Monday, July 7, 2008

Mania vs. Depression

Reciently my partner mentioned that her theropist thinks I like my partners mania's more than her depressions. Hmmm its an interesting thought, hypo mania maybe a little but full blown mania not so much. Personally I enjoy the balanced moments. Depression is terrible, the anger, fear, confusion, helplessness, tears. I definately do not enjoy depression, the commercials are right; depression hurts. But so does mania, for me anyway. My partner is in a state of exticy while experiencing mania, she wants to do things, go shopping, see people, she moves at a super human pace, but she also chases rainbows, spends too much, leaves me behind in her whirlwind. Hypo-mania however I can deal with. To me she is fun, she wants to do things with me, she wants to go camping, she laughs and talks and we have fun together, but I have watched this illness for a while now and I always know that a good hypo-manic phase if not monitored will jump right up into a full blown mania, then I have stuff to worry about... Usually there is a great fall into depression from mania.
Nature seems to be the great devide for my partner, besides a little bit of hypo mania bipolar seems to remain at the city limits anticipating our return from nature. In nature my partner seeks out a place to meditate, she finds a sence of purpose in setting up camp, building fire, cooking, hiking, gathering wood for fires etc... She seems happy there. the call of the loons bring her soul peace. The stars bright at night guide her way to tomorrow. The cleansing water washes away the depression. There are no cars, there is no rush, out in the wilderness it is all about survival, the basics of life, food, water, shelter. There is no interfearance, no pointless quests, no need for stores, wastefull gadgets, its what life is all about. Out in the wilderness you have quality time with your loved ones, you work as a team on a survival project and feel the accomplishment together as a real team. Not the made up ideals of teamwork within an office setting, but real team effort, and when you need to you can take a break, when you are complete you have real down time, you can hop in the lake for a swim, you can take a nap, you can lay in the sun. In the city when you finish work you get in your car, run your erronds, you go home cook the family dinner, do the dishes, clean up, by the time you get any down time it is bed time.
If I had the means I would find a beautiful lake somewhere away with lots of privacy and move there, make life simple again. Refocus on survival and forget about the rat race.









2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi,

I came across your blog and wanted to say hello. My name is Iri Amirav and I am a co-founder at iMedix. iMedix is a website that helps hundreds of thousands of patients every month and we’ve recently decided to form a Support Group for Bipolar patients: http://www.imedix.com/Bipolar

I am looking for leaders who will be interested to start and manage this group with me and thought you might be a good person to speak with about finding patients in need. I would love to speak with you and tell you more about who we are and what we are trying to accomplish.

Please feel free to contact me by email. In addition, you can find me on the iMedix website under the nickname irus.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best,

Iri

irus.imedix@gmail.com

Nancy said...

Thank you for your post. It is interesting to get the perspective of the partner of a bipolar person. I have had bipolar for a while now and I have learned a lot about coping with my highs and lows. A great resource is http://onlineceucredit.com/edu/social-work-ceus-ba. It offers a lot of great ideas about treating bipolar symptoms.