I woke up this morning in such a funk. I mean, I just felt not right, not right at all. It's not that often that it's as bad as this morning, but this sensation was not out of the question for my psychic makeup. In my manic depression (yes, I know that you kids call it "bipolar" these days, but when I was diagnosed — way before I was known to have schizophrenia — they called it manic depression), this was definitely the depressive part of the cycle. I felt like crap. When one is depressed, one is low on seratonin, the "feel good" chemical in the human nervous system, and I could sense that something like this was going on, having had so much past experience in experimenting with my body chemistry. I fell back on what I could; not on psychological gibber-jabber, which is what you might think would be logical, but to ride it out like one does a bad acid trip. That, I remembered how to do. Get yourself busy in something, don't think about thinking, and hold on — let time bring you down.
It's funny. When I'm manic, I do something similar: I treat it like a high. Ride it for what it's worth, not taking things too seriously, and just try not to do anything stupid. Interesting that the habits are that deep grained into me, the metaphor of drugs. But anyway, this morning, as I was teaching my second class (I teach English here in Seoul, remember), I started to feel better. It was definitely good being around people, being active, not sitting alone somewhere huddled in a corner feeling miserable. This made me think of how much psychology does really affect us, how even these serious chemical imbalances we go through can have purely mental cures. But I think it must be hard, when you're playing by those rules. This morning, I put my condition in terms that I know how to deal with, and I got lucky, I think. I feel sorry for those people whose job it is to find such metaphors for other people, whose skins they are not in, hoping that they hit on the right thing: like cracking a safe with mittens on.
daryl
4:05pm thursday, 20th may
dude I know what you mean. I have those days quite often. I suppose im manic also.... at least hypomanic. i have to say that ive been quietly watching this page for 2 years or so. It has a significant value for me. ive been through some of those things myself. you know-----insanity and all. thought it would be cool to get lost when i was young. then after so much time passes it just becomes a nuisence(sp). damn you saturn-lol
daryl