A Passion for Sleep

The page is blank.  The page is white.  Undriven snow.  Potential.

There are so many seeds to plant.  So much fruit to harvest.  It is already grown and ripened on the vine and tree branch.  It is not wasted, even the fruit that falls to the ground.  Perhaps a rodent or insect is fed.  Or the tree is fertilized so that it may produce fruit again.  In any case, energy is conserved.  Nature makes no waste.

Creating the conditions conducive to life.  That's the focus.

We've got to return to the land, the soil.  We will return, inevitably.  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.  We're all recycled material, one hundred percent.

Just add water.

I take a fair amount of pills these days.  Some are just 25 milligrams of "substance" that adjusts my brain chemistry such that I am afforded a more "mundane" existence.  It takes away the hyper-highs and the super-lows so I can have a normalized mood.  But some days, things just don't make sense.

I was riding "high" the last couple weeks, such that my wife and I were on edge about me potentially going manic.  But it was controlled, and still subtle.  Then my sleeping habits started to change, and I had trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep.  This was a red flag.  I ended up taking a sleep aid a couple nights in a row to try and get back on track.  It worked, and my mood was still good.

But now, I'm not only "back to earth," I'm kinda down in the dumps.  The luster is gone.  I'm not optimistic about most everything in life-- I'm cautious, reserved.  It's like night and day.  I want to sleep all the time now.  It's only been a couple days, but the transition is major.  I'm in a down cycle now, and everything takes effort again.  My thinking is slowed and laborious.  Decisions take more time to make.  I feel like I'm swimming against the flow.

I try to tell myself that this too shall pass.  It's of little comfort from my seat here, adrift without direction.  Where does the passion go?  And why does it flee?

More on Tripolarity

What does it mean, "tripolarity?"  I blogged a little about it in What of This Tripolarity, Anyway?, but I found this article today that adds more intrigue.  Do check it out and let me know what you think.

More grist for the mill, spice for the stew.  I'll keep stirring...

Best Man Redux

Recently received this photograph of myself from my good friend.  It's from his wedding, where I was Best Man.  It's a picture of a rarity-- me public speaking.  I don't consider myself much of a public speaker.  But I did it, and it went just fine.  Somebody told me that they were moved by my speech.  So there's that.

For more on this event, check out the post When Once I Was Best Man.  For now, though?  How about another picture?

The ceremony was at an atrium in St. Louis, the name of which escapes me right now.  It was very pretty.  Tom and Melanie are into year three of wedded bliss now.  God bless them both.

Weddings are what bring people together in our culture.  People will travel from great distances in all kinds of inclement weather to make a wedding ceremony.  It's an occasion like no other.  Sacred and gentle.  It speaks about the people coming together to merge hearts as one.  Oftentimes, great chasms of perspective must be navigated for a marriage to take hold and sail swiftly, confidently.  This definitely seems to be how Melanie and Tom are progressing-- they make it look effortless.  But I know it's not.  Firsthand.  Just ask Suzy.

The Start of Mania, part 3

I missed my medication Saturday night, and forgot to take my Sun. night pills on time.  I'm back on track, having taken my pills with an early breakfast this early morning, but that might have a little to do with the whole not sleeping thing.  I've got to stay on track with the meds.  The calibration is crucial. 

Just as important as the meds though, is sleep.  I'll have to catch a nap sometime today.  Three hours is not enough fuel in the tank to go a whole day, after being up the whole of the early morning hours, mind running, humming along at a pace, like the cruise control is set at about 70 miles per hour, just humming along on the interstate...  Multi tasking, organizing, facebooking, blogging... all of these things, I'm doing when I really should be resting.  Seems that my sister is up early this morning too.  If we lived closer together, we could meet for an early coffee or biscuit or something.  Perhaps a scone.

It's not any one thing that causes the mania.  It's a bunch of things.  A body needs rest; so does the mind.  Sometimes I dream so vividly in the daytime even, visualizing in great detail.  But that is not mania.  This is not mania.  I know that, and I'm comfortable with it.  I am confident that I'm still calmly in control.  I can get some sleep later today.  For now, I'm allowing the vibrant energy that's coursing through my brain to manifest.  It's what needs to be done.

Must be hyper vigilant when I'm feeling good, and I think I'm doing the work.  And I've got a lot of important support from family and friends-- they're looking out for me, too.  So I'm blessed in that regard.

The Start of Mania, part II

It's 1am and I've just gotten out of bed and taken a shower.  The shower was kind of a religious experience.  Cleansing of the soul, I took inventory.  It's not normal.

Not the shower, not the being up at one o'clock in the morning.  But then, what is the normal for me?  I've been going to bed around 9:30 to 10:00pm and sleeping through the night, with just a few pit stops, and getting up about 8am or so.  The last couple days I've been on edge because my mood is quite elevated.  I'm starting to see some warning signs.  Saturday night, I was having trouble sleeping, so I ended up taking a sleeping pill.  That helped my mind to finally relax and I slept for a while-- several hours-- and got up with my wife in the morning.  Now tonight, I slept for about three hours and woke up (got worked up) completely and couldn't get relaxed for sleep again.  This isn't mania, but it's a warning sign.

My wife had the good idea to start a blog or spreadsheet of this pattern, or deviation from the pattern.  Just so we can keep track of all that's going on.  I'm having grand ideas of going out into the world today and making things happen.  That's not to say that I'm having grandiose thinking.  That would be another sign that mania is coming.

I'm up early, but I'm under control.  My thinking is logical and relaxed, not racing.  I do have a lot on my mind, but it's not at breakneck speed or relentless.  There's a grace to it.  A serenity.  I'm on the right path, I sense.

So much about managing this disorder is being in touch with your feelings and emotions, being mindful.  Being mindful is a soulful, spiritual practice.  It allows you to be who you are meant to be.

So I know that I'm making my wife nervous with this behavior.  Hell, I'm making myself nervous.  But I am checking-in with myself and I feel calm, collected.  Under control.  I'm not spiraling or groping for great truths.  I'm just living.

I really enjoyed Angels in America (we finished watching it this weekend).  It's "haunting" my mind, its dialogue replaying on loops.  There are lessons there, as there are in many things.  Most things.  When the conditions in your heart are just right, anything can be a learning opportunity.

The Start of Mania

The first blog post that I did on Greece I believe was Long Overdue.  And indeed it was.  I also talked about what had happened to me in Greece in Celebrate September 12th.

I'm just now getting around to getting on with this project of recollection of the manic episode in Greece and the ensuing struggles for sanity and recovery.  Bear with me as I do some organizing.

For more background info, be sure to check out Don't Imagine You'll Wanna Hear This. 

And hang in there, I'm pedaling as fast as I can.

A Little Spring Cleaning

So I've been doing this blog for some time now-- I just reached a milestone of over 5,000 pageviews.  I thought I'd try and do some organizing around here-- sweep up the leaves, turn over the compost, pick up the fallen fruit, and try and make some more sense of things.  So without further adieu...

I am bipolar I, which means I am subject to the possibility of manic episodes, as well as depressive ones.  I had my first hospitalization because of a manic episode while I was traveling in Greece in the summer of 2001.  I'm hoping to write a book about the experiences I had there, chronicling the onset of illness and my recollection of events.  I have blogged about some of my experiences with mania already, but I feel that I haven't fully told the story from Greece.

I was also hospitalized back in February of 2008, when I had a manic episode and had to be taken to VMC in San Jose.  My wife called 911 after I "lost it" and pulled the television out of the entertainment center and thrust it to the ground.  I became violent and through a chair and stripped myself naked and attempted to go out of the house, all the while screaming a litany of expletives while on a tirade about how the president had violated me.  I was finally calmed, clothed, and placed in restraints on a stretcher and taken to the mental hospital.

There was a turning point for me a while back--  I write about it in the post "Now What?" It's the point where I started taking responsibility for myself and my health.  And it has brought me to this time, when I am feeling recovered.  And that is a new, unfamiliar thing for me to be experiencing.

If you'd like to know of a place to start, you gotta find it somehow.  And you might not even really be aware of it-- that you're starting something.  But you are; you're in the right place.  Trust your intuition, your heart.  And you will find your path.

For more on my experiences with my bipolar disorder, check out The Comfy Seat and Writer Writes of Whiter White.