It's Christmas Eve and I got pissed at church

And I don't mean I got pissed during church (well, I did, but bare with me). I got pissed at church. As in the entity of the church. The thought, the notion, the feeling, the tradition, the meaning. The church.

It pissed me off.

I'm not even sure I can explain this. Because it doesn't make sense. But I'm going to try, mostly for my own sanity and/or amusement.

J is Catholic so tonight we went to Catholic mass. Let me just throw out there that I dislike mass. I find it boring and pointless. And all the damn singing and standing and sitting and kneeling and now stand again. It needs a dislike button.

So we're sitting in the pews, listening to the choir, and I started feeling irritable. At nothing. Just irritable. And this cute family, mother, father, and 6 month old or so son sat a couple pews ahead of us.

I hated them.

For no reason. Then her friend or sister showed up with her husband and two kids and I hated them equally as much. Look at these two families, all happy and festive, enjoying themselves in church. Fuck them. I shot daggers at them with my eyes.

An elderly gentleman sat next to the second couple - a little to close for what my personal bubble would be - and I fumed. I screamed at him in my mind that he was sitting to close and why the fuck are you not following social boundaries??? You have a whole fucking pew and you had to sit that close??

More singing. Where the fuck is the damn priest? Why is the singing not stopping? Oh, now we have to stand. Good.

I fumed. I looked around the congregation at all the people, hundreds of faces. Everyone seemed so happy and content to be spending Christmas eve with their families in church.

Fuck them.

Catholic mass on Christmas eve is the same every year. I swear that it's exactly the same. And tonight everything about it was adding fuel to the fire. My irrational anger, my irritability and rage were completely out of place - and confusing. I don't know why I was feeling the way I was. But I was and I didn't like it. I couldn't seem to stop it though.

So I did what I always do and tried to overanalyze the situation. Not much - just a little. All I could come up with was that I don't really like Christmas and that I'm still in a mixed episode.

Yep. Despite what I wish and what I'd like others to think, I'm still actually in a mixed episode. Not crazy from meds - that bit is over - but still mixed.

The entire time at church my mind was racing. And I mean racing. Flight of ideas, racing swirling thoughts about nothing and everything and the house and dog and mucking stalls and dolphins and bipolar and my wedding and friend's wedding and my bridesmaid's dresses were blue and T's were lavender and a flock of pigeons take flight and there's a fountain when should we take down the treewe'rehavingsandwichesonfridayatafriendshouseand. . . . . . It wouldn't stop. It wouldn't stop.

I couldn't shut up my mind. And that contributed to my irritability. And driving home, it continued. And I said a few random outbursts of ideas and thoughts that may or may not have had anything to do with each other. And I laughed.

I felt like I was going to laugh hysterically and cry uncontrollably at the same time. I felt like I would explode.

Instead of exploding, which would be messy, I went to the bathroom and took my meds. Tonight I increased my dose of Geodon. I was told when I left the hospital that if I was experiencing irritability in the afternoon or evenings to increase my dose. So I did. 80mg instead of 40mg.

I'm writing this under the influence of my racing mind which is gradually slowing thanks to the increased dose. I'm starting to get drowsy. I'm going to be honest - I don't know if what I've written makes much sense. But I'm not going to go back and read it. Because drowsy.

Night y'all. Have a Merry Christmas or whatever the hell you celebrate.

Kinda confused . . .

So, I'm annoyed. Which, let's be honest, has been a staple emotion for me lately. Among others. But this whole "positive-fake-it-till-you-make-it-stay-in-the-moment" shit is wearing me out.

Here's my problem:

I'm supposed to stay in the moment, right? Mindfulness? This is what I've been learning with Chance and have been really trying to practice. Not worrying about the future or past. Not dwelling on things. And really working on changing my manner of thinking.

Well, that's all well and good, except when my mood is down. When there's that hint of depression sinking in. Because alright, I'm down, I'm in the moment, I'm experiencing it, acknowledging it, not over thinking it and then move on. But my mood is still down. So I'm in the moment, experiencing, acknowledging, not over thinking and I move on. But my mood is still down. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

So I'm down, and I'm in the moment, so let's be positive! Let's think positive! Let's join a conversation, get up and move, write down things to be thankful for! But my mood is still down. Now, I'm supposed to be in the moment and experiencing my emotions as they're happening. So I'm doing good in that regard. Yep, I'm down. I get it. But I can't let myself stay down. Because that can start the downward spiral I'm desperately trying to avoid. And how long is too long to "stay in the moment" of that down mood? When should I worry?

You know what happens next? I get frustrated. Because I don't know the answer. So I try and stay in the moment and do positive things to get away from that down mood. Occasionally, that's worked. The past almost week and a half, it hasn't. So now I'm down, and frustrated, and I'm trying to stay in the moment while trying to change the moment and that's tiring. And confusing. And I beat myself up over it because I'm probably making this too hard and I can't seem to figure it out.

I know I'm more depressive by nature. I know this. I'm trying to change this. But this has been so GOD DAMNED HARD it's not even funny. Another frustrating thing? I feel like I'm overall doing better. That I've made strides. That slowly (very slowly) I'm getting there.

But J doesn't see that. He says that at times I'm a little more talkative. That's it. Which, me being me, I take as maybe I'm not doing as well as I thought. Which is a toxic thought. I try and ignore that, but it likes to fester in the back of my mind.

I guess I just hate that I seem to be going in circles like a hamster on its wheel, accomplishing nothing. I have to break this cycle and, quite frankly, I have no idea how.

I also think I'm in a mixed episode. That doesn't help.

Developing Positive Emotional Habits

Heads up: this is very much stream of consciousness writing. Yep.

I went to a seminar today on developing positive emotional habits. That, in fact, was the title of the seminar. It was geared towards healthcare professionals - I even got continuing education credits! Now, my reasons for going were purely selfish - let's be honest, I need all the help I can get. Especially since what I'm working on right now is curbing my negative thoughts/behaviors/emotions.

Now, the seminar starts with reviewing the basics of brain chemistry as it relates to emotions - all the basic primitive stuff (fight, flight or freeze) - to all of the new information gleamed from experiments and brain imaging. It's all very interesting, fascinating even (to me at least). We learned all about the reward centers (controlled by dopamine), the emotional hub spot (the amygdala), and other fun structures (hippocampus, frontal cortex). The science of emotion and habits and addiction is just amazing. This is neat stuff y'all. Trust me.

Then we moved into discussing how to change our emotional response, and why it can be difficult to do. All these ideas. All these techniques. My mind was a jumbled, racing mass of what-ifs and maybes, and could-haves. Some things I've already been practicing. Some were new. My mind went hog wild. I became excited. I became motivated. This. THIS. All of THIS. I will do ALL of THIS and it will be epic and awesome and I'll be better and amazing and life will be grand and I'll be happy and I'll eat bacon cupcakes and fuck those who oppose me!

And then reality likes to bitch slap me. Because reality is a cunt-faced whore sandwich bent on ruining my new found motivation. See, I actually do have a mood disorder. And despite my best efforts and intentions, I will have emotions/moods/behaviors that I can't control or can't manage or don't understand. This is distressing.

On the one hand I have this new knowledge, this motivation, to really step up and work on squelching my negativity. And on the other hand I have my mood disorder and all of its uncertainties and tenacity and lies. I can have the best "control" over my emotions and be positive and optimistic, but if bipolar depression truly takes hold again, all of that control is for not. If anything more elevated than mild hypomania strikes, all bets are off. I have no self control, despite my knowledge. Despite my training and practice.

See, that's the problem. At least with me. I'm working so hard right now on ending the negative, fostering the positive. I'm using techniques I've learned in the past and I'll apply the new ones I learned today. I know the science. The actual mother fucking science.

But how well will this work for me? How well does it work when trapped in the steely grips of a mood episode? Knowing that I can change my dopamine response to a stimulus doesn't help much when I physically can't get out of bed or I'm holding a bottle of pills. Knowing I should be practicing top-down control while I'm manic and impulsive isn't going to stop me from blurting out something inappropriate or making an impulse buy (or worse).

That's my problem. All of this knowledge is awesome and will work and I'll be great. Except I won't. Because how well will it work? My mind races back and forth, back and forth. From thinking that I'll have this emotion thing pretty much figured out and all is cool, to the reality that I do have a mood disorder and this may not always work and I may be out of control.

This back and forth is so fucking distressing. It's so fucking tiring. And it's so fucking stupid. My brain picks this all apart, looks at it from every possible angle. It tries to categorize it, put it all in neat little boxes which doesn't work. But it's what I do. I have to analyze, I have to make sense of abstract bits of everything. This shit doesn't fit in boxes. It doesn't sit on the shelf, tidy and organized like I want it to.

Seriously. Why is this so fucking difficult for me to grasp?

So much of my writing and thinking lately is about this. I keep turning it over in my mind, hoping I'll see something new. But there's nothing new. There never is. The emotional control will work well when I'm stable or having mild mood swings. In a mood episode . . . who knows. Probably not. Maybe it will help me recover more quickly. I should be able to accept this fact. It's simple. But I don't. Or maybe I can't. I don't even know anymore.

I don't even know what the hell is going on in my brain lately. It's almost as if since I've been working so hard on changing my thinking and my behavior and my emotional response, my thinking has become more obsessive. Deciphering my moods and emotions: was that bipolar? ACOA? Normal? How do I categorize this? How was my response? I had a bad mood? Quick! Damage control! You can't spiral again for God's sake don't go down that road again!

I can't not try to figure it all out. But I'm driving myself crazy. I can't leave well enough alone. I truly am my own worst enemy.