The cyclothymia collective

I have had the nicest week. No work at the office, so I have been riding my horse and working on my NaNoWriMo novel re-write. I may have mentioned before that while I wrote compulsively as a teenager, I had never finished a piece of fiction before this. I stopped writing fiction in college and turned to technical writing. NaNoWriMo was great because I had to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. And I did it, with two days to spare.

Never having finished anything before, I have no experience with rewriting a piece of fiction. I had no idea that it could be so engrossing, and so much fun. I just came to the part where the main characters have to part and I got choked up. Silly, but true. And surprising.

A whole new world is opening up for me. I have always been creative. I have made quilts and had photographs published, designed websites, and done other thingsbut none of them has been as exciting as this.

When I was 7 years old my father brought home his Smith-Corona typewriter and I fell in love. I started writing plays and then advanced to longer pieces, some of which I did finish...but when the BP kicked in around 8th grade the writing ceased to be a reasoned activity and became a love-hate-addiction kind of relationship. I was in the habit of writing, but went through periods when I couldn't write, and then doubted everything I had written. And then in college I just gave up. It was just too hard.

Twenty-five years have passed. I've been on Lithium for eight years now. The general bellief is that Lithium will kill your creativity, but I am no so sure about that. In these eight years I have taught myself web design and have created websites for work, charities and hobbies; I have gotten reinvolved in photography and learned a great deal about Photoshop; I have bought a horse and started to learn the complex discipline of dressage, and now...now I am rewriting MY NOVEL.

It may not be a great novel, but it is MY NOVEL. It is something I had given up planning or hoping to do. Having evidence of this thing which for so many years I wanted to do but was unable to do, is thrilling.

I owe it all to being on meds. Maybe other mood stabilizers can do the same for people; Lithium has done this for me. I wanted to write about my experience with it in order to put a positive story about it out there to let people know it can happen. Lithium doesn't mean saying goodbye to creativity.

In a lecture in 2000 at the Manic Depressive Association of Boston (highlights of lecture here "Dr. Frankenberg presented a study of bipolar artists that were asked how their creativity fared now that they were taking lithium. One-third said their creativity was great, one-third noticed no difference, and the remaining one-third thought it had suffered."

I have just been through my first full cycle while on my new anti-depressant. I switched from Zoloft to Zyban after I read that Zyban is a good choice for treating ADHD. Once I became fairly stable, I became aware that even when on an even keel, my mind was always racing. On the forum someone started talking about ADD/ADHD and then I found an online test for it and several of us took it. My forum mates had scores like 24, 34, 42. Mine was 83. Which was the beginning of my suspicions.

Last fall my daughter, who is 15, started commenting on how distracted I was and then I became aware that I was spending almost all of my awake time online or "engaged". I would kind of feel panicky when I couldn't be with my computer. It wasn't an addiction, but I realized that it was not normal or healthy. There were other symptoms (constantly jiggling my leg, for example). I started researching ADD/ADHD in earnest, and what kind of meds I could try as a person with Bipolar. The usual ADD drugs, Straterra and Adderall can sent a person with BP into hypomania. The only drug recommended for people with BP was Wellbutrin (Zyban).

When I had an appointment with my pdoc, I laid out my case. He had been talking about switching my antidepressant anyway, so when I suggested Zyban he said yes. He is not an ADD/ADHD expert. Where I live there are very few of them, and even fewer (like non) specializing in adult ADD. Which is why I did my own research. Because he might have switched me to Zyban anyway, trying it for ADD/ADHD seemed a reasonable move.

SO I've been on Zyban, with Lithium, for two and a half months. This is what I can say: I am able to focus for the first time in my life. I can really see my environment, listen to music, talk to people and be really present. When I am working, I can just sit down and get things done. It's amazing. I have started taking an interest in my appearance (I've always been well groomed; but for a long time I didn't care about fashion, trends. I felt like an outsider looking in).

On the negative side, because I can really focus now, when the dysphoria came along I could really feel it. It was more intense than it ever has been because I could pay attention to it. Before, when I felt like there were always multiple television sets on in my head at the same time, dysphoria was just another television set. There would be a crowding of the ADHD stuff (overbusy mind, distractibility) with the BP stuff (nasty negative emotions). It was always a confusing, disheartening time. So take out the televisions and leave the BP and...woooooah....unpleasant!

Definitely need to go have my blood checked to see what is up with the Lithium. In December it was on the low side. Hopefully, it is still low and upping it to get within therapeutic range will be easy. If not, then I will have to ask for a different mood-stabilizer.

So the Zyban is good for the ADHD, not so good for the BP, but maybe checking my Lithium levels will fix it.

I felt my mood rising this morning and pop into what I think of as its proper place. Cycle complete.

I forgot all about you. Well, not entirely, but I have had no interest in posting. I've gone from the Mixed State of ten days ago to a subdued, but anxious and tired, BLAH. I cling to the present and can't think of the past. The recent past was painful. While I no longer feel shame at having lost control (diagnosis helped this tremendously) I feel it is best not to look back but to concentrate on the present, which I can handle, and a tiny bit of the future.

I am fortunate to have a job that I am able to do (editing) not matter what my state. When I am hypomanic it can be a bit tedious, but when I am like this, it is my life preserver. The mechanical checking of each sentence for accuracy and meaning, and the information enclosed in each one, is calming, and reassuring. After I completed the final draft of the manuscript of an academic journal I have been editing for 8 years and was delivering it to my boss, however, my general level of anxiety turned into a slight and constant feeling of panic...when I had no reason to feel so. My work is solid. My boss (a woman) loves me, we are a good team. It may have been that after having focused intensely to finish the draft, I set off a bit of hypomania, which ramped up the anxiety.

I am also editing the novel I wrote during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This has been interesting on a few different levels. This was my first NaNoWriMo attempt, and I succeeded beyond my wildest expectations. I hadn't written any fiction in about 25 years. I could never finish anything. I credit Lithium entirely for making creativity possible for me. I had no idea how it would go, but it really flowed and I found the 1663 word daily minimum to be easy to reach. I was not clearly hypomanic during that time. I had been planning to write about a cholera epidemic in Istanbul in the 19th century, but a huge pile of work arrived the last week of October and I considered not doing it at all. Then my daughter said, "Write Harry Potter fan fiction!" and that seemed like comforting escapism,so I wrote about the HP world, but set in a school in Istanbul.

So now I am revising. This was fun while I was in a Mixed State-- I think I liked the escapism of it-- but now I feel it's tedious, which is a shame since my characters deserve better.

This is an account of how my attention ebbs and flows with my mood swings. As I said above, Lithium has made it possible for me to do this. Just the fact that I am editing my own work-- I have never been able to do that (besides web writing) because I was never able to finish anything. It is great fun, tweaking the sentences, adding nuance. I now see what writing is, where the craftsmanship comes in. Before, I thought writing was about riding the hypomanic beast, waiting for "inspiration" to guide me. The process was mysterious and...well, I produced nothing. Now it seems I can write when I like, with only small ups and downs. It's very exciting. Editing the manuscript is engrossing, not in the way the writing was, but in the process of fixing holes in logic and trying to give life to the dialogues.

Next year I want to write something all my own. When I tell people I wrote a novel, they go "Oooooh, wonderful!" and when I explain that it is HP fan fiction, the go blank. I'm taking notes on the epidemic (actually my MA thesis was about contagious diseases in the 19th century Ottoman Empire).

So, you see, I am fine, just turned inwards. At this point in the game, maintaining my friendships is very difficult because I don't think of my friends at all, or if I do, it is with anxiety, worrying that I have ignored them for too long, worrying that I am not attentive enough, which makes me feel like throwing in the towel on everything. I feel the same way about blogging.
Right now I am debating whether I should go riding. I agreed with a friend to take our horses out into the hills for a couple of hours today, but I am feeling so indifferent, which shows my state of mind because I LOVE riding outdoors. Maybe the air would do me good. My anti-social impulses never involves animals. Unless it is my Siamese cat trying to climb into my shirt while I am trying to type. We've started leaving the heat off except for the evenings, so she she views me as the next available heating system.

It's Monday. The weekend was horrible. I have been a mass of raw nerves. On Saturday I took my daughter riding and then we went to the fitness club to work out. I really didn't want to. I wanted to go home and take some Xanax and curl up in front of our overlarge TV. Winston Churchill called his depression "The Black Dog." I do not know if it necessarily "black", but it is a dog and it does nip and bite and then settle in to gnaw my bones (my nerves). Instead of dealing with the weights, I took my dog onto the treadmill and upped the speed until I was walking so fast I did not have the energy to be thinking much of anything at all, which brings some measure of relief.

I felt in danger of snapping, or of bursting into tears. I felt incompetent and stupid and overly self-absorbed. I write these things not to attract any pity, but to have a record of them. It is one of the hallmarks of Bipolar Disorder that the depressed individual cannot remember having been happy and the hypomanic person can not imagine ever having been down. This is what the down feels like.

My daughter had plans to stay with a friend that night, and my husband is away on business. As soon as I got home I went for the Xanax, put on my pajamas, baked some cookies in our new oven, and took them along with a big glass of milk in to to watch an old movie. I think it is important to be nice too yourself when down. Getting angry or disappointed in yourself for being down just makes it worse.

On Sunday, more Xanax. I slept until 10:00, very late for me. I napped all afternoon.

Today, Monday, I feel awful. It's like a hangover but not. There isn't that awful post-alcohol feeling, but the non-functionality is there.I feel very fragile. I walked around the neighborhood to get some things and I felt so removed from everything and everyone. I feel like I was on a roller coaster and when the ride ended, I was dumped on the ground unceremoniously.

I feel desperate to have my husband come back from his business trip. Usually I am an unusually independent person, but today, nope. I don't want to do anything, I don't want to see anyone, I want to be invisible and safe. It bothers me that I am such a wimp about him when I am down. It shouldn't bother me-- after all, we have been together twenty years and he 's my best friend...I guesss it makes me feel like the old independent me islost forever.

A big problem I have is that when I was feeling up, I accepted some projects for work that I can't possibly do today. While there is no way for the clients to know that I have done no work for them, and am messing around on the computer, I have the irrational feeling that they know.

Sigh.

I'm in danger with my work, by the way. I just FEEL vulnerable.

On the bright side, when I was zoned out on Xanax yesterday I took myself to the shopping area near our house (by taxi) and bought a pair of jeans and a new bra. I've gained enough weight recently that precious little fits, but I was refusing to buy anything for the new sized me-- so this was very good. I even had lunch in one of the restaurants in the food court. Long nap when I came home.

About the Xanax. It is prescribed to me to be taken "as needed." Usually i don't need it and I don't even think about it. I am in no danger of becoming addicted to it. When I take it when I am not in a horrible mixed state it actually doesn't have much effect on me, but when my mind is racing, BAM, it is so helpful.