Feb 12: Mixed Episode

Such a painful thing it is to realize how little you understand yourself.

"I am different from those people!"

Yet you suffer such as them, just with a different veneer. You repeat their patterns, just localized to your being.

We imagine ourselves to be more unique than we are.

Electric currents pathfinding through my brain…

I thought it was hypomania, but in reality I am in a prolonged mixed episode. Agitation and energy: dangerous combo (see: why I refuse to drive during these times).

How am I able to live like this? How am I able to work like this? How am I able to socialize like this?

My coherence, both internal and external, is a miracle.

I tried to imagine what I feel inside because I didn't know what to write here. In my imagination, I saw a picture where I was my own corpse on a city street, watching my soul ascend upwards towards God without me, doomed to eternal abandonment from the vertical axis.

Speaking at my daily standup today. Awkward. Difficult. Every word had to be consciously constructed, and it took extraordinary effort. The horror of 8 different needles piercing you from disparate angles. What will he think? What will she think? Is this what they want to hear? Why is my brain slow?

Ghastly horror.

Taking a bath and then sitting in the drained bathtub for 10 minutes in a fractal of chaos. Am I okay? Am I really that mentally ill? Should I call out? Can I make it today?

Agitated despair.

Electric currents looping in circles.

Alienation from myself.

My refuge until now has been my understanding of whoever 'I' am.

I reached a new level in this hell today when I realized that I don't even know who 'I' am.

I found acceptance in the experience of my body and mind feeling bifurcated.

But to discover today the mind itself is bifurcated as well…

What lies do I harbor?