Swimming Against the Tide

In Response to “Missing a Feeling”: Coincidentally soon after writing that post about being upset with how actions I did in my own process of trying to deal with my feelings were being met with retaliation from someone I haven’t talked to since like a whole other lifetime ago, they did exactly what I asked of them. Unfollowed me off of Spotify and I’m sure wherever else she still had me followed. While I was upset with feeling like I kept getting pricked and prodded by this person, it’s still a bittersweet feeling to know that someone who’s been such a big deal in my life for so long has finally gotten rid of all their connections with me. I didn’t want to continue to be upset by their reactions and I didn’t want them to keep feeling upset when reacting to something I’m doing or posting either so in that regards I’m happy for them. I don’t want to keep bringing them down, I just want them to be happy and I know that was something they needed to do to keep that so I’m more than happy to accept that, it’s just you know tough knowing you’ve been forgotten. Regardless of the circumstances that led to that fact and despite even having this something I knew I eventually wanted to be the case. So I guess I’ll just continue to feel bummed out about it until I don’t anymore. That’s all I really can do.

So recently, I got that confirmation that this wasn’t just one affliction I was dealing with. And like with being told I did have Borderline Personality Disorder, this disorder was something I kind of already entertained the idea that it might be what was wrong with me, but once I got the diagnosis for BPD I was sure that accounted for most of it. The unstable emotions, the fluctuating moods that at first seemed entirely random but I soon learned that they were often set off by something I just wasn’t paying much attention too, and definitely my pattern of unstable yet intense relationships. That seemed to check off everything I thought I was dealing with. However behind these constant changes in my immediate mood, there has always been periods where when I wasn’t affected by something specific I was dealing with emotions and a general mood which felt like they weren’t mine. This whole time I thought I just had my good days and my bad days like everyone else, but after going to DBT for a few months now my therapist saw a clear pattern of those highs and lows. So it looks like I have to add Bipolar Disorder to the list of shit that’s wrong with me.

It’s made a drastic change in my future outlook after having that diagnosis more cemented (rather than just a possibility like before). When it was just BPD, I was told most if not all my symptoms could be learned to be dealt with within a matter of months as long as I was sticking to the regime given to me in DBT, but now even just being told, “You really aren’t in control of how your feeling.” Kind of validating what I felt was happening but I really hoped I was just bullshitting myself, maybe making things more dramatic so I felt like there was a reason for why I was so shitty or overly-sensitive. Turns out I wasn’t bullshitting, at least not entirely. So now I know for sure there’s always going to be shifting periods of depression and mania I am going to have to endure for as long as I’m stuck here on this Earth but I’ve already been learning to cope with that fact before I even knew what it was exactly I was coping with. I just knew I often felt depressed after moments I felt great, and that the days I was feeling fantastic were soon going to end with a huge and sudden drop down to feeling absolutely terrible again. So to get to the actual damn point of the post because I tend to ramble… I really have to try my hardest to remain positive during these phases of depression just as much as I have to keep myself down and be as realistic as possible when I’m in my manic phase.

This is something that I have found incredible difficulty doing because even though there’s been a clear pattern of shifting moods for years now, it’s not like I know when I wake up that day and go “Oh hey I’m feeling manic today I gotta keep chill to not fly off the handle.” and even though depression is more noticeable my only thoughts when that phase come are “I’m going to feel shitty forever, and I’m not going to ever get any better. I’m going to eventually push away my friends, my SO, and even my family too until I’m forced to die alone so why prolong it? Cut people out of your life and then finally cut you out of yours too. It’s not like anyone’s going to miss you. No one ever has.” That’s essentially my thought process once this shift happens, maybe excluding a few of those ideas for the less severe depressions but it’s generally the same idea. Still, I try my hardest when I’m aware of these to try and get myself more leveled out. The last manic phase I kept gearing up trying to prepare myself for how to act, how to make my situation less unbearable once that switch came. I didn’t do a very good job, I doubt I ever will despite my best efforts. It’s so much easier to prepare yourself for manic phases than for the depressive ones just because I just don’t have any energy or motivation when I’m depressed so I keep feeling like “what’s the point in doing this thing that I’ve planned ahead of time to keep my head above water” because I don’t think that thing will even work this time or if it does I know that it’s only a temporary fix and I’m going to be drowning again. Writing usually helps with this but even now I’m way down in this mood that even this seems dumb and futile. Nobody’s listening so why do I write? Hell I don’t like it when people DO read this so why do I keep doing it when no matter the circumstance, there’s a future random reader that catches this and sees how fucked my head still is or nobody reads it and it’s just more craziness I’ve thrown out into the ether.

Patiently awaiting the next wave,

-T.