that was unbearable.  I’m just trying to manage a jarred mechanism of body & nervous system that makes it hard to cope.  There are lots of other people out there struggling with mental illness, some hospitalized some not.  I think of Louise, also struggling with bipolar and with PTSD, and with much worse heavy metal poisoning.  And Eleanor.  And Randi.  And I am pitying myself, and also judging myself for not doing better.

Yes, I’m feeling ashamed that it’s being so hard just to keep going.  I realize I’ve been imagining that what I’m up against is much bigger than what other people are up against — because of the way the infancy state gets triggered — but that’s not true.  I’m sure there are people out there whose lives are harder than mine — Eleanor for example — and people whose lives are easier — I think of Janet and Kayla who’ve both been depressed but come out of it pretty quickly.  I wish that thinking of other people who are having a hard time brought a sense of fellowship as it has in the past, but it doesn’t.  Instead I feel like there’s no one left to help me, and I really need all the help I can get.  It’s also true that there’s no way I can compare my inner experience with someone else’s.     OK. one day at a time. loving kindness.

Signs that I am doing better
Able to get out & exercise
Fixing & eating decent meals
Sleeping OK
Being able to act cheerful when I don’t feel it.
Feeling better after spending some low key time with someone e.g. Janet
Calling people for help, and just asking for company snowshoeing or for a cup of tea.