Discouragement

What is one of the overall goals of a person with Bipolar II?  To be managed?  To be stable?  To be handled?  To be leveled out?  Some may see these as lofty goals.  Others may view them as achievable steps in coping.  Still others may look at them with disdain.  Maybe it depends on where you are in your treatment plan and your outlook towards the future.  A matter of perspective based on your particular phase of illness, perhaps.

I have led this up and down life for many years.  I have known the intense highs (different from the mania of Bipolar I) where I could focus, participate in life, be social and active and productive, even feel somewhat “normal” for short periods of time…or at least as long as that phase lasted.  And then I have known the debilitating lows.  The horrendous blackness that consumes me and everything around me, where I know that surely I will never rise again. 

In between the two I have known the relative calm, the lackluster, the dreary, the hope, the worry, the anxiety, the isolation, and the discouragement.  On this day I feel that I am relatively stable, thanks to medication and therapy and the support of family and friends.  That is a very positive thing.  What that means today is that I am not experiencing the depression and hopelessness that can come on so quickly.  

On the other hand, while I am stable, I have no feeling of true happiness or joy except for very brief periods.  I am discouraged.  I embrace the hope of no more depressive episodes at the same time that I feel discouraged that I may have exchanged this calm for no longer having the ability to feel the high periods.  I have traded the worry, the anxiety, the isolation, the hopelessness for the dreary, the lackluster, the discouragement, and the possibility of hope.  With no more “downs”, does that mean no more “ups”?  I think it’s a fair trade because I never want to go down that dark path again, but it is so discouraging to think that I may never feel that high period again.  It gives me an understanding into why people who have Bipolar go off of their medications when they feel stable.  They tend to forget about the lows and want desperately to feel the highs again, to feel normal if only for a short time.

I can no more make myself feel “up” than I can make myself feel “down” or just “pull myself out of it” as some people like to think.  It just happens when it happens.  When you have Bipolar you tend to live your life in three stages.  The first stage is in a hypomanic stage – where life is good and productive and happy and you hope things will continue as long as possible while waiting for the inevitable change.  The second stage is depression – where life is horrible, where you feel suicidal, where it feels that you can never recover or be human again.  The third stage is the “stable” – this is the in-between stage.  The calm before the storm, or before the sun.  For me it is not an emotionless time.  I can have happy days or sad days.  But neither are pervasive.  My concentration is elusive as is my motivation.

But the overwhelming feelings during this third stage are hope and discouragement and fear.  Hope that someday I will once again be “up” and enjoying life for as long as I can.  Discouragement that maybe I will never again get to that stage.  And fear that I may return to the “down” stage and this time not be able to pull myself back out.  It’s a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions all in a single day, sometimes all in the same hour, and it’s exhausting.  And as much as I try to hold on to the positive feelings, history plays its part, and today I’m just feeling discouraged.