I’m a wee bit intoxicated right now. I needed a drink to paralyze my CNS. This is because of a disturbing trend that I’ve noticed over the past week. I’ve gone from a haze while on klonopin to a full blown extremist feelings. I wake in the mornings with tremendous energy and I go jogging in 20 degree weather. Unfortunately, the degree of energy also translates to extreme agitation. It’s hard to tell my girlfriend that at that moment I want to cuddle and lavish her with care, and the next I wish that I was completely alone without her even near by. I love her to death, but one moment I can be cuddling her and the next I will be on the furthest end of the couch so I don’t touch her. It’s just 180 every moment.
This is indicative of my entire life for the past two days. Living at the extremes. Lithium and Zyprexa seem to have done the exact opposite that others have described. They haven’t flattened me a bit. Instead, they’ve brought me to a world where everything presents itself with screaming intensity. Even the cars rushing by my window seem musical in their rhythmic passing. It’s a world that forces itself on me and I disappear in it. I lack any sort of personal identity and instead fit into whatever presents itself to me.
Reading is possible, but only to a degree where I can become utterly absorbed in it. Words speak in ways that I can feel both the imagery that is conveyed and the sound of the words themselves. Senses are also on overdrive. I can feel everything all at once. I can’t block out the feeling of my feet feeling mildy clammy or the way that the couch feels on my back. There isn’t an escape hatch to numb myself.
This feels like the exact opposite of the klonopin haze. No longer do I feel too little, now I feel too much. The world just screams at me with its noises, smells, tastes, and touches. Somehow I’m not suicidal, probably the zyprexa/lithium kicking in, but I just can’t deal with it. I just want to curl up into a ball and let it pass. But that’s not possible, I thought writing would help, and it has, but the intensity lingers on. It’s 7pm and it feels like a week has gone by in the past hour. My sense of time is even getting confused, where I can’t pinpoint the day that I’m living in. One moment I’m on track thinking its thursday, but another moment later I’ll think that it is wednesday or friday, or even next week. I’m utterly confused about something as simple as time.
Also, my head is just buzzing along, even though it’s supposed to be debilitated by the alcohol. Smoking is doing nothing at all. I’m just left sitting on the couch paralyzed by sensory inputs. I just want this to go away. Manias are so often portrayed as being something where you’re bounding with joy and think you’re on top of the world like you’re on a drug trip. That’s one type of mania. The other kind is this, a bad trip, one where you’re left curled up on the couch barely able to string together a coherent thought because the world seems to crush your inner identity with a bombardment of feelings and sensations. One, where everything that makes you what you are, is destroyed by the outside world pressing itself against you. This is the other side of mania that you don’t hear in the DSM IV. Elevated mood my ass. This is like ecstasy and cocaine followed up with a vodka chaser.
Philosophy, Science, Bipolar I, and Life
I’m a wee bit intoxicated right now. I needed a drink to paralyze my CNS. This is because of a disturbing trend that I’ve noticed over the past week. I’ve gone from a haze while on klonopin to a full blown extremist feelings. I wake in the mornings with tremendous energy and I go jogging in 20 degree weather. Unfortunately, the degree of energy also translates to extreme agitation. It’s hard to tell my girlfriend that at that moment I want to cuddle and lavish her with care, and the next I wish that I was completely alone without her even near by. I love her to death, but one moment I can be cuddling her and the next I will be on the furthest end of the couch so I don’t touch her. It’s just 180 every moment.
This is indicative of my entire life for the past two days. Living at the extremes. Lithium and Zyprexa seem to have done the exact opposite that others have described. They haven’t flattened me a bit. Instead, they’ve brought me to a world where everything presents itself with screaming intensity. Even the cars rushing by my window seem musical in their rhythmic passing. It’s a world that forces itself on me and I disappear in it. I lack any sort of personal identity and instead fit into whatever presents itself to me.
Reading is possible, but only to a degree where I can become utterly absorbed in it. Words speak in ways that I can feel both the imagery that is conveyed and the sound of the words themselves. Senses are also on overdrive. I can feel everything all at once. I can’t block out the feeling of my feet feeling mildy clammy or the way that the couch feels on my back. There isn’t an escape hatch to numb myself.
This feels like the exact opposite of the klonopin haze. No longer do I feel too little, now I feel too much. The world just screams at me with its noises, smells, tastes, and touches. Somehow I’m not suicidal, probably the zyprexa/lithium kicking in, but I just can’t deal with it. I just want to curl up into a ball and let it pass. But that’s not possible, I thought writing would help, and it has, but the intensity lingers on. It’s 7pm and it feels like a week has gone by in the past hour. My sense of time is even getting confused, where I can’t pinpoint the day that I’m living in. One moment I’m on track thinking its thursday, but another moment later I’ll think that it is wednesday or friday, or even next week. I’m utterly confused about something as simple as time.
Also, my head is just buzzing along, even though it’s supposed to be debilitated by the alcohol. Smoking is doing nothing at all. I’m just left sitting on the couch paralyzed by sensory inputs. I just want this to go away. Manias are so often portrayed as being something where you’re bounding with joy and think you’re on top of the world like you’re on a drug trip. That’s one type of mania. The other kind is this, a bad trip, one where you’re left curled up on the couch barely able to string together a coherent thought because the world seems to crush your inner identity with a bombardment of feelings and sensations. One, where everything that makes you what you are, is destroyed by the outside world pressing itself against you. This is the other side of mania that you don’t hear in the DSM IV. Elevated mood my ass. This is like ecstasy and cocaine followed up with a vodka chaser.