YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I've been trying to cut back on my drinking lately but what I feared would happen is happening...I'm getting manic. Which is fine in a way because of all the shit I'm getting done but the irritability and tension headaches are coming back. My panic symptoms had abated a little but have been creeping back in. The dizzyness keeps happening.
I've started all these projects and I'm afraid when I crash I won't be able to go through with finishing them. Some of these projects would be huge for me, as in huge in becoming public with my art and my trauma- all in the same go! But I want to do them because I want to help. Basically I want to do an art show that raises money for the rape crisis center where I'm getting free therapy. I feel like I need to give back, more accurately I WANT to give back.
I'm worried about crashing, I'm worried about binge drinking when I hit bottom, I'm worried if this keeps going I'm going to be mean to someone. Today I noticed all this anger bubbling up. I just want to tell everyone off. I'm not like that at all normally. I wanna get punchy, I wanna drive fast, I want to expose all of my abusers publicly and shame them in front of everyone.
Jesus- who the fuck AM i right now?
Well. that's that. ON TO THE NEXT TASK.

Wishing all the best to you, Wren. Please take care. Sending you {{{{hugs}}}}.

Thanks Moe. Well. It's over. S'long hypo-mania. Thanks for the good times.

It's not fair. I've always HATED roller coasters. I woke up this morning just crying and crying. I have good reasons to cry but sometimes it feels like my body just sprung a leak and there it all goes. All the wonderful energy I've had for the last two weeks- GONE. All the drive and desire to do things I Iove and enjoy- GONE.
We always say to someone who's depressed: it will pass. Better days are on their way. With Bipolar sure that's true, but your better days are finite too. You have two identical bodies your brain inhabits and sometimes there's no telling which one you get to wake up in. One morning you wake up and feel GREAT. You accomplish, you're able to socialize, your thoughts make sense, you are witty, you make plans, you set things up, and then...
like a damn house of cards. A gentle wind blows in your sleep one night and when you wake up: poof! You're in the other body now.
This is the body you're used to. This is the crummy body you've inhabited most of your life. You hate this body, it's slow, lethargic, and muddled. The head is musty and dank, it's drafty and the fog rolls in regularly obscuring vision and coating the world in a palette of grey. There's a leak in the plumbing, the facial orifices pour with tears, and spittle, and snot. The joints ache. This body is older than the other. Decades older. This body longs for it's final rest.
But you have to keep loving it, you have to keep it alive because you tell yourself perhaps if you can just hang on long enough you can drag it along until the other one comes back. If you can just keep opening the eyes maybe someday you'll blink and be young and alive again...Like you were before it went away. So much of my life is spent waiting for the other to come back. Sometimes it takes so long...and every time it does, it feels like I might be whole again..like maybe I finally healed. Maybe I can do something with my life.
This too shall pass.
This too shall pass.
That too shall pass.

This carnival ride sucks.

Currently 300mg Lamictal, probably going to 400mg. Also considering Wellbutrin.