Unfortunately Not a Real Pony

Oh shit, it's my spring mania combined with the general stress of EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE making me such a rage machine.

"Within the bipolar disorder group, a seasonal pattern appears more likely in bipolar II than bipolar I."

Oh heck yeah, I'm a statistical anomaly! My parents would be so proud!

It's all yucky and rainy and my brain is trying to go into depressive mode.

Oh god, it's been almost 24 hours since I ate a proper meal, and 12 since I ate anything at all.

In a better country, this would be the point where I'd call a social worker or something to cook me something simple, research what to do next, and tell me it's going to be okay.

Obviously no rule is absolute and every person is unique, but I've noticed that people who have been mentally ill since childhood often have a different relationship to their illnesses than those who developed them as adults.

I developed bipolar by age five, meaning that I literally don't have any memories of having "normal" emotions. Bipolar has been part of my identity for as long as I've had one, so I integrated it into my life and learned to adapt. Honestly, if you went back in time and prevented me from developing it, you would end up with a totally different person today - a happier one, sure, but ultimately not me. None of the people I know who developed bipolar as adults feel this way; nor, for that matter, do I feel like this about the psychosis I developed in my early twenties. (On the other hand, if I could make some quick genetic edits that would prevent my kids from developing mood disorders and do nothing else, I would.)

My mother insists that, up until I "suddenly" became suicidal at age fourteen, I was a perfectly "normal" kid.

I'm kind of wondering what my older siblings were like in their early years, because most of my childhood was spent either crying or enacting violence on unsuspecting people and things.

Oh, right, the vernal equinox was a couple of weeks ago, this is probably my "getting better from depression" time.

I would like to know what it's like to not have a major neurochemical disability. It sounds so nice, being generally okay most of the time.

I feel like a human being again.

A very lazy and mildly depressed human being.

My mother at one point decided that the reason I was depressed was because I wasn't getting enough tryptophan. The solution? Feed me more of her disgustingly cooked meat!

I'm currently trying to retrain myself to not take four hour naps in the middle of the day. As long as I'm doing something interesting, it works fine. Except that depression means that things don't seem particularly interesting.