Maybe Mini Hypomania

I haven’t been around people other than my children since March 13th. We’ve been on the lock down in Las Vegas since around that time due to the coronavirus.

I generally use other people as my emotional barometer. I can gauge how I am feeling based on their reactions to my speech, my twitching and my mannerism. On a daily basis at school, I check in with people. They see how I am put together. Did I wash my hair? Is it brushed and down or unwashed and put up? Are my clothes smelly or am I wearing the same clothes?

While in lock down, I have no one to keep tabs on me. I have a few friends that have checked on me. One friend that does almost daily. Thanks, Flower. But even then, people are not seeing me physically so I can hide my quirks. Most people are not wearing real clothes, so I’m not out of the norm there. I am however wearing the same pajamas for a week straight.

For many reasons, I only shower once a week. I have reactions to hot water and break out in hives. Sometimes if I take extra meds, I can prevent this, put its hit or miss. During a bad depression, I fell into bad habits of not brushing my teeth. I now find showing and brushing my teeth a chore. I know I need to do both of these things, but they are not on my priority of needed things to do. Now in isolation, I put off doing it even more. When I find that I smell myself, I know I need to shower. I try to set alarms to shower and brush my teeth. I know it doesn’t make sense, most people who are depressed have these issues but they are issues manic or depressed for me. Being without people has caused me to have even poorer hygiene.

The first week we locked down I went slightly manic, I adjusted my meds and simmered down. I’m in a strange hypomanic mood now. I can tell I’m manicky because I cannot focus on anything. I’m like Doug on Up. “Squirrel!” I’ve got an attention span of about 10 minutes. It’s very difficult to get anything real accomplished. I get lots of nothing real accomplished. I have been trying to watch a movie for the past two days and I get distracted.

For the most part, I’m sleeping. With the exception of book night, I’m sleeping through the night. I’m having vivid dreams but I can’t remember any of them. I remembered something last night about spices in Colorado.

My brain is buzzing and I’m sad I can’t focus on reading or watching movies. The up side to the mania is the hyper focused parts that happen. I am hyper focused on the book website. I was focused on learning Navajo but I think my focused has shifted. I can’t control it. Maybe my next focus will be baking gingerbread houses for competitions.

I know I need people. I know I need to shower. I know I need to brush my teeth. At least I’m taking my meds and following my protocols. I just need to wait out my time until I can be with people again.