Tag: Mania

Is YouTube Rotting Our Brains?

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I hear voices.

Shouting. Shrill. Pressured. I am in my kitchen, unable to make out words. Just a stream of urgent noise. Where is it coming from? The TV in the spare room? Surely not. TV conversations dip and rise. Even cartoon voices change in cadence and timbre. The noise coming from the spare room is barely human. This could be how I’d sound if I were to record myself when manic. As irritating as a whinging toddler, as grating as fingernails down a chalk board.

So, who is trapped in my spare room generating this awful sound?

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#NotFitspo

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Mirror message at the gym

ON GOOD DAYS WORK OUT

ON BAD DAYS WORK OUT

HARDER !

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the fitness industry: I don’t agree.

My first thought when I saw and snapped this image was: ‘YES – so true.’

But then I stopped to think about how this statement applies to me and my exercise habits. I realised it was simplistic at best, and dangerous at worst. Here’s why:

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Telling People

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There comes a moment in many of my conversations when I have a choice to lie or tell the truth. If I’m meeting a new person I don’t tend to lead with: ‘I have Bipolar Disorder’, unless it’s relevant. However, the longer I know someone, the more likely we are to reach that moment of disclosure. It came up within days of  my discharge from a recent hospital stay. I ran into an acquaintance who asked how I was.

And there was a second, where it would have been so easy to answer with the expected: ‘Fine.’ Or ‘Busy’ And leave it at that. If it had been a person I didn’t know asking, I would have. But this was someone I see quite often. So, I gave an honest answer: ‘Ok, but I have just spent a month in hospital. I have Bipolar Disorder, and sometimes it flares up badly.’

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Piloting A Jumbo Jet

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The manic symptoms have almost all subsided, probably due to pushing the Lithium dose up. And so far, no signs of Lithium toxicity. I am now waking up every 3-4 hours for more medication instead of every 1-2, which is a huge relief.

So where does that leave me? Fixed? All better? If only it were that simple.

In the first instance it leaves me absolutely exhausted. The energy credit card the manic symptoms racked up with insomnia, over-exercising, not being able to sit still or shut up, and thoughts firing for 23 hours a day, is demanding payment.

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Flying Into The Sun

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Manic exercising on an hour’s sleep

I didn’t have to wait long at all after I last posted for further symptoms to develop. Manic symptoms. Neurological symptoms. Some might argue with the ‘neurological’ description for a mental illness. But when you develop the short-term memory of an advanced stage Alzheimer’s patient, the attention span of a toddler, and irritability so pathological it hurts (feels like you’ve been coated in oil, rolled in sand, rubbed down with a towel, and then someone sprays lemon juice all over you.) virtually overnight, it feels neurological.

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