MoonGalSenior Contributor
It Goes Like This
Paris happened. And I spiralled into deep melancholia. Some desperate and tenuous thing in me has me plugged into the world's harm and hate. I am a canary in the coalmine. I fall, and fall and spiral down in the maelstrom of the world's brotherhood of hatred, and land not gently in the fire-pit they create. Then, moments later it becomes unseen to me that the conditions that caused my anxiety, fear and worry for others took me there. Maybe my brain gets flooded with those bio-chemicals, throws the switches where seeing my 'state' becomes hard. But I DID, this time I did see my state, on and off through the past fortnight, I was outside of it while living inside of it too. I had insight into my condition. Melancholic, and terrorised, feeling useless to help. Somehow, I identify with the victims of every atrocity, it is in my DNA - laid down by the experiences of childhood.
So two weeks of the deep humming unhappiness and fear, two weeks, of the brain take-over. I do not constantly 'think' about these terrible things, just the initial event is enought to tip me over the edge. Then topping up with the News everynight keeps me there. But I feel as a person with empathy that I want to know what is happeneing to others-in-the-world, but the news is perhaps, driving me litterally crazy...
Then once there I struggle in the quicksand, every mental-struggle driving me deeper, and deeper.
But this time, I saw it, I was able to witness it, sit outside myself a bit (from time to time) and see myself in it. I was articulating to others that "I am in a state of depression" that I was feeling confused, losing words, having difficulty concentrating, in a fog, my physical pain rachetting sky-high. This is a first for me. Having insight like this while IN IT. There is (still) a me in here who is not all my mental illness, who can observe. She is not strong yet, has not had a lot of practice - but she did it. (I have been practicing naming and articulating the experience of any given state in hindsight, and this is probably what brought me to the intersect of being able to see it while I was in it.)
Yesterday at 8.30 ish I was having my second coffee. Sitting fogged, struggling to think, glum, a slight rocking motion happening and I hear the voice (not another 'voice) but a clear thought reverberated through my brain on its own, my gnarly critic - What's the point, you are a waste of space." - I (me in here, the clear, shiney, lovely one) heard it and said back "Oh! That's not helpful, that's harmful" and I went on to do other things on my computer and with a bit of housework, not thinking much about anything. Just being for a little while.
Suddenly, at about half past ten, I was aware that I felt better, not manic-better, just gentle happy, lighter, my brain was working again. I could hear the birds singing. I was so close to seeing and experiencing the transistion from one state to the other in this Bi-polar life. And it is without a doubt taught me clearly - everything passes, this state, that state, this thought, that thought. I hope to remember that every day no matter what the internal weather is doing. I have been weighing myself down with the permanent and all pervasive enduring of "its always bad". It's not, it's not always, ALL WAYS bad, it is sometimes, light and healthy.
Sometimes, a lot of the time, I am in a state, desperate, lonely, hurting, despairing - and if i really reflect on it I can tail spin myself down to the quicksand again, so i do try to watch my thinking. It's not all just what I am thinking though, there is this broken brain thing, but I really want to live the best i can with it, and if getting up after a big fall down, faster and more fully, is possible by grasping my thinking-nettles and moving on, letting go. Then I hope to do more of that. It's good to have hope, when I can.
I let go of that harmful/unhelpful thought, and it passed. That is hopeful.
Everything pases, everthing is temprary and transient, even me and my conditions.
In the past few months, have stopped trying to 'heal', stopped my desperate search for the holy grail of 'cure' and am accepting, it is just like this. Just like this. Go with the flow, let go as soon as I see I have my fists clenched. I think I am coming to Acceptance. Just go with the flow and try to stay present as best I can.
So, today I see that... everything does pass, as will this feeling better, also pass, it all passes. every feeling, every thought, let 'em go - good or bad. I remind myself - Just go with the flow, MoonGal, make like the tides. 
