Improved function after...whatever day that was when I thought I was headed for the stratosphere again. I did this thing where I walked around the house for a while with my arms twisted up behind my head, with my hands sort of dangling in space. I realized as I was standing in the kitchen that way that I looked like a total idiot, but it somehow worked to bring me back down to earth. Something about the pressure on my ribcage, I don't know. I felt grounded. So I kept on with it till I felt more leveled off. And I've been all right for almost a day and a half now. Also got drunk and watched Jackass 3D with M Friday night after the kiddo was asleep and then got drunk again on Saturday and watched Tenacious D. The amount of gut-busting hilarity seemed to help settle the wicked energy spike.
I've been removing myself from social situations as much as possible. Easter with extended family went okay. At one point everyone was outside with the kids and I picked up the cat and sat alone with him in the living room for about 45 minutes with my eyes closed. It did wonders to restore my sanity. Other people stress me the heck out.
I've found an excellent writer in an online writing community who's been giving me helpful feedback on the book. His work is very polished and I have no doubt he'll make it as a writer. He's somehow able to balance his left and right brain and achieve this zen state of writing in which everything is planned out and yet still creative and spontaneous and engaging. The people who can do that in combination with innate talent are the ones who have what it takes. I don't know how old he is, but his profile says he graduated from Emory in 2009, so I'm guessing he's about 25. Which shows in his writing in funny ways, in suppositions he makes that I recall making at 25. It makes me realize that in spite of all my mental health issues, I have in fact matured as a person, and been through a lot of life experiences that season me in ways other people might not be.
It's also put some swiss-cheese holes in my noodle, but hey. Do the best you can with what you have.
Sometimes I look at this blog and wonder how I can function in polite society, ha ha.
I've been removing myself from social situations as much as possible. Easter with extended family went okay. At one point everyone was outside with the kids and I picked up the cat and sat alone with him in the living room for about 45 minutes with my eyes closed. It did wonders to restore my sanity. Other people stress me the heck out.
I've found an excellent writer in an online writing community who's been giving me helpful feedback on the book. His work is very polished and I have no doubt he'll make it as a writer. He's somehow able to balance his left and right brain and achieve this zen state of writing in which everything is planned out and yet still creative and spontaneous and engaging. The people who can do that in combination with innate talent are the ones who have what it takes. I don't know how old he is, but his profile says he graduated from Emory in 2009, so I'm guessing he's about 25. Which shows in his writing in funny ways, in suppositions he makes that I recall making at 25. It makes me realize that in spite of all my mental health issues, I have in fact matured as a person, and been through a lot of life experiences that season me in ways other people might not be.
It's also put some swiss-cheese holes in my noodle, but hey. Do the best you can with what you have.
Sometimes I look at this blog and wonder how I can function in polite society, ha ha.
I love Tenacious D. & I love playing The Metal on Guitar Hero III even more.
ReplyDeleteThis is not the greatest song ever. This is merely a tribute.
DeleteHave you heard of Sensory Integration Disorder? I often wonder if it's related in any way to those parts of bipolar that just make you move move move. My middle son was diagnosed with it when he was 2, and had to go through occupational therapy. Basically it's a nervous system disorder, where your brain doesn't get enough stimulation from the nerves and makes you have a disconnect. This causes people to have all sorts of strange hyper-reations to things. Often in kids it can be exhibited as severe dislike of certain textures or temperatures, and can cause problems with food or clothing. The treatment for it is to provide extra stimuli by putting pressure on joints - cracking fingers, pulling and pushing on your wrists, standing on your head, hanging by your hands. If you catch the condition early enough and train your nervous system with all that stimuli, it eventually fully develops and the SID goes away. Unfortunately, you have to catch it REALLY EARLY because your nervous system solidifies in childhood. I'm sure I had it when I was a kid because I had the same symptoms as my son, but no one knew about SID when I was little. Thankfully, we caught Ambrose's in time and it really helped him.
ReplyDeleteLong explanation, I know - it's just that the arm position you mentioned sounded like a SID thing - putting pressure in such a way to calm your brain, which is what all those exercises I mentioned are supposed to do for kids with SID.
I'm glad you found a good writer's group. That's so essential. I don't have a group that I go to, but I have a group of dedicated editors and beta-readers that I trust, and we all swap manuscripts for editing.
Hi Amanda. I have heard of it; I'd never actually considered it might apply to me until you mentioned it. I've rethought a lot of how I approach living in physical reality since reading this comment and I believe you're correct in your suppositions. Thanks for mentioning it. I suppose it explains why I spend so much time standing on my head. (For real.)
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