Highs and Lows.

I remember, during my last therapy session, my counsellor reading out what I had said to her in my very first appointment, just 4 months earlier. I was shocked. I knew the words she read were mine but I didn’t recognise them, I was completely detached. I knew I had said them, but it wasn’t the same ‘me’. It’s like I had a mental block stopping me, protecting me, from remembering the lows I had been dealing with.

When I’m feeling good, I can’t remember the bad. I can’t think about it. I can’t put myself back in that mindset. If someone asks me about the lows, I brush over the details because I can’t put myself there again. It feels as though it was a different person experiencing it. I’ve spoken to others with similar mental health problems and it seems to be something a few of us experience.

It’s like the periods of highs block out any negativity and only allow me to access the happy thoughts, creating more happy thoughts and so on. Then the low periods lock those away so I only have more lows, and then lower lows and then lower, lower lows until I’m actively suicidal. I’m being very careful here not to use the word depressive, because I don’t believe I have depression. I am not depressed. I describe it as being emotionally overwhelmed. But that’s a whole different blog post.

This emotional amnesia I experience is something that makes working through things incredibly difficult when I can’t reflect and see the changes in myself. I have had these ups and downs for half of my life now, and until I heard my words read back to me, I had no idea how detached both parts of my life were. I realise it seems as though I’m beginning to describe Multiple Personality Disorder, but I’m not meaning to. I’m pretty sure it isn’t that, I’m just struggling to describe and explain the way it feels. I know 100% that it is me the entire time, it just feels like I’ve forgotten parts of me. And as someone who I doesn’t know who they are at the best of times it’s incredibly difficult. When I’m high I don’t feel like I ‘belong’ with people suffering from depression, and when I’m low, I don’t belong with people who are happy. Where do I belong?

Even now, I’m finding writing this hard. Because I can’t reflect on feeling low at the moment. My mind won’t allow me to relive it. I guess it’s like my mind is protecting itself, it’s kinda cute actually. 

I’m sorry if this has been a ramble. I have so many thoughts I’ve drifted off to while writing this and I can’t concentrate for long enough to make it better! Hypomania can be frustrating in this sense, but ultimately these highs are what I live for.

N.B: just to be clear when I say high, I mean elevated mood, lots of thoughts, plans and ideas, a happy and positive outlook on life. (Hypo)mania, not drugs.