DAY 43: Still Awake

I slept for a few hours once I got home on Saturday night/Sunday morning. I've not slept since. I've justified watching Game of Thrones non stop and I'm going through the seasons at an alarming pace. My mind is racing, I feel irritated at pretty much everything - I don't know if having alcohol beforehand has accelerated whatever I'm feeling but it's peculiar to get that feeling once more where my body is exhausted but my brain is continuing to go on and on.
Positively, I've managed to get through so much and I've been non stop in conversations with just about everyone so I've been accomplishing a lot of work and socialising a lot more than usual but I just don't feel enthused to stop. I've obviously tried turning everything off but my mind is racing there's so many thoughts I can't stop. I honestly just need sleep but my mind has another plan.

DAY 42: Rapid-Cycling

I used to be afraid of the future, but in the most ironic manner, the solemn tones of my present reassured me about all that could be. Each move I make carries such consideration, but the air around what I do has become a little more clean - I feel the weight of my errors are less heavy, and in turn I put a lot less pressure on myself.

When I last wrote I suppose I was a belittling myself and also feeling sorry for myself. I do get swept up in pity a lot, when I look back at things that have happened to me and of course when I listen to many people's opinions, shock and sympathy - it's so easy to be taken aback and think: 'Wow! Indeed! Poor me, this is not fair!'. It leaves me in a state where I am continuously trying to calculate my emotions - in a way to get by and in a way to monitor my illness as a whole. I am trying to communicate with medical professionals and get the right help, but the way my illness sits is at rapid-cycling; something I have not experienced before.

I have always explained my illness as something that - contrary to popular belief - slides between being normal and having an episode, be it mania or depression. Although I acknowledged the existence of rapid cycling in others, I never felt it would be something that would affect me. I am very quickly slipping between being manic and being depressed - and I have never felt that kind of 'YoYo' between episodes before. In terms of treatment it's making things more difficult, I know I am going to have to commit to even more appointments and I may have to delay moving on with the next part of my life - but my health is something I can't risk.

If I explain the feeling, it's like trying to control something that is completely out of your hands. I try and slow everything down to just keep things peaceful - but I am rioting between being essentially wild and not sleeping for 2-3 days and lying in a slump in a bid to calm down which turns into just constant crying and isolating myself. At the moment, in my life, I have a break from university for a few more days but I am just so out of routine that it's pushing me from feeling like I should. It's hard to divulge the nature of what I am going through with friends and family without causing them great concern and without making them intervene. With my health, I feel it's at a place where I could maybe opt for hospitalisation to try and get some respite but I am definitely feeling conscious in myself and I am understanding to a decent extent what I'm going through. I know I am ill, I know to take those necessary steps when they are needed.

What I've found is the real special aspect that promotes recovery from Mental Illness is possessing the ability to know when you are unwell, I would have so many bipolar episodes before and not recognise I need help until I reached that crisis point where I needed taken to a crisis team and assessed. I know internally, although I don't recognise it every moment of everyday, is that my mind is trying to break down and deal with a lot of grief and stress. Having an illness with such a complex nature that flares at any sign of disruption or stress definitely makes this period of my life more difficult to deal with, but that is not to say it is impossible to deal with.

I sign off this post with the hope and optimism that knowledge really is power, and that knowing what I am going through and knowing where to go for assistance through this challenging episode will guide me to the next part of my life - one in the glory of recovery, one hopefully with less grief and more puppies.

DAY 41: Actuality

I can't differentiate mood with emotion and as everything comes crashing down I'm coming to terms with what I'm thinking and how to process that thinking. Maybe things are just a momentary lapse but I can't help but feel like the biggest idiot in the world and that I voluntarily drag myself through hell.
Perhaps because everything's went quiet it's like everything has escalated by ten in my mind, but honestly even though it's been months I'm struggling to process my break-up. With how ridiculous it is, maybe I convinced myself it had bled me dry because I was so busy and consumed by everything but I still harbor so much emotion towards it and it really, really hurts my feelings. I have lasting feelings in the sense that I don't feel over it, I still feel so much love for him that I have entirely avoided moving on but also lasting feelings that I know what is sensible and good for me, and I need to come to terms with a plan that delivers me a decent sense of closure because obviously I have not achieved that.
I've definitely remained quite quiet about it and I don't know if it's out of fear for myself that speaking to people about something makes it a real nightmare or if it's just pride. I'm sensible to recognise at the very least it's a real, human situation and how I respond as I come to terms with what my life is can't truly be criticised.
I feel hurt and almost bertrayed by myself because all the emotion I feel is nonsensical because what I went through was absolute hell and I can't understand why I would miss what I miss, or why I'd still even be attached to something that only ever saw me heartbroken. I had a plan and I thought it was working, I was doing really well but I guess it just delayed an inevitable.
I have not sussed it all out and I feel lost and upset but it's something I will figure out I'm sure, I'm just trying not to beat myself up over how I feel even though I know all my feelings aren't sensible. I feel responsible after all this time for just breaking my own heart.

DAY 40

I wish people would stop harassing me when so much time has passed. I just wish people would let me live.

DAY 39: Quiet

As I get on with my last crucial deadline I'm figuring out a few things: how to find the time to eat and have toilet breaks when having a hardcore work ethic, how to go several days without washing my hair and how I've subconsciously become someone else.
When my friends see me or speak to me, it makes me cringe to hear that I inspire them because I don't find anything I do truly inspiring. I can see the positive changes in myself with how I am with other people, I am so much more positive and I'm a good person to be around. It's not a performance either, I'm positive without having to work hard to be. I don't have to act happy, I am. Those things are great for me and I'm not complaining at all about being a person that people want to be around. But, I feel different.
I don't have to think about how I act around others and I am good and well, but something isn't clicking for me now. I don't feel unhappy, I'm happy! But I can't help but notice I'm just such a different human being. I've became less attached to people and perhaps my own life. Like I'm living in blissful, unintentional ignorance. I would think about other people non stop and now I don't think enough about anything. Perhaps it's because I have an element of peace, but it just feels like everything in me is unintentionally quiet. I feel like I have such a different relationship with other people now, everyone thinks it's better and wants to be around me but I just don't feel like I need anyone. I speak to my friends nonstop, but it doesn't feel like a need. I noticed this whole aspect of myself trough the fact that I have thousands of things going on that I've never had the energy to even explain to my friends, which is not like myself.
I feel like I'm a confidante to everyone, and I feel no mental taxation or emotional attachment to them. But I don't seek anyone out to know me on a different level. I know I'm being really deep and overthinking the situation but I can't help but feel my relationship with people has been changed forever and I can't interact with people like I used to. It's not that I'm missing that or craving it, it's just odd. In short, I'm just not an emotional person anymore. I'm warm, I'm funny and I do care about others but I just don't have attachment to anything. I think I got so worn out with my emotions and attachment with my last break-up that it well and truly broke that emotional capacity in me. I can't tell whether how quiet I am now is a positive or a negative. I think everyone around me sees it as a positive, but even if it were a negative - I can't tell because I don't feel enough. How do you stop being quiet?

DAY 38

DAY 37: Perspective

What kind of person are you when you're on your own? What do you think, what do you do? As soon as you take away who and what is around you, the genuine version of yourself comes out. If all the conversations you had were conversations with yourself - how would you speak? Do you have peace when everything goes quiet?

After a very difficult time, I've managed to come to terms with my emotions and how I feel about myself. I've learned how to treat and be with myself, I'm less scared of when it goes quiet - when I'm not focused on something or with the people I love - my mind is calm.

In the past few months I've been tired with everything. I've discussed vaguely but I had to come to terms with my brother dying, my friends having their own horrible disasters, my relationship failing, my ex moving on after just a few short weeks, home truths and things haven't been easy with university at this most crucial time. There's probably altogether a lot of reasons to not bother and to just stay in bed, but that's failing myself and I feel in control of my mood enough to keep going.

After my brother-in-law's funeral yesterday, I felt like I got to close a period of raw emotional disasters. I'm lifting the phone now, I've released all that pent up frustration and I'm teaching myself how to be me again. There's a wonderful full circle in that. There's a lot of situations I don't feel are resolved, but perhaps not everything has to be for me to feel at peace with myself. Not all situations and people want to be saved, so if a situation is unwilling despite your efforts, then you realistically have to put your emotions in a box and not open it back up again.

I realise - from dealing with my sister and her family's grief, those I know who are struggling and the people who desperately reach out to me as a result of this blog - that I honestly can't save you all! I hope what I provide to other people, as a result of my willingness and how much I desperately care for others to always be happy and well, is helpful but I don't think it's enough. I get emotionally invested in helping people, and like I said - not all people and situations have willingness and you can't force things. I'm available for everyone whenever they want to open up to me and I can provide support and unjudgemental love, but I'm just human too. Realising I can't save the world means that I can learn to live with 'things are how they are'.

My friend said to me yesterday that I'm now living my best life and that I have a different glow about me, perhaps all the pain and all the situations I couldn't change developed me as a person. Like Mimi Black 2.0. The same girl, but with gratifying updates. Perhaps all the nasty shit made me have a new air about me, a more special girl - one that people want to know.

One thing is for certain, for all that life has thrown at me - the most special thing is that I'm still standing. Despite giving into what I can't control, I have not given up.

Still your girl, but better,
Mimi

DAY 36: Finish

I'm finally home after being with family all weekend. It's been a tough, testing weekend but I'll get through it somehow. I've received the oddest letter about getting another CPN even though I asked for   my group practitioner to deal with me alone. I've been suffering because of the slip up with my medication for almost 4 weeks now and so it won't be helping me when dealing with all this grief.

Having to nurse myself essentially from so many different issues is tiring but I'm getting through it. Sometimes I lose faith in myself that I can get through it, but we all do.

Despite the emotions we all feel, when it gets really tough, we are all able to get through it. The mental block in your head between you and your sense of peace, is an obstacle that can be taken down. I won't lie on here, I don't even consider much of what I'm saying or consider who I'm writing to - but it has been impossibly difficult for me recently and it does put me in a bad place. However, I have little shreads of hope that I can get through it.

I reread my posts recently and I know Day 34 particularly and I think a few posts  before that were me, writing and crying. My heartbreak pouring out onto everyone's screens, and it perhaps isn't the most positive thing to read but it's reality. For anyone concerned about me, including friends and family, I am fine and I know I will be fine.

To anyone reading out there, you will be fine too. Things get difficult and you can get emotional about various situations, sad situations and even content ones, but that doesn't change your character. No situation is too difficult to recover from! Everything is so much more complex than it really seems and on Day 34 I reduced it to almost like a 'bad or good' person sentiment, I think the important part - almost contradicting myself - isn't being bad or good: it's about trying to be good. Things are difficult but I promise if you just focus on yourself and focus on being good in every situation, you have best set yourself up to pull yourself out of any bad situation.

You deserve to keep giving yourself chances and you deserve to be okay. I know I deserve to feel good again.

To anyone struggling, I believe in you like I believe in myself.

If anyone needs to talk you know where to find me, I will always be here for anyone. I hope you all have a pleasant bank holiday weekend.

All my love,

Mimi