I'm sorry, I understand that this is, in no way, a legitimate blog post, but I was here OMG SOMETHING JUST FELL OR SOMETHING ACROSS THE ROOM AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS AND NOW I AM SPOOKED BECAUSE I HAVE TO WORK THERE HAALLLP.
Yeah I definitely need some sleep.
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It is Wednesday morning right now. I got back from a meeting at around 8pm last night (Tuesday), did this banner thing, and then went to sleep like, at around 11pm after setting up my alarm for 1am so that I can wake up to do most of my logic problem set. Except I woke up at 1am when my alarm went off, changed the alarm to 2am, and then went back to sleep. And here I am.
Wow, last night seems so long ago and the next time I can conceivable put my head on a pillow seems a lifetime from where I stand. Sleep definitely distorts time. (Thanks, Jen, not like that wasn't obvious or something that everyone already knew or something.)
Anyway, I have to go do homework, so this will count for now. I will go and discuss the topic of Bipolarity later tonight before I do my official BEDA 3 post. Just know that BEDA 2 went well for the most part...and then I had to be a teenage girl. Ahh, being a teenage girl...
Ok, I leave you with that for now. TOOTLES POODLES
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It's Thursday night. How fitting--this topic is about bipolarity, and here I'm going to have to blog in three different personas tonight...partly because of my bipolarity. You follow me? No? That's okay, I shall explain.
So, uh, yeah it's official...I'm bipolar. I know I used to joke about it, me being unofficially bipolar and all, but now, I really do think I have a mild bipolar disorder. It isn't as bad as it can be because I don't get extreme episodes and my swings are few and far between compared to others. My swings don't negatively affect my work and/or personal relationships either, as far as I know, so again, it's not that bad. But I do have it. It's not like a doctor has diagnosed me or anything, but I have the symptoms.
And with bipolarity comes, of course, depression. Or, actually, it's the other way around: with depression comes bipolarity. And this is kind of ironic because Kendall just mentioned in his post that he enjoyed and appreciated how my BEDA 1 post was a very zapping post. Sorry bah, but I am going to try to keep this lighthearted!
Which is the very reason why I think I may have bipolar disorder. I always try to keep things lighthearted. I think I may have mentioned this before: I am a genuinely sad person. I have sadness sitting in my bones, and sometimes they rattle my bones. I think they started bouncing around in me when I was in middle school because that's when I started to grow up. That's when I started to see and understand and take in so many things that I did not used to see or understand or take in. That had been the first time I contemplated suicide, and cut myself, and just had dark thoughts swirling in my head. I just accepted it as a part of who I was at the time, but I assumed it was a phase in the same way that we all go through that "emo-goth-punk-lite" phase (Because you guys went through that, too, right??? Not just me???).
In high school, I used to call these times the "Eyes Up at the Ceiling" bouts (I still sometimes do) because I used to just lie on the carpet and stare up at the ceiling fan, listening to sad music play on my iPod. And I would just lie there, not moving, until dusk rolls in and I wouldn't move or get up to turn on the lights, so I would just be there, lying in the dark.
I'm not this melodramatic anymore, of course, but I still feel it sometimes. I have about five hundred playlists now on my iPod probably and a couple of them are actually for these bouts. I have playlists that try to cheer my up, but there are also playlists that are just full of sad songs (because, really, sometimes you just need to drive yourself way deeper into that sad hole before you can really come up again). When it rains, I'll sit next to the glass window and just stay there. Or I'll sit on the couch and try to look for a happy movie to cheer me up, but realize that usually the happy ones are the worst ones, so I'd end up just watching mindless TV and then I'll suddenly realize that my face is wet with tears for no reason.
Though I've outgrown most of that middle school phase and my views about suicide have changed, the sadness still sits in my bones. And I've retained much of these past experiences within me, which I think is helpful, because I have a greater understanding for people who hurt themselves than others who have not experienced it at all would, and I have a greater understanding for why I feel the way I feel sometimes.
My "depression" is not as bad as I know others' are. In fact, far from it, and I cannot even fathom the terrible world in which some people feel trapped. But this does not mean my sadness is insignificant. I do think it means that I am very, very lucky--lucky to not have it so bad, lucky to have people who care for and love me, lucky to have multiple means of escape by way of hobbies and passions and people. And I think a greater understanding of sadness is necessary in understanding happiness.
Though my natural tendencies veer toward sadness, I know that I am a positive zapper, but only because I tend to keep all of the sadness for myself. And this is where the crux of the matter is about my bipolarity. Though I was born an incredibly sad person, I see and know that I have so many reasons to be incredible happy, and so, more often than not, I find it easy to be happy. I have an amazing family whom I love to death, awesome friends who have done so much for me, blessings far more than I can count, opportunities that I am so very thankful for, and so much more.
Keep in mind that not all sadness is bad. At least I think so, anyway. I think that it is right and perfectly okay to revel in your own loneliness once in a while. We need to remind ourselves that we can be our own "best company" when we want to. And this is a type of sad that I think is fine. There is a type of sadness that hurts, and this is an inevitable occurrence in life that makes us stronger.
But there are others. There's the type of sadness that goes way past the hurt so much so that it is actually numbing. There's the type of sadness that comes when I feel like pieces of me are breaking off and floating into the sky and I look up and can't help but just know that those pieces are the pieces that I really need in order to be happy again. And then, the ones that I hate the most, are the sad times when my the depression is so incredibly debilitating that I want to just curl up under the blankets and not get up for an entire week.
But I always get through it. That's what keeps me going sometimes--the fact that I've managed to get out of it multiple times makes each bout easier.
Anyway, the reason why all of this came up is because I went from being so happy to downright depressed all within a day on Tuesday. I woke up with the same positive effort again that morning (albeit a more forced effort, but I did it!). I was still singing, still smiling.
Maybe I should explain this first: I had posted a new profile picture on Facebook of me standing on these rocks on a pond underneath a bright pink and purple tree with my arms spread open like I'm about to fly away, a huge and carefree smile on my face. I looked so incredibly happy. And people were liking it left, right and center. People texted and messaged me asking where I was at the time the picture was taken and one person commented on the photo about how incredibly happy I looked. And, I didn't think much about it at the time, but I replied to that comment with something like me being a really sad person.
And the next thing I know, my friends, Brandon, Duk, and Bobby, all from my honors class, start asking me how I'm doing way more often than necessary and letting me know that if I ever need to talk to someone that they're willing to listen and making sure that I was always sane and happy by insisting I watch these One Direction Adventures videos (which I will, eventually, just to appease them and also because it sounds interesting...don't judge). And I thought it was sweet and funny because I hadn't realized that it would have that effect. I really was just, "Guys, seriously, I am fine. I am not going to kill myself!" I was laughing because I appreciated them and it was just funny.
To add to that, I had a RAPS meeting after honors class that day and those are always awesome because it means good food, awesome people, and stimulating and clever conversations for dinner. I always have so much fun at these meetings. So I was high on life, which made it so hard to understand why, when I came back to my room, I felt so depressed. Well, actually, no. I know why I felt sad. I just didn't understand why I had to feel sad. These bouts are almost always triggered by something that is not necessarily the reason for my sadness. And this time around it was, to put in vaguely, because I'm a teenage girl. Simple as that. When I let myself be a teenage girl, things happen that make me sad. And the fact that I can't even let myself be a teenage girl without feeling sad makes me even sadder!
To add to that, I wanted to sleep but I couldn't because I had to work. And I've never done that before; I've never had to fight a debilitating sadness. That takes effort, my friends. My bouts always managed to happen on slow weeks or weekends so I never had to worry about this. But I had to fight through it and I think it made it worse.
But I am ok now and I am actually excited as I type this now because tonight is a night when I can sleep early! Well. Relatively early. I AM STOKED.
One down, three more to go (two for here and one for class)! LET'S DO THIS!
Also, maybe this is interesting to note: I am listening to rap. Again.
Risks: 44
Books Read: 8
Thank You Notes Written: 13
Caffeinated Drinks Consumed So Far in April: 4
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