One of the worst things about being bipolar two is that even when you’re not in a deep depression, you’re still cycling through the mood swings. There is this misconception that because the swings are ‘less severe’ than sheer mania of bipolar one, that this somehow makes it less difficult to cope and lead a meaningful life. That is crap. I’d give my internal organs to be straight up bipolar one. I respond well to mood stabilizers like lithium and lamictal so mania is not an issue for me.
The depressions, on the other hand, are just as severe as bipolar one yet because I am axis two, my depressions are summarily dismissed as weak character, situational, ‘not wanting’ to be happy.
First off, I NEVER gave my brain permission to be depressed, ever. I look back through my life and there were times when life was way worse situationally due to money or being stranded as a teenger in Podunk or bickering parents who couldn’t even keep us fed and clothed properly. I survived and was often happy, not in spite of it, but because my brain was telling me to be happy for no reason. Mania. Hypo or not, it was a respite from the depressions that just come on even when things are going well.
I think the biggest disservice done to the mental health community of sufferers is cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness. I don’t dispute their usefulness for *some* people. For me, they have been nothing but more bullshit I have to do battle with because it makes it seem like we choose to be depressed. There is no why so often with bipolar two. You just feel the way you feel and maybe it doesn’t last as long as bipolar one depressions (mine does, but that is just me) but it’s debilitating anyway. I am mindful that right now, things are not that awful for us.Yet my mind is very dark and I don’t get very much joy out of what used to be a good time. I can see no real future for myself beyond raising my child. No amount of talking myself out of this is going to change a damn thing. CBT is cognitive bullshit therapy, as far as my situation is concerned.
It’s angering because it has helped so many but one has to ask…were these people really in a clinical depression for months on end? Because clinical depression doesn’t just lift because you’ve decided to be a shiny happy people. In a way, it’s clinically approved denial. I don’t have that luxury. If I convince myself this is my new depressive norm and I just have to stop thinking I can feel better and accept this current state…I may as well eat arsenic right now. I reject the way I am feeling because I KNOW what it feels like to be hopeful and get full pleasaure out of things. This is not it.
So keep barfing sunshine and rainbows on your pile of emoji pooh but don’t pretend it doesn’t still smell like pooh.
I am wearing pants and sitting upright today. Some days this is as good as it gets. I don’t like it, but I accept it. I am surviving. Which brings me to the new Rob Thomas song. There’s a line that resonates.
I see my life like a train with a one-way track
I’ve made mistakes, and I couldn’t take ’em back
And I’ve been runnin’ ’round in circles ’til I’m dizzy, I can’t lie
But every night I go to sleep’s a day that I survive
Yes, I like Rob Thomas and Matchbox 20 and Nickelback. Nothing wrong with good songwriting even if it’s not as obnoxiously metal as I’d prefer.
Now I am NOT gonna barf sunshine and pretend this computer screen isn’t about to fail and leave me fucked with a hard drive full of stuff and no HDNI monitor to use it. FML
Filled with cognitive dissonance but sincerely yours,
Miss Ann Thrope
AKA
Ann Hedonia
No need to defend cognitive behavioral therapy if it’s your thing. You won’t sway me. I’ve been in therapy longer than half the internet bloggers have been alive. And I reserve the right to call what does not work for me bullshit. CBT. Cognitive. Bullshit. Therapy.
If it works for you, yay.
Eww, I spewed a wee bit of sunshine there for ya. CLEAN UP ON BLOG AISLE SIX!