A Stick In the Eye … Chapter Two

A Stick In the Eye … Chapter Two

Don’cha just love the ellipse? 

First this and … wait … then this other thing.

Now, after a bipolar relapse, what does the afflicted person do?  How do you recover from a triggered episode?  This is a tricky wicket.  Everything was just peachy, even sometimes remarkably good.  After all thinking of this neural affliction as being more a matter of beyond the ordinary, or having what are often extraordinary brain functions.  So … (why yes, another ellipse) this also often means the bipolar person can have flights of mania that can result in just incredible achievements. 

And others are amazed, incredulous, applause (yeyyyy….)  and the bipolarist (person with bipolar disorder - my own nomenclature) is also amazed at what they themselves have just done.  But truthfully those achievements can frequently seem almost out-of-body experiences.  Like, “That was me?  I did that thing (whatever the remarkable achievement might be).  It is confusing because when I do something that other people are impressed with, I find I don’t quite get it.  My mind is saying, “What’s the big deal?  What did I do now?  Did I fuck up – again!?”

When I react all confused at their praise, when I feel like people are staring at me or making fun of me, I just want to become vapor.  I want only to disappear.  “Stop staring at me!!!”  I’m not a Martian or something.  Please just back up, back away.  I feel like they’re crowding in on me.  And, they get hurt.  Their feelings get hurt.  They want to praise me and I act all funky and weird.  Often the result of this, is a strike against me, in addition to appearing to seem egotistical, now they think I’m a jerk.

Even the good parts, and yes there are good parts to being bipolar, can become bad parts.  One thing leads to another.  The bipolar brain focuses so intently at a task, that all the rest of the world just fades.  What is not of consequence becomes inconsequential or just irrelevant.  Everything but the task at hand is simply not seen.  Things get stepped on and broken, people get ignored or worse, misinterpreted.  If the misinterpretation is sever enough, it becomes a trigger and a big blast of shit hits the fan – at high-speed and oscillating.    Meaning – shit everywhere and on everything.

What the average, or ordinary, brain sees within context as almost meaningless, a bipolar trigger causes a knee-jerk reaction of massive totally non-proportional behavior.  What can be done after this happens, or what is called an episode?  The short answer?  “Not much.”  What is a bipolar persons worst nightmare becomes manifest and the price must be paid!  THE PRICE MUST BE PAID!

The epileptic has a seizure, the blind man knocks over an expensive lamp, the one-legged man stumbles into a prized vase and THE PRICE MUST BE PAID!  The culprit is obvious, the smoking gun is in hand, the blood is on his shirtsleeve and the price must be paid.  There is forgiveness; there is sympathy (no empathy, but lots of sincere sympathy), but only after the price is paid. 

All the afflicted can do is pay that price and try to get on with life.  That’s about it really.  Own up, admit guilt, offer apologies, beg forgiveness.  What is done, however, is done.  The stick cannot be unbroken, the bell cannot be unrung, the rope cannot be uncut.  The rope can be spliced, but it will always leave a lump, a scar where the cut occurred. 

The greatest warrior is the one who has faced the greatest combat.  The one who has been tested intensely over and over, who becomes the strongest, the most fearless.  That warrior must carry the results of those battles in their muscle memory; for the brain is merely an evolutionary form of muscles tissue.  “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.”  Yes, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t painful as hell.  And, the ability to tolerate and absorb pain and remain standing, sword in hand is proportional to the greatness of the warrior.

“Time heals all wounds”, but while a person is in the healing process, time can seem to slow down until it seems to be stopped.  The recovery is long and the pain unrelenting, until memory fades and recompense is made and accepted.  Knowing that the cycle will be repeated; having this as absolute knowledge, is like carrying a piano on your shoulders.  Still, and I repeat, life is a miracle and everyday has the potential of being a marvelous gift.

Better to just grow strong enough to carry that piano, rather than “a stick in the eye”. 

dalepeterson.us

©  Dale Clarence Peterson, 2016

A Stick in the Eye

A Stick in the Eye

We have all heard this many times … well most likely.  If not, it goes kinda like this, “Well, it’s better than a stick in the eye.”  Which is a reference to experiencing some kind of negative incident.  Oh, like say, getting stung by a bee or maybe a “Payment Overdue” letter.  Or, getting the big putdown when asking another person for a date.  Ya know, some kind of minor bad thing, but not a really serious bad thing.

“Well, it’s better than a stick in the eye.”

Having been diagnosed Bipolar, as in Bipolar II, the only “better than … the stick”, or worse than, as it were, is maybe dead.  Now that’s a tough statement, I realize, but that has been my experience.  Your life goes along with one emotional catastrophe after another, depressions where you can hardly get dressed in the morning, assuming you were already not in the same clothes from the day before – which is not all that infrequent.  And rages that flash up and you tell everyone from your deepest love interest to casual friends to “Fuck off!”  Some trigger and everything within a two-step radius gets destroyed and you find yourself on the floor in heaving sobs, wondering what the hell just happened! 

In-between those way way waay-out extremes, there are many simple ordinary flat days.  No big issues.  You can maintain ordinary conversations, polite small talk, a few chuckles, keep a smile on your face, even make new friendships (which in the back of your mind, you know you will most likely destroy at some point).  Your inner person just knowing that everything you prize, all that is good in your life, somehow at some time, you will fuck it up. 

Then there are the days when you see literally everything.  You hear everything.  Colors are acid clear and brilliantly bright.  Everything is in such perfect clarity, it seems to glow and hum.  Though you never tried heroin or whatever drugs, you think this is what it must be like.  Mozart is like the voice of God.  Creativity just springs geyser-like from your marrow.  Words are little jewels that fall perfectly into sequence … you are Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Hemmingway.

Trigger!!! Explosion!!!  An IED and your legs are gone!  Down the shitter – again!

There is a lot of talk these days about the stigma of Mental Illness; or, Mental Health, or more politically correct Neural Abnormality (abnormality?  Disability? Insert the synonym of your choice).  The stigma – oh, we have to fight back against the stigmas(s)?  “No more stigmas!!”  We need treatment, not stigmas or condemnations!  Etc., etc..

Oh yeah.  Oh yeah.  We need acceptance, inclusivity and understanding.  Compassion.  Oh yeah – wave a banner, march in a parade, get the t-shirt and wear it to Walmart.  Oh yeah, oh yeah.  No more stigmas!  Hmmm … reality check  -  umm, bullshit.  What we actually get is ostracism,  judgment, humiliation and outright condemnation.  Even,frequently, incarceration.  Not compassion or understanding.  Rarely help or compassion.  This is reality.  Never – never – true acceptance. 

It’s all jake, or just peachy fine, until there is an episode.  When the bipolar reality infringes on the normal reality, as normal people know it, that’s when it hits the fan.  Hold it down, bottle it up, medicate the holy crap out of it and it’s all cool.  Medicate until the only difference between you and a zombie is the lack of scabs on your face, maybe. 

That is the bipolar reality.  And yet, it is “better than a stick in the eye”, because as totally awful as it is, it is better than dead.  By only a little bit, but better none the less.  And, as a bipolar person you have to, you must, hold on to that fact.  Yes, every day has the potential to be a miracle.  Every day has the potential to be a wonderful day. 

When put to the test, reality as normal will never be a state you can expect, but if you can find any dignity at all in your life, you must hold onto that fact.  The only time you really loose, is when you quit trying.

dalepeterson.us