PEANUT BUTTER MOOD
5.2.07
I have been sitting here for the last hour trying to figure out how best to describe my mood. I've decided that it's kind of like peanut butter. Now, I rather like peanut butter, and it would be nice to be feeling creamy or crunchy like Skippy or Peter Pan or Jiffy (or whatever it's called), but the mood I'm in is nothing like the images these brands evoke. I feel heavy and trapped and stuck and it is difficult to think clearly. Today is the kind of day when my brain won't get going, when my body is slow moving, my energy low and my perspective on the smearing side. I want to tell people to stop smiling, to STFU, and to put a post-it on my door that says: Out of Order.
I'm not sure what to do except, well, just accept that I'm stuck in this peanut butter. Part of me knows that I will manage to get through, but as I sit here in my office, staring at the screen, watching the time pass and the students cycle by, the other part of me wonders how I'll manage the next 12 hours. And how long this mood will last. It could be worse, I suppose. I'm not contemplating jumping off the building's roof, or sending out an email to the whole department about how to change the world.
When I dropped off my son, O, at school today, it was raining and the sky was grey. He looked up at me with his big, 5-year old, brown eyes and said, "Mommy. I just really don't want to be here today. I don't do very well when it rains." I looked at him straight in the eyes and said, "Yeah, me too." I gave him a big squeeze and reassured him that I would be back soon, but my god, did I want to scoop him up and just run. I wanted us to get away from our peanut butter routines and realities.
Sometimes when I feel like this, I think of the Little Engine That Could, and I push on. Since my diagnosis, I have learned to cope by lowering my expectations whenever days like this come along. Sometimes I try to figure out the trigger; other times, I just say, whatever. I tell myself that it's okay not to answer every email, to do 2 things instead of 3, or maybe just one, or maybe none. I tell myself, it's okay. I will always have days like this, and they shall pass. And then, I tell myself, everyone feels this way every now and then. Everyone must have days when they feel like peanut butter: It's both normal and it's bipolar.
I think I will go home early and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch today, just like my son is having. If you can't beat it, eat it.
Labels: acceptance, coping, mood shift, peanut butter
posted by Polarimbi @ 9:50 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
Peanut butter is so full of protein, the more time you spend in it the more energy you're building for your climb out.
will i look at pb the same way now? unlikely
will i return to read your thoughts on coping, when the need arises? likely
~t~
I like the way you said that since your diagnosis, you lower your expectations on bad days. I have been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, and I usually have more peanut butter days than sending out email to everybody about how to change the world.
Nonetheless, the journey is still pretty roller coaster-like.
I'll remember to lower MY expectations on those days.... I think it will help me tremendously.
Thank you
Polar B.
Well you know one of the biggest problems in my life is that when i don't feel like doing something i don't. so if i don't feel like going to work/school i don't. As mentioned before in my blog i do not take anything that seriously and that includes my career/school etc etc. I find working and consuming and living part of this capitalist system very absurd. So on a day like yours i would have definetly sent out an email on how to change the world, left work, picked my kid up from school and had a fantastic time at the beach. I think lifestyles that require this consistency can be very hard for bipolar and further accentuate "our" pain. You prob wouldn't have felt like peanut butter at the end of the day had you followed your impulse. But every person makes their choices on how to live with this condition, and i guess i've chosen to have lifestyle that suits my moods, rather than trying to have my moods suit a lifestyle.
so how did you feel when you got home? better perhaps after the pbj? i hope so. in dbt, they say you can change your emotion with an opposite action. so instead of doing nothing and moping, do the opposite action. i hope blogging about your mood helped you to feel better and maybe you didn't continue to ruminate on your mood. i am really good at not doing anything to make myself feel better. but i know that emotions don't last forever, although sometimes they feel like they will. like the first three days of the week, i thought i was feeling real good (perhaps a little hypomanic). i thought i wasn't bipolar anymore and i had conquered my illness. lol. and now the depression's coming back. i felt like i had all this energy and after the energy peaked i've come tumbling down. anyway, i think some world of warcraft and maybe hoodie shopping will by my therapy this weekend. hope you have a wonderful weekend, imbi!
Hey you!
Thanks so much for your last note. After weeping shamelessly on the bathroom floor and doing more stinky laundry then one mom should have to do in a lifetime, I am finally back to blogging. I LOVED this peanut butter post. You have no idea how much you get in my head, and I feel so validated and comforted to read your (beautiful and witty) thoughts. You love words, so do I... thus we blog. I has a bit of a slow, foggy day like yours on Sunday, then a blow up with modern hubby last night. Getting ready to try an intensive outpatient program. Little nervous, but hopeful. So many bad things can be avoided by attacking the problems before they become too big to handle, right? Anyway, loved your post, love you blog. Your notes make my day. Take care!!
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