As I stood this morning waiting for the kettle to boil, clapping my hands and reflecting on my late night last night, my desire to go shopping today and my determination to solve the problem of the youngest child invading my bed for good, I realised my mood may be changing.
I can hear my team cheering my insight from here.
Insight has not been my strong point until now, I’ve preferred to kind of roll with it, realising I’m either high or low when it’s really too late to do anything about it. Not that I know what to do about this time either and it’s difficult to find the desire to do anything that might change it. As fellow bipolar explorers will know, the cusp of a mood rise is probably one of the best bits- the ideas are starting to flow, I feel awake, interested, interesting, excited and my (no doubt, slightly irritating) habit of clapping my hands can go unchecked as I’m home alone!
I have to confess to having a bit of a light bulb moment during the night (as the 5 year old kicked me in the head for the 1000th time) and I finally got something I think I was supposed to get some months ago.
The fabulous CPN has always pointed out that stress and the adrenalin that goes with it is my poison. This bit I understood. What I didn’t understand is that good stress or bad stress, it didn’t matter, it could send me either way.
Later this week, my eldest child, the 16 year old is undergoing major surgery and I am stressed about it. I naturally assumed that this situation would depress me, I’m worried, my child is going to be in pain, and we will be away from home for a while away from the other two children. I never thought for a minute that the stress of this situation would have me fizzing with anticipation the way I am now.
I feel guilty I suppose that I am tending toward high rather than low but in there is another lesson for me, I do not choose how I react to situations. I think I can choose how I deal with those reactions to a degree (and that will no doubt involve medication) but that’s my illness.