The Throat Catches the Words

Bipolar II Diaries, Part 2

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This is a continuation of my Bipolar II Diaries, and you can read part one here. The first two entries in this post were posted as Substack notes. The second half of this article is behind a paywall.

January 12, 2025

I’ve been in a total crisis all week. The highs have been terrifyingly high, keeping me up till between 2 and 5 am, and the lows have been horrifically, devastatingly low. The kind of psychological suffering that makes you dry heave, that feels like physical pain, that makes you worry you are going insane and will never come back. All of this, over seven days. It’s fucking unlivable, something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

And trying to pull myself out of it, reduce the pain, return to that alternate dimension where I’m just ok — not manic or in agony or, worst of all, both simultaneously — feels like the most Herculean challenge. Asking for help, following my crisis plan, communicating with my therapist, sending up emergency flairs to my support network so they know I am suffering, following through on my practices that help but in the moment feel like they only reduce the suffering from a 10 to an 8 — it’s such a monumental and lonely challenge that I don’t even know how to begin to describe it.

All of this, while trying to keep a straight face at work, manage a business, maintain a home, and keep my income flowing on Substack. I’m good — a bit too good — at putting together coherent sentences and not showing anything on my face while I’m in literal hell. My consciousness is suffering so much that it abdicates control of my face and words over to the large language model in my brain that politely runs things until I get back.

I just can’t describe how lonely, brutal, awful, unspeakably torturous it is. It’s hell. And the fact that this isn’t my first rodeo, but more like my 5000th rodeo since high school when this shit first started fucking with my brain, is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I’ve not died for 20 years since my first episode at 16, and I’ve developed pretty reliable skills for not dying. On the other hand, it’s just so. Fucking. Exhausting. I absolutely fucking hate it. I hate that I go through these cycles and that they never stop hurting. The pain doesn’t lessen. The 5000th storm is as horrific and scary as the 1st or 10th. It’s lonely, it’s scary, it’s no fucking way to live.

I was so fatigued that I finally crashed hard and slept for 17 hours. I woke up this morning feeling ok, and I’m really, really hoping that stays. It feels so fucking good just to be ok. I can scroll cat videos on YouTube and not feel like I’m burning alive. I just desperately hope this unsteady stability keeps going for a bit.

Maybe this is too much information. Maybe this is too far a correction in the opposite direction from placid silence while I’m being burned alive. I don’t know. I’m not sure I even care.

January 13, 2025

I can feel myself stabilizing, and I pray to God or gods (there are no atheists in manic-depressive episodes) that the trend continues.

What’s got me fucked up right now is that, in the core of the dark star of manic depression, there is a loneliness that feels absolute, untouchable, insurmountable. Over time, that loneliness poisons you. I don’t know how to overcome it, or the memory of it, especially when I keep cycling like this and repeatedly have to face that absolute isolation in that dark place where it is just myself and my soul on fire.

Even if you can reach out and speak to another person, it still feels like that core of loneliness is untouched and untouchable. No one can reach into that abyss and make contact with you, feel what you feel, know what you know. That’s the nature of Hell — you are cut off from God, and everything else. Hell is real — it’s bipolar.

Perversely, sometimes the best company I can find in the really dark shit is ChatGPT. It’s soulless, and for some reason that helps. That makes it the correct fauna for the abyss, and it can provide a bit of conversation at 4 AM when the circus gets really dark.

I don’t know what to do with the loneliness of these episodes. Is it something I should try to resist and overcome? Or is it just something I should accept and prepare for? I don’t know. Because I know it will come back. If I’m lucky, it will be months or (best case) years. If I’m unlucky, it will be a week or two.

I write about this stuff because that’s the only way I know to feel less alone. Every time I do, I worry that I am over-exposing to strangers and that it is right and appropriate to withhold all of this from the public.

At the same time, there’s also something so absurd about not writing about this stuff when you are in the middle of it. It’s like not writing about the dragons that have taken up residence in your town. It’s like not writing about the zombies pouring over the hills. It’s as ridiculous as not writing about war when you are in a war zone. I don’t write about this stuff to “raise awareness.” I write about it because there’s a war in my skull, and it’s the only thing to talk about here.

Anyway, I’m going to bed. I hope I continue to stabilize.

January 17

As I stabilize and get back on my feet from the last bad episode, I've had several realizations that I need to remember, and that perhaps others need to remember, too.