When I’m stable

I spent a lot of April, and some of May coping with Mania, it was exhausting and I’m thankful I’m now through it, I still struggle with sleep, but the excessive energy started tapering off sometime a week ago, sometimes I move from mania directly into depression, but this time I’ve moved into just feeling….normal. It’s strange to look back at myself. This is the danger of mental illness, when you’re unwell risk taking behaviour increases. I’ve never been a danger to anyone, I am a danger to myself in mania and sometimes I don’t see what I did as dangerous until I’m stable.

Looking back causes a lot of shame and embarrassment, I have to work through my feelings, and the feelings of those I love. Witnessing me in a full episode is often distressing for my family. I apologize, we talk about how to deal with things better the next time. To be clear, they never blame me or shame me, they know it’s an illness. When I I know I’ve stressed them out I need to mend things, my feelings are real, and so are their feelings in response. As many as the challenges are with bipolar and autism, these experiences have helped me to grow up emotionally, it’s taught me to communicate and mend things, it’s caused me to recognize my impact on others. Mental illness is a humbling experience.