For some context, longtime readers will know this already: I have Bipolar I. I’m pretty heavily medicated for it, and it makes it totally manageable, save for some up-and-down swings of depression and hypomania. That might sound scary to the uninitiated, but it’s really just being happier and more social and then swinging to slight depression and social isolation. I was diagnosed after an episode of psychosis in grad school where I thought ghosts were haunting my apartment and tried to expunge them with a seance.
To the story at hand, I recently changed medication and went from one higher antipsychotic to another. Normally, this isn’t an issue, but I had been traveling internationally for work and not sleeping well, and it might have triggered an episode of psychosis. You might be wondering, “How are you not sure?” I’m not sure because I dissociate during my episodes when they get to their peaks, to the point that I literally black out parts of my memory. It’s a trauma response from my childhood in which I have large gaps of time where I have no recollection of my actions, my parents’ actions, or even mundane things like school/hockey. Well, you can probably guess this: I don’t remember anything from the past three weeks.
I’m super grateful and overjoyed that I didn’t fuck up my work and apparently kept it on the up and up and was actually more productive. That’s pretty common, which makes me feel a bit better. The bigger problem is I have no fucking clue who I was writing about in these recent posts, like actually no idea. I woke up pretty lucid on Sunday and coming down from the psychosis, thank god, but when I read what I’ve been writing, I flipped. The chapters of Eulogy were something I meant to start on, but then I started reading more of the writing, and I got to the posts about this woman who apparently was not about it, and I was so embarrassed. I don’t know what I did, said, or what I was thinking, and at some point I deleted all of our texts, correspondence, emails, whatever I was using to communicate with her. I don’t even know how I met this girl. It’s like a giant black hole, and I was embarrassed for whatever I did that turned her off, but also for how I made her feel if I did do something.
This is the worst thing that’s happened with my mental health in literal years. I have no way to contact her to even apologize or ask what I was doing or said. That might be the biggest problem: I could have really hurt her emotionally, and I have no way to know who she is or how to apologize. I like to think I’m a good person who really respects people and is kind, but holy fuck, what did I do?!
Whoever you are, if you ever somehow find this I don’t want to imply you should ever contact me or feel pressured so I can alleviate myself of guilt I just want you to know I’m really sorry. I don’t know who you are, I don’t think I ever will, or at least not lucid me, but I’ll say it again: I can’t apologize enough. I hope you have a great life and honestly forget about me entirely because I don’t want that version of me to be who people know. No more changing meds and doing international travel at the same time. This can’t happen again.
Cheers, guys, and happy Ukraine Day! I’m going to get some borsch and deruny and try and feel less embarrassed.
Edit:
Why was I so obsessed with my with my eyes? It’s cool that they’re gray and I took some pretty good pictures. I got a call from the ophthalmologist this morning to schedule surgery and I went along with it. I guess I have to have another surgery from my pds? It’s not for a few months and I was thankfully really good about still taking my eye drops over that time period, and apparently my bipolar meds too lol. I’m still in shock how bad this has been. Here’s a cool eye picture I took.