When someone complained to me about the mystifying behavior of people she didn’t like, I would at first try to explain. Eventually, I realized she wasn’t complaining to understand. And I started saying, “You can’t understand crazy unless you are the same kind of crazy.”
She didn’t think she needed her meds, and I trusted her because I had no experience with bipolar people. I didn’t know I was bipolar then. I started studying it to understand her, but I didn’t see it in myself because clinical language fails to capture lived experience.
I could see her manic swings, but not my own. Because I was taking care of her like she was sick, she got happier and I got more stressed and sicker. I explained my adhd characteristics to her, and she took it as me excusing my inexcusable behavior.
I was watching Dr. Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown on youtube with Will Wheaton as her guest, and he mentioned a book I bought but haven’t read yet. And now I can’t find it. Did I mention I have ADHD?
Anyway, the book is for adult children of immature parents. And most of us had immature parents. Especially us firstborns. My eldest certainly had a less mature version of me for his mom. My youngest is benefiting from what I’ve learned from parenting his brother, and from what I’ve learned about myself.
The culture wars sometimes seem to be between parents who hit and humiliate as “discipline,” and parents who believe children deserve respect. Guess which side I fall on? lol
Anyway, i can understand everyone’s crazy, because I have always been crazy myself. I lose control when I’m stressed out, but that’s not PTSD, like I thought it was since I was a teen.
I was always afraid of psychiatric medication, with good reason. Taking the wrong one or the wrong dosage can make you worse, and you have to experiment to find the combination that gives you the greatest benefit with the lowest bad side effects.
My side effects are nausea and weight gain. I’ll take continuing to be fat and random feelings of nausea that pass after a few minutes over having hypomanic and depressive swings every day for the rest of my life.
I missed a dose earlier this month, just fell asleep before taking them. The next morning, I tried to take them, but my stomach revolted. I fell into a depressive episode that only lasted three days, as the meds stayed down that night and every night since. But that episode reminded me how I used to feel all the time. For years, antidepressants would make me hypomanic and I would think they were making me better because I wasn’t drowning in depression anymore.
I had to experience real mania before I suspected myself of being bipolar. And I had to experience a manic episode when my siblings were visiting, driving them away, before I got evaluated for it. Then I finally got on mood stabilizers, changing my life.
When I’m crazy, I think crazy and act crazy and it’s my meat suit, but it’s not the me that’s typing right now. It’s my Hyde. I know I’m getting hypomanic when my Hyde starts ranting in my head. It’s been months. I know it will happen again, but now I accept it instead of fighting myself. I don’t embrace it, exactly. More, accommodate it. Avoid all stress. Distract myself from the ranting intrusive thoughts. Telling everyone I’m hypomanic, so they know I may act out of character, but also to keep it fresh in my mind. If I catch myself getting whiny or irritable, I retreat.
I’m peacefully parenting my inner toddler. I think that’s what my Hyde is. An exhausted, hungry, attention-needing toddler. My family spanked us for being hangry and tired. For making our needs known the only way we could in those moments.
Just because you can’t see a struggle, doesn’t mean it’s not exhausting and breaking someone down.
Just be kind, and if you can’t be kind, just get away.
I don’t want to be mean, or ugly. But sometimes I am. I have to forgive myself, even if no one else does.
I think forgiveness and empathy are tools of emotional maturity. I think we are all less mature in some moments than in others. I believe in giving grace, even if I don’t get it back.
I am more than the sum of my mistakes.
Adventures of an Earthborn Alien 