I went to my counseling appointment

Rode my bike there—it’s a lovely day for a bike ride.

I mentioned to my counsellor my seeming hypomania and he got me an appointment with the doctor tomorrow.  We talked about the “You do you” philosophy and Ryan said it sounded like I was doing it well, that it was working for me.  I’m not acute enough for the program I’m in, I’m too highly-functioning, he says, so I’ll be moved to a different program.  It will still include counseling.  It was nice to get some feedback that I’m not as fucked up as I think I am; Ryan encouraged me to look up historical figures with bipolar disorder as a way to learn that this doesn’t have to control my life.  I’m glad, though, that I’m not being kicked out with nowhere to go: I like to have some counseling as part of my mix.  He also said it sounded like the ways I’m coping with my current hypomania, are good.  He pointed out that I created a number of coping mechanisms (sitting outside in the cool, eating food to ground myself, taking time away from twitter, etc.)—his point was that no one had to tell me those, I recognized the need for them and found them myself.  That feedback, along with the fact that I realized I was hypomanic early on rather than my first realization being days later, on the day I need to go to the emergency room..those combine to help me feel a little bit proud that I’m managing this better than I have before.

Interesting people with bipolar disorder:

Speeding on bipolar disorder’s mania

I am now.  I just realized it tonight.  It’s been rising for about three days, I can retrospectively tell, by my difficulty falling asleep and my waking up earlier and earlier.  I am hypomanic now.  I should have noticed by my skipping concentration as I’ve been reading, but it’s hard to notice things like that when you have no clue you’re supposed to be looking for them.  Gradually, I am learning things like sleep, which are cues I need to keep an eye on.

When I’m hypomanic I write things like this.  Which are perfectly sensible, which consist of good commentary, but which are overcharged.  It’s fine to say things like that to some company I’m never going to work for (and, yes, I did send them the link), but I would say things like that to my current employer, in email, when I worked.  When I’m manic it just seems like a good idea!  But it’s the sort of thing that can get you fired, and is part of why I’m unemployable.

This—how I am now—is just high enough to write.  To kindle this state and let it ride for a few months, balancing it with silences in the evening so it doesn’t get out of control, is what I did with ::HARD, and it might be what I’m about to do with this next project, if I write it.  I have a song that goes through my head.  I think I can time my mania to it: the faster I hum it to myself, the speedier I am.  I am humming it pretty fast now.

Words get me charged up—twitter, reading, writing, phone conversations.  The less there’s a visual component, the speedier I get: so an exciting phone conversation is the worst.  When I talk with my sister (a person who is intelligent, full of ideas) it can overcharge me.  We have to limit phone time, sometimes.

So I’m sitting outside.  Yes, I am writing.  Maybe it’s not the best idea.  But I have to remark on this, somehow, as my experience, and this is the best way to do it.  I ate some food, to ground myself in my body, and in a minute I’m going to take my nighttime medicine, skipping the antidepressant (per doctor’s instruction, during times of mania) and taking the prescribed repeat on the sleeping med, to hopefully get me to sleep.  I’m not in an unpleasant state, not quite, but I know where this can go, and where it goes is to a psych hospital, and I don’t want to go to one of those right now.

I just re-read this post, and found it difficult to stay on track.  But I’m glad I did re-read it because I had already forgotten that I was about to take my medication.  See, it’s tricky to remember things at times like these.