Brain Dump

Here are some of my thoughts from the past week or so:

I had an odd few days last week that have continued through the weekend and into today. It’s like I am having heightened emotional reactions to events. I’ll read something moving and all of a sudden my eyes are full of tears. I get overwhelmed with details at work and I feel like ripping everything up or punching a wall. But my sense of humour is spiked as well and I laugh quickly. On my way home on the train I started thinking of my sister who lives in Scotland and I got this powerful sense or memory of what it’s like being in her company and I missed her so much and so suddenly that it really took me by surprise. I thought of the two of us spending the afternoon in a pub somewhere getting gently drunk, talking and laughing.

Anyway, all this made me realise what extreme emotional reactions I was having, to events, memories, and so on. Weird. I still feel like it today. Easily frustrated by my job. Easily sparked off to tears by reading my book, which is just one of the books I used to read as a kid.

I don’t think it’s a mood episode, it doesn’t feel like one anyway. The nearest I can get to that is agitated hypomania – but the frustration is fleeting and I think it’s borne out of tiredness more than anything else. But I definitely feel … something … different.

The way I figure out if it’s a mood episode or not is by seeing if I am reacting to an actual event or not. If my emotions are one way and have no connection to events then it is a mood episode. Also, if something bad happens and makes me feel bad, but I continue to feel bad after the event has passed, then it is usually a mood episode.

But if the emotions are related to an actual event then I am reassured that it isn’t a Cyclothymic mood swing. It may be tiredness. It may just be part of what makes me me. I think that ADHD also plays a part in this. I have read that ADHD can cause more extreme emotional reactions (good and bad) in some people.

Anyway, I’m not worried about it, just observing. I am noticing that each day I’m having to work harder to motivate myself at work and to concentrate. I’ll be glad when I can have some time off to recharge my batteries before I start studying.

I had an extremely emotional weekend. My Mum got ordained on Saturday – I am very proud of her. She’s been working towards this for a long time. She is now a Reverend – I have nicknamed her The Reverend Mother. Then my step-Dad retired on Sunday, and my teenage sisters said goodbye to all their friends in the church before the whole family moves on Wednesday this week. Even Dad cried.

I was still doing my over-identifying thing with other peoples emotions. If I saw someone crying it made me cry. I’m not sorry that they are moving, I am glad they are moving. They have had a hard time these last few years. I am happy that they are moving to a new place and a new chapter. But I still felt sad to say goodbye to these people. I couldn’t tell if it was my sadness or if I was picking up on sadness from other people.

I also became over-stimulated a few times. Especially on the Saturday. There were over 100 people there. At one point I was talking and my Mum asked me if I needed the loo because I was moving my legs so much. I hadn’t even realised that I was tapping my feet and moving back and forth very fast as I talked. Usually that would be a sign of hypomania – but actually I seem to be developing a sense of if something is a mood episode or not and this time I think the answer was not. I think it was ADHD again, the hyperactive component – I got over-stimulated and got more and more hyperactive as a result.

I realised anew this weekend that I’m still at the beginning of recovery. I still don’t know who I really am, I still feel like I haven’t fully recovered my faith in God, I’m still fragile. I feel like a fragmented person. I react to different situations in different ways, most people see me as being very loud, but others see me as a bit aloof. People don’t often know which Karita they will get. There is no one coherent me. I have been wondering how to reconcile all these different parts of myself. Is it even possible? Have I been unstable for so long that I will remain erratic forever? There’s the intelligent, academic part of me, the scatty part of me, the loud, joker part of me, the sometimes harsh, sarcastic part of me, the loving, sensitive part of me, the hyperactive part of me, the insecure, paranoid part of me…

I want to be one, coherent person, who is at ease with herself.

This last week or so I have been experiencing emotions intensely. I have been thinking of this as yet another thing to get to grips with, learn to tame into submission. But it hit me last night that maybe this is who I am. A person who experiences all emotions very intensely, both my emotions and the emotions that come from other people. Maybe it isn’t something to be tamed into submission, squashed and made to play nicely… Maybe it is something to be accepted and even embraced. Maybe this is the real me.

Them’s my thoughts. Not entirely sure what to do with them. Somebody said something to me recently that I found helpful:

Before you were on meds you were in a boat without a paddle, now you are learning how to use the oars!