My Bipolar Journal - Episode 103

My Bipolar Journal – Episode 103

September 1, 2007

Sometimes I sneeze a hundred times before I even think about it being my allergies and that I should take a pill. I can be miserable, unable to stop the sneezing with tissues stuck up my nose, arms and legs itching and it will not dawn on me, sometimes for days, that I need to take an allergy pill. I take one, and feel better for approximately 24 hours. Then a week later (sometimes more) it dawns on me that I'm at the same place I was a week ago (or more) ago and that I need to take another one.

Headaches aren't the same. If I feel the slightest sensation behind my eyes and nose or at the top of my head I immediately go for 1000 mg of Ibuprofin, no questions asked.

My back or neck hurts and it takes me two maybe three days to realize that taking some Ibuprofin might help taken in regular regiments and usually it does, then I forget about it again until my back or neck hurts again, then the two to three day cycle repeats itself.

So, I'm beginning to wonder if my emotional pain isn't slightly somehow condusive or similar to the way my physical pain is. I haven't got it all figured out yet, but I made a decision a long time ago to not take pills for being crazy or hurt or what not unless it really began to effect other people and I was acting crazy towards them in an unhealthy way for them. I always take something for physical ailments though. Whereas, I'm sure a doctor sitting on a mound of insurance and pharmaceutical commission checks would say, "If you take pills for all of your phycial ailments, why would you not take them for manic depression", I say, maybe I should not take pills for physical pain and misery anymore either. There are moments I can't sleep because I itch so bad, but then there are moments I can't sleep wondering how I'm going to pay the rent that day. There are moments where it hurts to sit down or stand up because my back hurts so bad, but there are moments where it hurts to sit down or stand up because I've lost the will to do so.

So fuck it. I don't know how easy it will be for me to break the cycle of taking pills for physical uncomfortability. I tend to rely on it for a bit longer just like I practiced and took a lot of time and emotional uncomfortability to get myself off of bipolar meds. I found ways to cope though, so I intend to find other ways to cope with this too. I'm not going to beat myself up over taking an allergy pill or ibuprofin every once in a while, but someday I'll feel it's a failure if I go for any one of those bottles ever again.

I'm not saying manic-depression is not physical. It has been scientifically proven that it is, but it is one of the few determined physical conditions that effects your emotions in an uncontrollable way. I'm not saying it's even a bad thing to have. Quite frankly, most days I feel blessed to be able to feel the world the way I do.

Wow. That was not what I was going to blog about at all.