Checking on my Comfort Zone

Recently, a friend introduced me to a site called Superbetter. It's all about making yourself better - more resilient, more optimistic, more motivated. It's filled with games but not like flash games or xbox games. These are quests and you face challenges, gain allies, learn skills, and fight off bad guys. It intrigued me and, since my friend signed up for it, I figured I would sign up, too. I don't play everyday. Honestly, I haven't been to the website in weeks.

While working through my quest I got stuck. It's my own fault, too. I was faced with a challenge and didn't do it. I haven't done it yet. I started to but it was uncomfortable so I set it aside with the intention of returning to it the next day. I did return to it but I didn't do anything about it beyond rereading the description of what I was supposed to do. What did I get stuck on, you ask? It's silly, really. All I needed to do was write a journal entry answering this question:

What is your current relationship with your comfort zone?

Fortressed within it?

Always busting through it?

See what I mean? It's simple. Yet, it's so complex. Formulating a reply has been troublesome and it's been weighing on me.

Source: Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

My comfort zone is always changing. It varies with my mood - how manic or depressed I am or if I'm neither. My level of anxiety plays a big role in defining what I enjoy doing or what I'm willing to try. Likewise it determines what completely freaks me out, it draws that proverbial line in the sand which I cannot cross. What feels impossible for me one week is second nature the next and vice versa.

Source: Clinical Junior.com

My healthy self, if I know my healthy self - which is dubious, is bound to be somewhere in the middle between manic and depressed. That's only logical. She must be more cautious than the manic version of me and must also be more relaxed than the anxious version of me. Surely she is, or at least believes herself to be, more capable than the depressed version of me.

So, today? At this moment? I feel good about myself. I believe I'm good at my job and I enjoy it. I feel good about my relationships with family and friends. Calling my best friend is not a stretch today even though the same activity yesterday was distressing and I couldn't bring myself to do it. I feel like I have something worth sharing on my blog and I'm able to adequately answer the Superbetter question.

Will I feel the same tomorrow? Who knows.

If you're curious, here's a little about Superbetter from TED Talks.

1000 Paper Cranes

Legend says if you make 1000 paper cranes then you can make a wish and it will come true.

A much more recent story, one about a little girl growing up in the toxic world created by the Hiroshima bombing, is attached to the paper crane legend. The little girl's name was Sadako Sasaki and she developed Lukemia when she was a child. She started folding origami cranes with the goal of being able to make a wish. Some stories say her wish was to be well again while others say it was for world peace. Some versions say she finished 1000 cranes before she passed away at 12 years old. Other versions say she didn't and that her friends and family finished them for her. You can read one version of Sadako's story at 1000cranes.com.

I suspect the little girl was originally wishing to be well and that the wish morphed into one of world peace as she succumbed to the illness. I'm a grown woman and I would wish to be healthy again. Forget world peace; I want to live. Maybe I'm just selfish. Of course, maybe she really was a child of the light, mature beyond her years, and destined to help usher in a change in this world.

Would I wish to be free of my illness?

Bipolar Disorder comes with a lot of ugly characteristics. If I were to make a chart listing the pros and cons of living a life with Bipolar Disorder, I suspect the cons would far out number the pros. The pros, however, include some amazingly positive things.

• increased confidence
• increased creativity
• more outgoing
• higher goals
• increased intelligence
• better performance

If you live with Bipolar Disorder, though, then you know those things are not permanent. It's a terrible truth and it often feels like a curse. I can taste success and then the mania wisks me away in an updraft, a tell-tale sign of an impending storm. How high I go reveals the strength of the storm and the level of destruction it will do.

What if the legend is true? Just pretend for a moment and believe with 100% certainty that making 1000 origami cranes would allow for the granting of one wish.

Here is paper crane #1.

You Understand? Really?

My friend expressed some concern about me not long ago. She is a newish friend and does not yet know much about having a bipolar brain. She knows even less about my particular brain and the life experiences it initiated and stored in its memory.

"You're not quite yourself today. Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. I'm just in a funky place right now."

It's a good answer. Most people accept it easily and we move on. More importantly, I avoid thinking at a level which would prompt tears or temper. My friend, however, didn't like it. She pressed the issue. I don't remember the exact string of questions or my answers but I kept trying to politely and nonchalantly redirect the conversation. The only way to make her interrogation stop was to be direct and probably rude.

"Look, there's nothing wrong in the world around me. My bipolar head is just screwing with me. It's illogical, it happens, and I'll be fine."

What else could I possibly say? The 15 minutes we had together before going to work was not enough time to explain the meaningless anxiety churning in my gut or the darkness I was walking into. I didn't really want to explain anyway. I wasn't ready to share the very personal, raw details she was trying to elicit and her aggressive, albeit well-intended, poking for information has made me less inclined to share in the future.

Then she said, "I understand." The conversation could have, should have, ended there but I laughed and shook my head. It was a knee-jerk reaction and it was stupid.

We pulled into the parking lot at work. "Really. I understand."

Northern Goshawk

My mind commenced to spinning as a result of her audacity. Thoughts. Feelings. Images of "understanding" eyes full of pity. Memories of "understanding" voices telling me to suck it up. It all moved through me so fast that the only knee-jerk reaction I had was stunned silence and the inability to move. Long moments passed.

I scoffed and stepped out of the car. As we walked into the building we work in she continued looking at me. Her eyes oozed just how pathetic I was to her. She looked at me like I was a sad, little, wounded sparrow even though I felt much more like a Goshawk whose territory had just been invaded.

Those not initiated into the pain, euphoria, confusion, and chaos that bipolar disorder gifts to the fortunate sick and the people who love them do not understand.

A Weekend with Friends

Manic. Margie pegged me. She saw it before anyone else -- including myself. Here I thought I was acting normal and she says, "How many drinks did you have?" She wore a big, goofy grin.

"What?" I asked incredulously. "None. I had a glass of apple juice." I made the decision before going on that trip that I would not drink any alcohol. It's bad for bipolar disorder, a condition which had only recently been diagnosed in me.

"Girl..." She let the r hang in the air for a moment and shook her head, "You're as tipsy as I am and I had three glasses of wine!"

I was a little stunned to hear that. "You're buzzed."  I teased.

"So are you!"

"I'm not." I retorted. "I'm fine. Just enjoying myself and the show."

"No." She drew out the word again, shaking her head again. "You're acting high. Buzzed. Lit."

I considered her statement, took stock of my behaviors over the last couple hours, and realized she was right. The mellower me was being usurped by an overly spirited, bubbly me. I hadn't noticed it in my own self. Someone else had to point it out to me.

Later that night Margie, Kristine, and I took off for a walk around the retreat property. I thought it would burn off some of the energy in me and bring my slightly manic mind and body back down to earth before they had enough fuel to spiral out of control. It was quiet time so I had to whisper. That helped. It was dark, so I had to pay attention right around me. It helped me focus and bring my mind back to me. The quiet and the dark kept my senses from being stimulated as much as they had been during the show. The energy in that room had apparently been electrifying. I thought I was reacting at a level comparable to the other audience members. And maybe I was. Maybe they were simply able to come down to a normal level of happy and satisfied when the show was over whereas I was not.

We wandered along wide pea gravel paths for almost two hours before going to Kristine's room. She shared her room with Gayle, the friend who had taken the lead in making this little weekend happen.

"I have pictures taken of me when I was manic," Gayle remarked before I had time to close the door. "My eyes were so big ..." she held her hands up to her eyes, curving her fingers to pantomime binoculars. "My eyes were so big that you could see the whites of my eyes, all the way around the colored part." She pointed at her eye, tracing a circle in the air around its iris. "I see that in you." Gayle giggled.

She can read me like a book. I don't mind though. She has Bipolar Disorder, too, and has been managing it longer than I have. She's honest with me so I know I'll get genuine feedback and support. I guess she's almost like a mirror. She reflects me back to me and then I see the symptoms.

We sat on the little balcony attached to their room and visited for a while. When the time came, we said our good nights and gave hugs all around. "Sleep tight," I said as I opened the door to go.

"I will," Gayle chuckled. "But you'll still be awake."

"Drops of Jupiter" Describes Mania?

If you've never heard the song "Drops of Rain" by Train there's a video here for you. It's an absolutely beautiful song. I promise it's related to this post.

People ask me what mania was like and it's so utterly hard to describe. I don't think you can really have any sense of it if you've never experienced it. When trying to answer that question for people, I can almost always tell if they understand me on an intellectual level or an experiential level. Their eyes shine differently. Sometimes I see laughter in them revealing the wonderful experiences that can and do happen during a manic phase. Sometimes it's sorrow and shame. Sometimes it's relief and the weight of silent loneliness falls away.

Trying to describe it to the people that nod their heads politely, "Uh huh, yea, uh huh. I see" is a challenge to say the least. This is where that song by Train comes in.

It's not about mental illness but most of that song does a good job of describing mania. I certainly related to a lot of it when I was falling back to Earth, through normal, and headlong into depressed. Being out there so high that I twirled along Jupiter's atmosphere describes me at that time rather well. Feeling so bright and energized that the Milky Way and heaven are dim and uneventful does too. Yes, the wind swept me off my feet and in the best kind of way. Yes, I did get to dance along the light of day. Line after line of this song resonates with me and I think the poetry of it offers people a way to grab hold of the idea of mania so they can begin to understand.

X is for Major Arcana X: Wheel of Fortune

I have a tendency to think about some things in terms of opposites. Life and death. Right and wrong. Up and down. Manic and depressed. Placing the ideas on the flip side the same coin organizes them quickly and easily. That approach to thinking is so prevalent that I am compelled to believe it's human nature to do so. The coin system works great for a lot of things but it's sorely inaccurate for many others. The 10th card of the Major Arcana always reminds me of that fact.

This card has two wheels on it. The obvious one that's the focus of the card and another one tipped over on its side at the very top. Do we make our own future, our own destiny, or are those things determined from above, from the divine? The artwork on the card says the answer is both. The lighting bolts in the background, the power from above, are always hitting our lives from one direction or another. The other wheel, with the Sphinx, the monkey, and the crocodile is the destiny we create for ourselves. The swirling pattern farthest in the back is the motion our lives add to the world around us - the proverbial ripple in the pond.

I don't dare speculate about the wheel at the top. After all, who can really know the mind of the divine or the rules from beyond the veil that govern the physical and spiritual universe we live in.

The wheel in the front I can talk about because it is my own life and its movement is the result of my own choices, good, bad, or indifferent.

The ape on the left is riding the wheel up to the top. It represents creation, initiation, those things that are coming into being in my life and they are not necessarily positive  things. The ape could let go if it chose to. It could refuse to allow the emergence of the next thing in life. I could refuse and at times I have.

The crocodile on the right side is riding the wheel down, to its lowest point. It's tied to the wheel with absolutely no choice but to experience the destruction that occurs in life. Or does it have a choice? The tie is loose, there's no knot. The crocodile could let go, just like the ape. In letting go though, it will fall none the less. Perhaps something wonderful is being destroyed causing pain that we cannot escape from. Of course, something causing us great pain might also be disintegrating.

The Sphinx at the top is balanced. The wheel turns easily so maintaining that balance is difficult. It looks back into that space between the wheels, between how we influenced our own lives and how the higher power influenced it. If we are to learn anything, it will be from trying to merge the what and why of our past. There's no point in looking forward for the what and why of the future, because we cannot know what lighting the universe will throw at us next. If the Sphinx turns to peer deep into the future, the balance will be lost and the wheel will resume its movement. People being people, turning to look is inevitable.

I guess I should tell you why this card always reminds me that life's things and events are not represented on the opposite side of a coin very well. After all, that's where this post started.

The wheel of life does not flip. It does not have heads or tails. It revolves around a hub. The animals, representing creation, balance, and destruction, do not sit on one face or the other. They ride the rim, diminishing and expanding continuously - never appearing or disappearing in an infinitely small moment in time.

Life is not, can not, be the opposite of death. The wheel is the very representation of life and it turns, not flips. Health and sickness are not opposites either. Getting sick happens over time, so does regaining our health, and maintaining it is a balancing act. This is no more apparent than in trying to live between mania and depression. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it permanent? Absolutely not. I will make some choice that will start the wheel turning. Lightening, far beyond my control, will strike. Do I hold on to the wheel, trust that it will not stop at the bottom? Will the momentum of its movement be enough to carry me through the low point?

I've lost count of how many times I have been so afraid of the motion that I have tried desperately to climb back up to the top. When I was on the downward side, trying to climb back up only made the wheel turn faster and faster until I couldn't hold on anymore. I had no more control. My fate was dictated by the powers from above and it was my own fault. Learning to hang on is one of the hardest and most painful lessons of my life. Riding the wheel is hard, that's true. It hurts and I selfishly think sometimes that it hurts me more than others. The wheel keeps moving and it always brings beautiful things with it along the way. They are not permanent but neither are the ugly things. There's one exception to that. Letting go.

Letting go meant I was always at a low point, lower than the wheel would have taken me if I had only held on. I could have closed my eyes and screamed in terror. Instead, I let go and screamed a silent sort of terror. I could not close my eyes. It was as if my eyelids had been torn away. I was ignorant of how far I would fall, when and if the divine would finally pull me back up within reach of my life, and what the divine would put me through next. My life stopped, suspended in that terrible space I should never have entered. The swirling motion of existence continued without me because I was stuck in a single moment. That which should have disintegrated, what should have fallen from the wheel instead of me, stayed there. It left no room for that which should have developed in my life.

There I remained, experiencing the pain and anguish created by the enormous power from above and the choices I made in response that lightening and thunder. Angry, desperate, screaming in pain, I learned what hell truly was.

U is for Ups and Downs

Up and then down and then up and then down. Like a roller-coaster ride. Really? It's like that?

I don't think so.

• You choose to be on the roller-coaster.
• People with bipolar disorder did not have the option of such a choice.

• Your roller-coaster ride will come to a predictable end and you'll return to your normal, every-day life.
• The cycles of bipolar disorder have no such end; they are life-long. There is no stopping and getting off the ride.

• Your roller-coaster ride is engineered to be safe. Even when you are falling, you know you'll arrive at the low point safe and sound.
• Falling into depression is falling into a great unknown. You don't know how deep the hole is and you won't make the journey unscathed.

• You know you'll emerge from the low point of the roller-coaster.
• Not everyone returns from the low point of depression.

• Your roller-coaster ride has a specific maximum height. You're likely to return from the heights with messed up hair.
• Mania has no maximum height and it can escalate to the point of messing up entire lives.

The ups and downs might look like a carnival ride when they are plotted out on paper. In real life, though, comparing bipolar disorder to a ride designed for fun... that's just wrong.