I’ve thought about how I should write this post for days. Weeks actually.
So, I’m going to keep this post sarcasm and passive-aggressive free and just write the facts. Perhaps writing the facts will help me to also process just how glad I am with the progress I have made on this bipolar journey. Maybe a metaphor as garnish.
Having been diagnosed with bipolar just over five years ago and with world turned upside down the last three years it doesn’t feel that long, but from the perspective of managing my bipolar it feels like a lifetime.
Over the last few months, at least the last three months in particular, something changed. I would wake up and remember the most insane detail from my past: number plates of my Mom and Dad’s car 25 years ago, the brand of PT shirt I wore in grade one or two, and other super arbitrary things like these.
I didn’t really know what to do with all this information. As per, I instead went back to solving other problems that weren’t problems. But I couldn’t escape the memories. They continued to bombard my mind. It took a minute to put together that I was actually cataloging memories, sequentially, chronologically, by theme and by emotion.
Phenomenal. This realization is one I fail to find words to express the feeling. Knowing this I felt I had regained some of the most extraordinary moments of my life.
And also the traumatic ones. Sure, this trauma was replayed and did trigger the anger and resentment I had in those moments and, for the most part, had for several years after them. Thing is though, these events were interspersed with the moments of joy, of happiness and the arbitrariness of life. I’ve said this before, the flood of anger, blame, seemed abate for a while. This time though, the sluice gates were shut off. It was as if I could look at a moment of trauma, acknowledge it, put it in file 13.
These traumas were often a result of my own behavior. I knew that when I started this journey. So with this new found ability to recognize the cause and effect with intense clarity I seem to have learned to let it go. Let. It. Go.
Now I suppose one could ascribe this to some sort of disassociation. Probably, defiantly it is. The breaking down of this disassociation might well be the reason all this is happening. But that’s a boring story.
I’ve another theory though. In fact this was theory from my psychiatrist. The theory is that being treated for bipolar for all these years has actually allowed my mind heal, to process trauma, without the cloud of poor recall and bitter resentment that had pervaded events of trauma, such that I was unable to critically work through these traumas.
We know that long term untreated bipolar disorder results in a progressive worsening of the disorder. Some scientists attribute this to something called neuroplasticity. Essentially (and I am by no means properly informed on this topic) neuroplasticity is the process that the one’s brain forms pathways. I prefer rivers over pathways, so it’s the ability of the brain to change the course of the river.
The rivers are synaptic connections in the brain. The brain’s confluence. But the river can be disrupted though: a flood might happen, upstream drought could collapse the wetland and ecosystem of the abundant confluence.
I, and my psychiatrist, reckon the streams that feed the river of memories of both trauma and happiness had been disrupted. An unusual event caused the flow regime to shift such that the confluence was able to flourish and rejuvenate it’s biodiversity.
What’s the event? I went overseas, as a solo traveler. This was a disruptive event. It was filled with rich cultural experiences, incredible landscapes, the freedom to eject negativity and leave it at home. It also came with some serious challenges. But I survived. I did it despite those challenges, and in some ways appreciate these moments as catalysts to separate the challenge from the joy. Perhaps the challenge became a measure upon which I could set a new bar for happiness.
Anyway, the trip was disruptive. It was 9 countries. It was sleeping in airports for days. It was getting lost on purpose. It was new cultures. It was new languages It was random. It was just doing it. . It was freedom. And it wasn’t home. To be able to embrace the freedom of places where there had not been trauma was immense.
I’m about to use one of the things I hate the most about the suggestions muggles have about “curing” bipolar. I had changed my environment. A change of environment opened a new perspective. The perspective is wide-angle. It’s stretches to the horizon. To the Moon at night. Just to appreciate the moments.
I’ve been able to take that disruptive event and, despite returning to the places of trauma, I’ve continued to grow, to remember and catalogue the memories, to challenge the trauma’s and even offset some of them with the good memories. So, the river continues to flow in the new channel created by a disruption event.
There you have it folks, I’m cured. Ha! No, we know that’s not a thing; but my treatment has surely changed my perspectives on life, alleviated some of the poor decisions and self-destructive behavior that I had five years ago when I started this journey; something I’d lived with all my life.
So yeah, I’m well chuffed. I am taking this opportunity of lucidity to make changes in my life while I have the window to do it.
Wish me luck?
