Cyclothymia

I knew I was already diagnosed with a mood disorder as a very young child, but I always thought it was dysthymia. Recently I had a conversation with my dad where it came to light that what I was diagnosed with at age 6 was cyclothymia. When I was a teenager I felt like I might have bipolar, and people in my family did too. I researched it extensively and talked to my dad (diagnosed bipolar) about it. Since my assumption that it was dysthymia, I had retired the notion. After all, I didn't ever really have highs and lows, mania, or severe depression.

I have been on mood stabilizers for six years.

I feel stupid now saying it out loud, but it is possible that being on Risperidone since I was 17 has minimized my bipolar symptoms to that I didn't think I had any, so I disregarded the possibility of being bipolar. I have tried self-discontinuing or self-lowering the meds a few times and none of them ended well. My depression and mood swings do become severe. On the meds, my depression is kind of like dysthymia -- I feel low sometimes, there's a constant background hum of malaise, I have self-doubts. Like an overcast sky. Off the meds, or even just on a lower dose, my brain becomes the Torment Nexus. Overcast sky turns into a hurricane. I self-harm, agonize, fall deep into violent self-loathing, spiral, spiral, spiral, until I end up climbing up on the railing of a bridge at 12 am.

I would say I'm not sure how I survived 17 years like that, but a) I'm sure my natural off-meds state has worsened while I've been enjoying the benefits of blissful ignorance, and b) I literally tried and failed to kill myself multiple times from ages 14 to 17.

Things to talk about with a psychiatrist if they exist in this town. (After multiple times trying to get a referral and being ignored, I'm starting a conspiracy that the hospital here does not have resident psychiatrists and just hopes no one will notice.)

Song: New Day

I've decided to do a potentially infinite series of posts on specific songs, how I feel about them, what they mean to me, analyzing them, etc. For ones like this, these are songs I relate to regarding some aspect of my identity -- specifically, for New Day, adhd. I have two long playlists of songs I associate with my neurodivergence. (One for mental illness and one for adhd/autism.) I figured it'd be the best song to start with because it's the most obvious, most blatantly actually about the thing I associate it with.

New Day Spotify link

The songwriter, Penny Parker, has stated she does have adhd, so I don't know how this song could be about anything else. When I first heard it, I imagined it being about a time loop. "One glance at the TV / again it's the evening / a sick kind of replay / better luck on a new day." And I think time loops are a pretty good metaphor for adhd. It feels like one. Every day, you wake up with the intent to get these things done, and every day you wake up with things exactly how they were last night. She talks about boxes stacked in the dining room -- having just moved in, I presume, and every day she intends to unpack and fully move into her new home, but every morning when she wakes up those same boxes sit there unopened. I think the situation of moving in is perfect for this feeling above anything. What is more appropriate to explain executive dysfunction than being unable to unpack and move in? -- unable to really settle into this place, and feel like you're home. You'll always be restless and feeling like you aren't home. You're just a visitor. Nothing is permanent.

"I felt the most alive / Last I was strained / Out of my mind" and "I'm just a little in the weeds here / It dulls when I am on the move." Banality is the death of executive function. It is so much easier to snap into a proactive mindset when the need is dire. Stress is your motivator, but it shouldn't be. It's not healthy to choose stress, put so much strain on your mind and body all the time just to be able to do the laundry or engage in your hobbies. But your mind seems to go numb when there's nothing to do but watch TV.

"Standing in fog severe / Throughout the year" is the most obvious adhd line. Brain fog is torture. It drains you of all life. And to have it as a symptom of adhd, which isn't something that ever goes away, to have to work through brain fog 365 days a year, it starts to wear down your ability to do anything, motivate yourself, be productive. That's not even factoring in executive dysfunction, which is a whole different psychological phenomenon that's also part of adhd. Though both stem from a starvation of dopamine in the frontal lobe.

Eh... I don't feel like writing a conclusion. I'll do it later.

Following behind

Tonight, walking home from getting some snacks, I was listening to Welcome to Night Vale and V'vohu appeared. It was behind me, following at an even pace. The fact that it chose to be directly behind me made me nervous. I guess I still haven't gotten over the time the other night. I don't know why -- nothing was different about that time. It was simply a delayed realization. But since then I haven't been as blasély comfortable with it as I always have been. And it choosing to follow me from behind freaked me out I guess.

But then something shifted... I steadily felt more at ease. I realized something else. A kind of counterpoint to the other night's realization, if you will.

Other things come out at night too, not just V'vohu. I can feel them at the margins of my perception. But they wouldn't dare fuck with me with a sheyd clinging to my soul like that. V'vohu following me in the darkness was like an escort mission in a video game. It was my protector.

When we got home it settled in the living room and just kind of... was there. We hung out? It was strange. Normally when V'vohu is present, it is Present. There is something profound happening. It laid down in the living room and pointed its head away from me. It was looking at a sign that Naruto had knocked on the floor. Looking intently. Like it owned the message.

"Hell is made up."