everybody come on down

the circus is almost in town.

when i started this blog, it was to do the journaling that the docs et al recommend when dealing with bipolar. gives you sort of a history of your emotions to go back and look over, when things start going awry, and therefore to learn to recognize your own triggers. interestingly, now that there are people reading this, i'm more apt to keep some of that stuff to myself and that wasn't the point at all. i will tonight head back down that way.

i'd argue that for three weeks to a month now, i've been running too fast in my mind. it's a clear indicator to me that i'm heading for a manic episode, which when unchecked, can lead to a full-bore psychotic break. not the kind that causes me to scale a tower with a high-powered rifle, but the kind that robs me of sleep and clear thought until i necessarily crash. the kind where i can't remember where i've been, don't know what day it is. where i'm no longer really an inhabitant of lovely drury manor.

i went back to lawrence this weekend, as some friends of mine got back in town from research projects/grad school, and we had a little party for them. i prepped for this by trying to focus myself on the things i should not do (stay up all night, take interesting drugs, drink too much, go to bed with random pretty people, spend all the money i had, etc). i drank water all the way there to hydrate myself so i could have a drink or two without falling directly overboard. i ate. i was in a good mood, but not *too* good (i think some of you know what i mean by that) and frankly, it didn't work. i didn't have a chance.

back in the day when i was diagnosed, i was terrified to go see a doc, as i was convinced that i was perhaps schizophrenic. that's how bad it is. there's three of me that live in this head, three of us that split processing time and control of the body. the happy medium is the one i strive to help keep in the driver's seat, but lately she's losing ground to someone smarter, stronger, faster, prettier, needier, more aggressive..all signposts of what's going on. i spent my evening in lawrence feeling fucking-a fantastic, but unable to finish a sentence. i could barely write..

consider using a very slow computer: you type away, only to look up and find your words slowly crawling across the screen, and it's frustrating. now imagine those are your actions, trying to keep of with the speed of your thoughts. you think you're going to go out of your mind if you can't get this brilliant shit out of your head..

it's an interesting feeling, knowing that your entire personality is in motion all the time, changing and folding back in on itself. it never really goes back to any one static phase, but sometimes settles for weeks, months at a time and those are my peaceful, lucid times. in between, in flux, that's where i am now. i need to check this, i need to dive into the pharma i keep hidden in my personal "break in case of emergency" box under my bed (never far away) where i keep the god damn anti-psychotics. i hate them. i hate the way they make me feel, and i hate the way i function and perform while on them. i want to ride this high, as i've wanted to (and have done) on many occasions past. i don't want to come down, but the cost of the high is so much.

the time building up to a full-on mania for me is slick and beautiful. the only things i can use to describe it are those feelings you get when you dance, and the music builds and builds, and you feel like you'll explode. the build-up to orgasm. like the perfect word, the most beautiful painting is right behind the next door in your mind, and you'll do almost anything to break through. free fall.

so if this post is a little disjointed, that's why. i'm having another internal struggle here, i think the first real one since i started blogging, so my writing may change, and maybe i'll not post at all. as i said, now that people are actually reading, i don't know that i want you to know all this. i wish i could step back and make this objective, because the color and feel of it could be an interesting thing to write.

the part of me that remains objective, wise, is somewhere inside telling me to get the risperdal and deal with it. i know there's a break point here, that if i keep pushing it, i'll go right over the edge and who the hell knows what's down there..but there's something so glorious and tempting about walking right up to the edge and looking over, it's something most will never see or understand. people who don't know will tell me, take the pills, chill. do you know what you're asking me to do? you want me to wrap a damp towel over my head and walk uphill to my own execution. that's how it feels.

and as i've felt so many times before, i wonder how far this will go, and how many times i can wander away from myself before i can't find my way back?