energy

Is the energy we have over the top or just a normal spurt of energy?  How to determine the energy we have.  It is hard enough to weed through the feelings we have and how to manage them.  In the past few days I have painted half a room, read part of 2 books, seen 3 movies gone for a walk, gone for a 5 mile bike ride and who knows what else.  At the time it all seems normal to me but foe most this seems over the top this really was all in a day and a half.  What I look for is the other signs of mania the talking fast the talking over people, anger or rage spending sprees of which I have none.  So I call it being productive.  Having manic symptoms does not always have to be a bad thing if it is productive.  Mania is thought of as a negative but those negative energies if channeled the right way can turn into productive creative energy.  I do not believe that creativity is lost through medication.  I do believe that that it takes time to get that creativity back once on medication or the right regimen of medication.Tap into your energy and see what happens it can be just as exhilarating as it is when medicated.  This is one of the reasons that people who are medicated stay that was for years because they are afraid to loose themselves in the medication.  With a good doctor and therapist this does not need to happen.  Unfortunately advocating for yourself is the hard thing to do but do not stop fighting to get your message through to you doctor.  Energy is where I like to be.  Some of us live mostly in depression and that is a difficult place to be.  I am fortunate I live mostly in mania or mixed episodes.  But with the right doctors and the right balance even then you can be brought up to a normal energy level.  Sometimes it is hard to tell if you are reaching over the top energies.  There are tell tale signs of that you are tipping the scales.  Those signs that are classic seem to be talking fast, spending sprees, feeling overly sexed, and risk taking behavior.  Unfortunately until you have a good handle on you illness it is difficult to cut these off at the head.  I set up fail safes for myself so I know when I am getting out of hand, such as, letting friends know when to warn me I am talking fast because I can not always see it, also letting them know that they cna approach me with my behavior.  Be cause I am really good at manipulation or not listening I have them email me it is hard to ignore paper it is easy to talk over people.  So get to know you and what it feels like to be normal.  I also know if I am questioning myself I might be heading in the wrong direction.

acceptance

Acceptance is a process.  It is a process I thought I was finished with.  I thought I was OK being bipolar however I know know that I am OK with being manic.  I do not like the touchy feely part of this disorder.  Being manic I am not aware of my feelings.  It's like not quite having your feet on the ground.  When I am not nice I struggle with feelings and trying to decipher if they are true or over the top.  Feelings make me feel uncomfortable in my own skin and that is like my feet doing skids on the ground without shoes on.  Sparks fly from the friction.  Acceptance has come in pieces and I am now working on the acceptance of the reality of feelings.  It is also like a grieving process. Grieving the person you are when you are manic.  Trying not to intellectualize this and process for what it is is difficult.  I am still trying to fit it into a box and I know there is no box.  Then it just becomes frantically looking for a place to put it and never finding one.

Feelings

Trusting feelings.  I am not sure this is something I do well.  Right now I am feeling uncomfortable so much so I feel nauseous.  I want to believe that I do not date because I do not want to hurt others or that I do not let people close to me because I do not want to hurt them.  A good friend pointed out to me that maybe I do not want to be hurt.  I disagreed with him but it has become blatantly clear to me that he is right.  I feel nauseous because I feel intimidated by someone.  Not sure why but I do.  This is not a feeling I am familiar with and one that I do not care for.  I typically run on the higher side of bipolar which means I stay on the side of grandiosity and self confidence and sometimes overly self confident and grandiose.  Well grandiosity is always overly if you are grandiose.  Anyway I have a big uncomfortable stress ball in the pit of my stomach.  I see now that I do not want to have to explain myself to people or feel vulnerable which puts myself in a position to be hurt.  For a long time now I have made sure I have not been in that position and now I feel like I am just because I am trying to feel my feelings instead of hiding behind them.  Normally I would just say something really sarcastic and hurtful so that person could not touch me and I do not want to do that anymore.  I am finished hiding.  It gets really lonely doing that.

As far as trusting my feelings I never really know which ones are the real ones so to speak.  I know when I feel good I need to watch how good I feel and the things that I am doing when I feel like that.  I know when I am not hungry for the day or overly tired I might be depressed but there are so many feelings in between that are there and they get covered up by the stronger ones.  Feeling is one of the most difficult things I have had to do on this journey with the BP disorder that I am hoping to get a handle on.  Right now I feel like I have no creativity I am just here and not having fun.  Yesterday someone said to me smile and I cried because I can not always smile but people are not used to me being normal so as much as I do not know what to do with me they do not know what to do with me either.  That makes me feel lonely because there are not many that understand what I am talking about.  Pain is something I have covered up for at least a year or so now so I know that I am due to go the other direction soon.  I just pray that the ride will not be that horrible.