More thoughts...
Yesterday's extra-long day hit me hard; I'm headachy and groggy and heavily medicated and mostly incoherent at the moment, so we'll see how this goes. That's one of the trickier things about the intersecting waveforms of the fibro and the bipolar -- hypomanias often lead to flares due to sleep disruption.
One of the biggest characteristics of a hypomania for me is often in regards to expressivity (clinically known as pressured speech: the ideas and associations are arriving thick and fast and if you're expressing them by talking to someone, the speech tends to be faster than usual, the idea content more dense, the apparent digressions more abundant and noticeable.)
Although I certainly do this verbally with people in my life, LJ is a great outlet to keep me from driving them around the bend by needing them to hear everything I have to say at any given moment. However, as ideas pop into my head I can't set them aside until I get them "out" in some way. If I don't have time to come write something right then, I send myself little notes on my blackberry for later expansion. I tend to especially need to do this when I'm trying to lie down to sleep; if I don't "get it out", I can't go to sleep. I do the same thing with making practical lists; I have to get it written down somehow or my brain won't let go of reciting and looping around whatever I'm thinking about.
Here's the collection of notes I sent myself last night (mostly) and this morning (a few):
Hyperrationality, medicalization, contextualization of strengths and weaknesses
Must acknowledge everything about myself before others
Hate feeling like other people see me more clearly than I do
What would I do if my bipolar and fibro went away tomorrow? How scary would it be, what would I lose in the change?
Problems with drive and willpower, problems changing habits, downside of ocd traits.
Don't really know if I can imagine what 'normal' would be like
Tend to look at many disorders in spectrum view, very subjective nature of problem vs trait or advantage/skill.
_____
So far, this has been the classiest damn revolution I've ever seen.
_____
Fibro as overreaction to stimulus
Situational triggers for bipolar
Conceptualizations and metaphors for illness as a well-educated layperson, trying to modifying personal idiosynchratic understanding to keep roughly in line with current research
Hating being a patient, protection of personal independence and power
Family history as part of conceptualization
New genetic and medical info supporting spectrum view
Diversity vs disorder
Skepticism and experiments on self knowing likelihood of placebo effect, etc.
______
Dealing with medical institutions as gatekeepers
______
How my political views influence my sense of entitlement and how I handle illness, and my stress/guilt about that. Laziness vs different priorities and solutions
______
Why making generally strong arguments means I can trust them even less. Priorities vs failure. Failure to try change in various ways. Comfort vs rut. Self-comparison to more educated/successful college classmates
______
As long as I keep fucking up in ways that require bailing out, others have right to legitimate beef with my decisions. Limits my autonomy.
______
Along with situational triggers, many things only start helping at the right time, but then they can help a great deal (sex, social activity, etc)
______
How I handle hypersexuality in an ethical and responsible manner
______
Oh, and as long as I'm putting these here, here are some others from the past that I never got around to:
cross-species relationships, pets, trust, mitochondria, gut bacteria, symbiosis, domesticity, evolution, paedomorphic primate, domesticated primate
______
Talk about relationship between topics I've been nervous about posting -- dieting (greta and hanne), bdsm 24/7 (heather corinna), breast-feeding, etc
Talking about social pressures and patterns vs individual judgments and presumptions of knowledge.
______
West wing: love glenn close episode. Had goosebumps. Jen going to law school wonderful thing for me.
______
While crying at the unexpected death of a dog I never met...
Watching people's lives intimately from a distance. Balance for the artificial structures of fiction that create our expections of pattern and predictability
______
There's also a whole long "Post in progress -- Fat, Sex, and Activism"
______
conditioning, comfort, familiarity, neurochemistry, people, relationships, places, chairs, etc
Not bothered by travel, but is it because I'm familiar w/how?
Confrontation, bullying, Type A/B, depressive realist personality, schoolyard, Mom convo, broad definition of bullying, government bullying, poly/relationship boundaries, autonomy, challenge, not wanting to be in charge (really true? Groups, etc or laziness?). Don't poke the bear, trouble winding down, poor impulse control, even though it's rare for me to get wound up, BDSM dynamics, temper.
______
Oh, and from just the other day:
I tend toward definitions that err on the side of inclusiveness
Intimate personal activism something I learned from feminism and especially queerness (out as political)
Oddly, I'd say evangelism is a form of activism. Weird that I have such a squick about it.
______
Anyone have a preference on where I start on these?
One of the biggest characteristics of a hypomania for me is often in regards to expressivity (clinically known as pressured speech: the ideas and associations are arriving thick and fast and if you're expressing them by talking to someone, the speech tends to be faster than usual, the idea content more dense, the apparent digressions more abundant and noticeable.)
Although I certainly do this verbally with people in my life, LJ is a great outlet to keep me from driving them around the bend by needing them to hear everything I have to say at any given moment. However, as ideas pop into my head I can't set them aside until I get them "out" in some way. If I don't have time to come write something right then, I send myself little notes on my blackberry for later expansion. I tend to especially need to do this when I'm trying to lie down to sleep; if I don't "get it out", I can't go to sleep. I do the same thing with making practical lists; I have to get it written down somehow or my brain won't let go of reciting and looping around whatever I'm thinking about.
Here's the collection of notes I sent myself last night (mostly) and this morning (a few):
Hyperrationality, medicalization, contextualization of strengths and weaknesses
Must acknowledge everything about myself before others
Hate feeling like other people see me more clearly than I do
What would I do if my bipolar and fibro went away tomorrow? How scary would it be, what would I lose in the change?
Problems with drive and willpower, problems changing habits, downside of ocd traits.
Don't really know if I can imagine what 'normal' would be like
Tend to look at many disorders in spectrum view, very subjective nature of problem vs trait or advantage/skill.
_____
So far, this has been the classiest damn revolution I've ever seen.
_____
Fibro as overreaction to stimulus
Situational triggers for bipolar
Conceptualizations and metaphors for illness as a well-educated layperson, trying to modifying personal idiosynchratic understanding to keep roughly in line with current research
Hating being a patient, protection of personal independence and power
Family history as part of conceptualization
New genetic and medical info supporting spectrum view
Diversity vs disorder
Skepticism and experiments on self knowing likelihood of placebo effect, etc.
______
Dealing with medical institutions as gatekeepers
______
How my political views influence my sense of entitlement and how I handle illness, and my stress/guilt about that. Laziness vs different priorities and solutions
______
Why making generally strong arguments means I can trust them even less. Priorities vs failure. Failure to try change in various ways. Comfort vs rut. Self-comparison to more educated/successful college classmates
______
As long as I keep fucking up in ways that require bailing out, others have right to legitimate beef with my decisions. Limits my autonomy.
______
Along with situational triggers, many things only start helping at the right time, but then they can help a great deal (sex, social activity, etc)
______
How I handle hypersexuality in an ethical and responsible manner
______
Oh, and as long as I'm putting these here, here are some others from the past that I never got around to:
cross-species relationships, pets, trust, mitochondria, gut bacteria, symbiosis, domesticity, evolution, paedomorphic primate, domesticated primate
______
Talk about relationship between topics I've been nervous about posting -- dieting (greta and hanne), bdsm 24/7 (heather corinna), breast-feeding, etc
Talking about social pressures and patterns vs individual judgments and presumptions of knowledge.
______
West wing: love glenn close episode. Had goosebumps. Jen going to law school wonderful thing for me.
______
While crying at the unexpected death of a dog I never met...
Watching people's lives intimately from a distance. Balance for the artificial structures of fiction that create our expections of pattern and predictability
______
There's also a whole long "Post in progress -- Fat, Sex, and Activism"
______
conditioning, comfort, familiarity, neurochemistry, people, relationships, places, chairs, etc
Not bothered by travel, but is it because I'm familiar w/how?
Confrontation, bullying, Type A/B, depressive realist personality, schoolyard, Mom convo, broad definition of bullying, government bullying, poly/relationship boundaries, autonomy, challenge, not wanting to be in charge (really true? Groups, etc or laziness?). Don't poke the bear, trouble winding down, poor impulse control, even though it's rare for me to get wound up, BDSM dynamics, temper.
______
Oh, and from just the other day:
I tend toward definitions that err on the side of inclusiveness
Intimate personal activism something I learned from feminism and especially queerness (out as political)
Oddly, I'd say evangelism is a form of activism. Weird that I have such a squick about it.
______
Anyone have a preference on where I start on these?