At the end of 2008 my psychiatrist said she thought I was “bipolar 2”.\u00a0 Kayla looked it up on the web and said it was repeated depressions without the manic part of the cycle.\u00a0 It totally freaked me out.<\/p>\n
(Written in January 2009)<\/p>\n
I think what\u2019s being so hard about the bipolar 2 diagnosis is the feeling of being helpless and vulnerable to the ebb and flow of brain chemistry.\u00a0 With PTSD \u2014 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.\u00a0 And I have some sense of a real self, a core self that I can return to and rest on.\u00a0 But if feeling like my \u201creal self\u201d is dependent on medication, then who am I really?\u00a0 Is there any \u201ccore self\u201d that provides me with an axis for my integrity?\u00a0 How am I different from the alcoholic who drinks to make the difficult feelings go away?\u00a0 Well, at least I\u2019m not creating havoc and misery in the lives of people around me.\u00a0 I also think of the father, dying and in coma, who emerged briefly before he died to say to his daughter \u201cTell your mother I love her, and that I\u2019m all right.\u201d When the autopsy was performed he had almost no brain left.\u00a0 So the mind is not the same as the brain, and the self is not confined to the body.\u00a0 Maybe what I am calling my \u201ccore self\u201d 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 \u201csoften around\u201d whatever is happening.\u00a0 This part of me can\u2019t choose to feel differently, but I can choose where to put my attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the end of 2008 my psychiatrist said she thought I was “bipolar 2”.\u00a0 Kayla looked it up on the web and said it was repeated depressions without the manic part of the cycle.\u00a0 It totally freaked me out. (Written … Continue reading