Live Mental--Life With Bipolar Disorder, Among Other Things: 2/8/09

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Making mental healthy...7

So here's another thing...journaling. Now I am only going to touch on this tonight because, well, because I am tired and have a sinus infection, but I want to at least throw it out there and then expound later.

Journaling is important. It is a personal thing. There is no set time or frequency, color of ink, or computer, lined or unlined paper. Journaling is about taking what is in the mind and putting it down on paper when needed. I am a sporadic journaler. My brain moves very past so it is difficult for my hands to keep up when actually writing. Typing is much faster but I do not actually journal on the computer, though some might argue that blogging is journaling...semantics. I am a writer, I do not vomit my thoughts on paper for others to read. I do that when I journal in private.

I journal when my brain is malfunctioning. I journal when under duress. I journal when there are simply a lot of changes going on and my mind is unable to catalog AND emotionally process. I am an introvert...very introverted, so I do most of my processing in my head and then let out what I have determined appropriate to show the outside world. However, there are times as I said when my normal processes do not work. When I am very depressed I think in terms of large and sweeping generalizations, becoming a fatalist with words like always, never, forever, everyone, nobody, and so on. When I am busy distorting reality, asking my brain to process and give appropriate feedback is out of the question. Journaling is an invaluable tool.

Some people journal every day. My best friend has journaled just about every day for most of her life. She has back up data if ever her memory is faulty, not that it is. So it is really up to the person, but it is a good idea to try such a thing if you've never because it will cause you to slow down in your day and take a mental check of where you are at mentally...where your thought processes are going and how they are flowing. It need not be lengthy. Try it. You may find yet another simple way to maintain or achieve a healthy mind.

Ok so I more than touched on this topic...

L

Life' s little ironies

I sat on a stool at the end of the counter watching my friend, inventory merchandise she had just received for her natural foods store. We were just catching up on all the gossip in small town Powell when the door was flung wide and a woman who looked to have wandered far and away from the red light district of some other state (none of the towns in Wyoming are big enough to have red light districts) made a rather dramatic entrance.

“Sarah, where is your mother,” she asked, though it sounded more like an exclamation than a question as she hurled the words like small pebbles at my friend. She stepped forward slamming the door shut behind her, its little jingly bells that announced a new caller sounding wildly with the force. The woman took another step forward toward the counter glancing briefly my way, and then dismissing me once she had determined me of no use to her. I heard Sarah answer but what she said was lost to me as I stared in fascination at the woman.

Her hair was a very yellowed bleached blonde with dark roots of about two inches. Her makeup was thickly caked on her face, her eyes painted with frosty baby blue eye shadow. She wore a white tank top that was low cut and kept falling off one shoulder. She had on a wide black belt over her hot pink miniskirt, which was so short it hardly qualified as one. Leopard tights and high-heeled boots completed the ensemble. She was tall and thin and I had the impression of taffy having been pulled to distortion.

But it wasn’t the ensemble that had me entranced. No. It was something else. There was an energy emanating from her; a kind of frenetic-ness that had me both fascinated and frightened. She was hurling words at my friend so fast and with such force, I expected to see Sarah thrown backward from the impact as if hit by bullets. I realized I was staring openly, my mouth ajar, and quickly shut it. I felt as though I was watching a human bomb detonating right in front of my eyes. I couldn’t even concentrate on what she was saying, or even understand it for that matter. I marveled at Sarah’s composure and ability to decipher what the woman was saying, such was the speed of her dialogue.

In my mind it seems as though the conversation was lengthy, but in reality I believe it only lasted a few minutes. The woman left in the same manner she had come, throwing the door open. It swung shut with a swoosh of air, leaving a final benediction of the small jingling bells. I looked at Sarah and said, “What was the matter with that woman? She acts like she’s on drugs.”

Sarah smiled calmly, “No she’s not on drugs. She’s a friend of my mom’s. She has a mental illness called manic-depression.” (bipolar disorder)

I stared out the glass door, still able to see the woman’s retreating form. I sighed, looking up at the ceiling for a moment feeling drained and thinking, “I am so glad I don’t have that.” I was frightened by what I had witnessed and I was so relieved to know I wasn’t like her.

It wasn’t too many years later as I sat in a doctor’s office looking at the ceiling that I remembered the incident with the woman in Sarah’s shop. I was in a psychiatrist’s office and he was in the process of diagnosing me with bipolar disorder, otherwise known as manic-depression. Generally I appreciate irony in life. It is often amusing. In this particular case, though, I was not amused.

Live Mental--Life With Bipolar Disorder, Among Other Things

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Making mental healthy...7

Life' s little ironies

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