Irritable Shift to Mania

Twenty days ago I had this stifling feeling in my gut. I twitched my nose at sounds and audibly groaned at things that never really bothered me. My skin prickled at my students laughing and poking fun at each other. I just wanted to yell at them to shut the hell up, but I didn’t.

I went to bed feeling these feelings down to my core. I woke up with these black tendrils encircled around my heart. It was disgust I was feeling. I couldn’t shake it. I was irritable. I am hardly ever irritable. I’m a cheery, rosy person. Rainbows and unicorns. My students want to hug me. The sound of my own breathing was grating on my nerves, let alone the gibbering of children.

This irritation continued for a few days and gave flight to mania. It started with a bit of hypomania but moved to a full-on mania.

I was functioning. I was sleeping without sleep meds six hours a night. I wasn’t convinced it was mania quite yet. Then came the loud music, drug use, drinking, hypersexuality, spending, and hyper verbalness. Oh let’s add theft to this round as well.

The hypomania was obviously in play prior to the irritability. I just didn’t quite see the symptoms. I spent $500 at SHIEN on lingerie. I’ve been sending provocative photos to people, so risky behavior.

I was feeling really up so I thought some marijuana would help. NOPE! All it did was make me eat an endless dream supply of pizza that kept appearing in the kitchen. Every time I went into the kitchen, new pizza was there. It was amazing. It did not make me come out of my manic high. If anything, it added to it.

I never really liked getting high, but always looks like so much fun. It’s just not for me.

Next, I went to the pharmacy to pick up some meds. I was browsing the lipsticks. I chose several. I held onto them and went to the window to pay for them and pick up my script. I paid for my script but did not charge me for the lipstick. I didn’t correct them, just walked out of the store. Didn’t feel bad then, but do now.

I stopped drinking three years ago because I thought it interfered with my meds causing depression. I took a chance and had a drink with no ill effect, which led to several other drinks over the next couple of days and weekends. Cherry limeade vodka and lemonade. YUM!

Hypersexuality speaks for itself. I discovered PornHub. Had a blast. But I also had a Netflix and chill night. A few nights were spent fooling around with the guy I’ve been kinda seeing. He’s always fun, just not super serious, and he still hasn’t taken his trich meds.

So I realized this episode was getting bad when I was at school and lost time. One class was in there and then another class was and it was different students. Trippy. I tried to imagine what Michelle, my Brain, would tell me to do. I know she would tell me, “Pinky, you know what you got to do. Take care of yourself. This will be here when you get back.” I listened and took the rest of the week off.

I had an appointment with my doctor that night. It was very clear to both of us that I was manic. I could smell colors and everything was vivid and shiny. We dosed up the resperidal.

It had an immediate effect. I dropped out of the stratosphere to a hummingbird buzzing to get nectar. I was still manic, more so hypomanic. But I kept the course. I stayed off work for the week vegged out sleeping all day.

When Sunday came around, I felt well. I figured Monday would be a good day to start back. I had a meeting Monday morning. I went to school, and held my meeting but barely held it together. I was cracking at the seams. I had dropped too low. I was depressed and couldn’t function. Uncontrollable crying and unsure of what to do. I made a plan to go home for the week. Thanks to the support of my school, I was able to do that. My special ed team is amazing and really took care of me.

I rode the wave the rest of the day. The gloom followed me into the next day but I dosed down and by the end of the day I was feeling better.

I’m still having some hypomanic behaviors. Shopping. Loud music. Attention seeking. Drinking. But it seems to have slowed down.

I think I’m leveling out and finding my zero level again on the scale.