Down Days

Yeah; we all have them.  Down days.  Those days where we just feel helpless; like the weight of the world rests on our shoulders and nothing we do matters.  The accompany times of great stress or severe circumstances.  At least, they do for "normal" people; those without an imbalanced brain chemistry.  For those of us with that problem, those of us with bipolar, major depressive disorder, or a number of others, they occur far more often.  We all have our triggers; they aren't necessarily specific triggers, or even major triggers, but we have them.  Things that upset that fragile balance; stress, anxiety, sudden emotional shocks.  It's not something that "normal" people (which is a very generic term, used mostly for no apparent reason here, as I've yet to actually meet a "normal" person) can understand.  Mainly, it boils down to that chemical imbalance in our brain; any emotion you feel, is usually triggered by a release of chemicals in the brain (endorphins, for example, are released when you feel "pleasure").  Since our brains are already out of balance, it takes less of them being released in our system to create greater feelings (either on the "high" or "low" end of the spectrum) than is classified as "normal" to be feeling in the situation.  And, unfortunately, it becomes a cyclic thing; when we're on the "high" end of the spectrum, we tend to do things that make us feel good, whether it's spending money, taking risks or chances, or sex (unfortunately, hypersexuality (increased sex drive) is fairly common with bipolar disorder).  But since we're continuing to do those things, those "feel good" chemicals keep getting fed into our bloodstreams and prolong our manic episodes.  The same is true on the opposite end of the spectrum, too.  When we're feeling "down" we tend to feed on things that keep us there; things people say are taken wrong, or as personal attacks, we feel like everything is "bad" news, etc, etc, etc.  These periods are bad enough at the "basic" level of our disorder; for some of us, there's an even worse issue in the mix.  We're called rapid cyclers; we can cycle between these episodes in a period of days, or, in the most extreme cases (known as ultra rapid cycling) in a matter of minutes.  I say "we" because I'm a rapid cycler, myself (and it really does suck); I'm actually in that group that can switch back and forth in a matter of moments (sometimes seconds...it feels like, anyway).


Anyway; I thought I'd explain that some since part of the intention of these writings is to help try to explain to others some of what it's like to live with bipolar disorder.  And why some of the attitudes, and "information", presented and held by the public at large are not only wrong, but also down right insulting.


I mention all of this mainly because I'm having one of those days today.  A day where I'm fighting those feelings of hopelessness, feelings of being helpless, powerless.  But that's another story; possibly for a day when I'm not feeling so depressed.