I spoke too soon

I spoke too soon.

I think it was the day after my post last week that I fell into a depressive funk. Thankfully(?), it was only for a few hours. I was at an evening staff meeting and got triggered* by a video we had to watch about how to plan for survival in the event of an active shooter in the building. Being a mother of two children, one of whom just started school this year, this upset me deeply. And I just could not shake it for the rest of the evening.

(*Can we talk about how I hate what’s happened to this word? People misuse it and poke fun at it, and it’s practically lost all meaning.)

And it made me realize just how intense my emotions are. I can be euphoric when I’m happy and hit rock bottom when I’m sad. I can’t just “be sad.” Well, I guess I can as of the last couple of weeks, but prior to that, being sad meant that everything was ruined and I needed to stop existing. And that night was similar. I felt so bad that I told my husband, “I want to hurt myself.” To my credit, I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to cease being. I just wanted to hurt a little differently. I told him that I wanted the inside pain to be on the outside. That was the best way that I could explain it. And the only thing I could do was call it a night.

Then I was totally fine the following morning. Not euphoric, but fine. Like it didn’t happen. And it’s hard to tell if my feelings are normal sometimes. Maybe the self-harm thoughts are a bit much, but that’s a matter of mental habit, at least in part. But to feel so bad? For the rest of the night? And to spiral into self-belittlement? I dunno. Where is the line between normal human emotions and too far? My psychiatrist said that my sadness appeared to be a normal response to an abnormal situation (he didn’t use those words, but yeah). He didn’t speak to the self-harming thoughts because I didn’t tell him. And I didn’t tell him because I’m still getting to know him. But it was helpful to get a professional opinion that I’m kind of normal.

I guess I need to remind myself that it’s okay to not be okay sometimes.

Guest Post: Lessons from Social Media

Hey, y’all! I spoke with a friend who is a fellow blogger, and she’s choosing to remain anonymous for reasons, but here’s her post:

Lessons from Social Media

It started with a friend’s request and a few bold but ignored comments on some of pictures.  

“Absolutely beautiful” --- ummm thanks? I remember thinking.  Not because I don’t think Im pretty, but I just didn’t think it quite deserved that praise.  But alright, you’re entitled to your opinion.

I have a Garmin fitness watch and it gets cruddy sometimes… dry skin gets in crevices.  Anyway, I was cleaning the back of it with a toothpick when a notification on Instagram came across which also comes across on my watch.  On my watch, I have 2 options Like (which is a heart thing) and Dismiss. Normally I ignore the notifications altogether and they go away after a few seconds -- not this time.  No, this time, while I was cleaning my watch and chatting with my boyfriend via text, I “like”d the comment/message that came in from IG.

A few minutes later, with a freshly cleaned watch now on my wrist, I was scrolling through IG and noticed a new message - so I clicked on it, as one does.  

 “Aint too proud to beg.”

Umm what? And I scroll up and I see the previous message.

 “You’re so sexy”

And my response was an effing heart, a heart! Because I was cleaning my watch and because instagram has the emotional maturity of a pubescent teen, hot or cold, there is no inbetween.  

At this point, I could have… and should have ignored the message altogether.  That was my chance, to not have to be overly polite or tolerant or kind. But then, this odd wave of guilt started to creep over, I knew that he saw that I saw what he wrote.  Ignoring someone when they’re talking to you is just rude.

“Hi, so how are you?”

   “How do you feel about butt sex?”

What the fuck?  Did he really just ask me that?  What day is this? Ohhhh, it IS St Patrick’s Day…  But its like 3 in the afternoon!!! Am I supposed to respond to that? Why would someone even ask that?  Is that like an intimidation thing, meant to make me feel small? What the hell is happening here? Why do random men feel like they can talk to women like this?  Well fuck that! I’m not intimidated! I’m sex positive. People can have sex however they want as long as it’s consensual.

 “I think women should be at least open to the experience if they are in a trusting and consensual relationship.”

Ha, there! Bet you weren’t expecting that answer asshole!

“Are you still living in the area where we went to high school?”

“No, I moved to be closer to my boyfriend.” there! BOYFRIEND! See.  BOYFRIEND. Back off buddy.

“Ah, well, he’s a lucky dude, but I bet…...”

And it did NOT get better from there and I stopped responding because I eventually realized he was drunk messaging me.  The next day, he apologized profusely and I forgave him which I thought was a mistake, but it wasn’t a mistake for me. He mistook my forgiveness as an extension of friendship, which was his mistake.  

Lessons learned.

I don’t have to respond to someone I barely know simply because I saw their message.

I don’t have to prove to anyone that I’m not intimidated by them, especially when I really am.  Bravado rarely fools anyone.

I am not responsible for how another adult handles their feelings.

Forgiveness is important, but it’s not for the other person, ever.  

Feeling Strangely Fine

Hey, y’all! Sorry that it’s been a while since my last post. Honestly, I haven’t been sure of what to say lately. I suppose I could update y’all on my mental state?

It’s a’ight.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I recently hypothesized that perhaps my depression was actually misdiagnosed type two bipolar disorder. So for the past two and a half weeks, I’ve been on a lower dosage of Wellbutrin (was originally on 150 mg, went up to 300 mg for about a month and a half, now back down to 150 mg again) with an added mood stabilizer of Abilify (2.5 mg for the first five days, then up to 5 mg from then onward).

So far, so good. After the first week, I wasn’t sure if I was feeling better naturally, or if it was because of the medication change. Then on the same day that I was wondering that, I had a dramatic shift where I was easily irritable for a few hours. Again, it’s hard to tell if my emotions were organic or store-bought. Perhaps it was me getting used to the chemical changes in my brain.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t until Friday that I realized that I’ve been fine for a few days now. It’s not that I haven’t felt sad at times, but I think I’ve just been run-of-the-mill sad and not “my life is literally over, so let’s close the garage door without turning off the car” sad (which is just a thought I have and never a plan I have). I was out for coffee with a friend and talking to her about my poly life and how happy my boyfriend makes me (everyone makes me happy, but we were talking about this dude). I was telling her how he makes me laugh and, most times, “makes me forget how miserable I am.” So she asks me, “Oh, no, you’re still miserable??”

“Huh… Actually, no.”

I’ve been feeling motivated to do things that I used to find enjoyment and fulfillment in. For instance, about a week ago, I went on a pub run with a friend and stayed out for hours just talking (and drinking and running of course). I keep “meaning to” run, and sometimes it’s my own laziness stopping me, but most times it’s the fickle weather. This week, while I haven’t run, I’ve consistently walked two days in a row and have met my step goal on my Fitbit, so I’m keeping active.

In addition to running/walking (well, just walking right now, but whatever), I’m getting back into photography. While I was out to coffee with my friend, I had three different moments where it seemed like Someone Out There was trying to give me a sign to get back into my artistic side. (1) My friend had pointed out the art on the walls, and I instantly thought, “I wonder if I could talk to someone about getting some of my stuff up there.” (2) A friend from college messaged me to see if she could use my photographs for stories she is writing. (3) A woman walked up to me and my friend and made sure to personally invite us to the opening of her art show coming up and mentioned that she is setting up shop around the corner and going to be a consultant for artists in the area.

To be clear, I’m still trying to figure out where I fit spiritually, but all of that felt like Something was speaking to me. You can call it coincidence if you want, and I’m not going to argue with you. I’m just saying what I believe.

At any rate, I felt reinvigorated and have actually started using my Instagram account (which I hadn’t used since like 2014-2015, and even then, I barely used the thing). I know that using Instagram doesn’t make you a photographer, but it keeps me in the habit of photographically documenting my life, which is a thing that I used to do regularly. I also re-activated my photography page and alerted my friends and family of that fact, so if people would like to book sessions with me, they can. But mostly, I just want to visit a ghost town and go crazy snapping shots. I’ve never done that before but have been wanting to soooooooo much.

Also on a photo note, I ordered prints online and then made a collage at work that’s mostly of the current version of my polycule, plus pictures of my kiddos and a couple of close friends. Looking over at the corkboard on my desk makes me smile.

I’m a lucky gal with wonderful people in my life, and I feel capable of accomplishing a great deal of things at the moment.

I hope this lasts.

Making Time

I realized that I forgot the most important frequently asked question in my last post, which is, "How do you even have time for all of that? I could never do that!" I honestly used to tell myself that when my polyamorous friends would discuss their lives in the "Before Time." 

I've always made efforts to be a perpetually busy person because I practice inertia. I find that if I'm not constantly in motion, then I'm going to have difficulty even beginning to move. So this manifests in ways like working constantly, committing to several social events in a week, taking on new projects (like, say, starting up a blog--this is far from my first one), and so forth. I spent pretty much all of my 20s saying that I was "too busy" to do a lot of things. For instance, I would turn down going on family vacations because I didn't see how I could take off the time. I always put off this or that because I didn't think I could work it into my schedule. Which, granted, competed with the belief system of needing to be constantly in motion.

I still struggle with the balancing act of living, but I'd like to think that I'm doing a lot better at it. Sure, I do have a job, am working on my doctorate, am a mother of two, and am in three and a half relationships, but I feel a lot less stressed these days...... Which isn't to say that I don't feel stressed at all or that I'm not a stressed-out person, because that's kind of my baseline. But I'm somehow making it work. In part, I don't have a large caseload at work, which makes things easier on me because my boyfriend and girlfriend are able to have dates with me in the daytime, and I'm able to schedule overnight visits with them that coincide with my husband's overnights with his partners.

I don't think I've actually answered the question that sparked this. I think what it comes down to is simply making room. One of the reasons why I didn't date my girlfriend and boyfriend sooner was that I didn't think I could fairly give enough time to either of them. (The primary reason was that I was going through a difficult time in my life, and I didn't think that it would be fair to put anyone else through what I was going through--even though they were hearing about it on a friend level... But had they gotten "promoted," it would have been even more, and that seemed cruel to put people through. But this reason also connects to not being able to give time, because how could I devote my time to more people if I was involved in a messy situation? P.S. Sorry for vague-posting about that. Again.) But when I did decide to give things a go with them, I communicated right off the bat that I wasn't sure how much time/energy that I could give but that I would do my best. I wanted to be sure that they were both on board with this and if they'd be okay with taking things slowly and just seeing where things took us. And, thankfully, they were good with this. And I was surprised with how well things fit. I tend to meet up with them once or twice a week, although there have been times when I've gone a couple of weeks without seeing either of them. Even so though, I talk to them online every day or nearly so, and I talk with the boyfriend on the phone often because he's one of those awesome people who likes to call his girlfriends to hear their voices.

Another thing: routine. It's important to have one. To be fair though, I have a somewhat chaotic one with my boyfriend and girlfriend because we don't have any particular day of the week or anything that we set aside. But we work around each other's routines in order to meet up. For instance, I know not to make plans with my girlfriend most weekday evenings because of her classes (which also works out pretty well because I tend to spend my weekday evenings at home with my husband and kiddos). I know that my boyfriend has class during such-and-such times during the week, so I clearly can't meet up for lunch if he's in a poli sci class. We should probably figure out particular weekly/biweekly this-or-thats.... (I think we're organically doing that for weekend overnights though, with me toggling between Girlfriend's house and Boyfriend's house every other weekend or so.) But routines help make things less stressful because you have an idea of what to expect.

Once again, I'm not sure how cohesive this post is, if it's overall linear or overly tangential (which is just how I talk). But I'ma bring it all together here: How do I have time? How can I make it work? Communicating expectations and ensuring everyone is on the same page (you don't want to get involved and have different views on what you want, because someone/everyone will be disappointed) before giving things a go, checking in as time goes on, and establishing a semblance of a routine.

Frequently Asked / Anticipated Questions

Last year, after roughly two years of identifying as polyamorous, I decided to “out” myself to a large part of my friends list on Facebook. The filter I set up ended up being beneficial for me, as it allowed me to have an outlet for support when I was dealing with a number of rough situations simultaneously. Maybe I’ll talk about those in some roundabout way on here sometime, but not today.

1. So you’re cheating? No. You have “polyamory” confused with “cheating.” With polyamory, all parties involved are open with communication and give consent. If no consent, then cheating. But I have consent. So no cheating.

2. So you like sleeping around? No. Actually, very no. First of all, that’s not how this works. Unless that’s what works for other people, in which case, you do you. But that’s not how it works for me. In fact, I find it very difficult, if not impossible, to “sleep around,” as I require an emotional spark. Also, I have some super old baggage regarding my sexuality that I am still slowly unpacking, so having sex with someone new for the first (and second, third, fourth) time(s) is a comedy of errors.

3. I thought you loved your husband? I do.

4. Does this mean you love your husband less? Nope. Love is not a finite resource, as it turns out!

5. I guess this means that you’re too evolved for jealousy, huh? Nope. It’s a very normal, human emotion. But through open and honest communication with my significant others (as well as personally challenging my negative self-talk), this is something that can be overcome. But just because it is overcome does not mean that it never comes back.

6. Are you after my husband? No.

7. Are you after my wife? No.

8. Wait, what’s up with that last question? Oh, yeah. I’m pansexual too.

9. What’s that? It means I’m attracted to the person and not to what’s between a person’s legs.

10. Oh, shit. So you’re trying to get with everyone?? No. See questions 2, 6, and 7.

11. Why not say that you’re bisexual? Because sexuality is more complicated than that, but I really don’t care how you label it personally.

12. Did we get off-topic? Yes.

13. Wait, wait, wait. What if my significant other tries to get with you now that (s)he knows that you’re poly? I will shut him/her down for the following reasons: You are clearly not cool with it. I do not condone cheating. I may not even be interested. Even if I were, I would need to speak with my significant others. Which I would not even bother doing because you are clearly not cool with it.

14. So you’re sure your husband is okay with this? I’m sure.

15. How you know? We started this together as a triad about two years ago when we thought we were gonna have some casual shenanigans with a couple, but then I freaked out when it was going to become a reality, when the wife suggested dating and taking things slowly. So we mulled it over and decided it was a good idea and went for it.

16. Did you have any idea what you were doing? Not really. We have had plenty of polyamorous friends for years, we’ve listened to a lot of podcasts on the topic, read up on FetLife and through the All Powerful Google, and heard that The Ethical Slut is the book to read (but we never did). And we just asked people about their personal experiences.

17. And what did you learn? That everyone is different. Not everyone handles polyamory in the same fashion. The core principles are communication, consent, and honesty. Make sure you’re all on the same page and in agreement and in the know.

18. And it’s that easy? Not always.

19. Why not? Because communication is hard sometimes, and what you say is not always what is heard, or what you think you said is not always what you really said and so is not what is heard. And sometimes you don’t know you’re not communicating well until it’s brought to your attention that you’re not communicating well. But if you keep communication open, then that’ll eventually come to light, and you can work on it from there.

20. What? It works out. Just keep being open and honest. It may not be easy all the time, but that’s how you make it happen.

21. So you said that you and your husband date the same people? No. We used to though. Now my husband has a boyfriend and a girlfriend, who are married to each other, and I have a girlfriend and a boyfriend, who date each other. I’m also “talking” with a long-time friend from college days and have gone on a couple of dates with him, and my recent ex (who is the husband of the spouse that my husband and I dated together when we first became polyamorous) and I are on good terms and are most likely going to give things another go when stars align. And I’m crushing on a local dude but haven’t told him because I have no spine and fear rejection.

22. Does everyone get along? Thankfully, yes! This was not always the case when our “polycule” (I wish I made up that word, but no) consisted of different people. However, getting along is not necessarily a requirement in polyamory. But it definitely helps. Especially if you’re someone like me who wants to be able to bring everyone in the same room and have a party or a game night. Not everyone is like that though. But thankfully, I can do that with the current structure.

23. Does anyone ever end up feeling left out? Sometimes, yeah. See questions 5, 19, and 20. Or if you don’t feel like scrolling: it’s important for you to express when you feel this way, and then all people involved can figure out why. Is it an issue with partners not giving enough attention? If yes, then fix that. If not, what’s up, and what can we do about it?

24. But what about the children? WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?? Actually, my husband, his partners, and my girlfriend and her husband are all parents, and my boyfriend wants kids. The other aforementioned dudes are also parents. My kids love their current meta-siblings and loved their former ones, and all partners love my kids. And for a time, my mom was on board because she kept harping on me to have another kid, despite the fact that my husband got snipped over two years ago. To that though, she’d say, “Well, now you got other options…”

25. How do you meet people like this? How did I? Or how can you? Because I happened to already know people who were polyamorous, and then I met people through people. But if YOU are polyamorous and are looking to meet like-minded individuals, there are Facebook groups, Meetup groups, and you can try some online dating sites. OKCupid and Tinder are open to it, but I have heard of others that are not.

26. So you mentioned that you came out to your mom. Why not to your dad? Well, I don’t think he would outright disown me, because he spent over two decades out of my life, so he wouldn’t want to cut me out for the years he has left. I imagine that he would outwardly say he doesn’t care, while inwardly having some issues. But that, in and of itself, would not bother me. However, my dad cannot keep a secret for the life of him. So if you tell Dad something, expect the whole family to know.

27. Why not tell everybody? Because I’m not ready for my whole family to know. And I’m not sure if I want my job to know, even though therapists are supposed to be pretty open-minded and nonjudgmental folks. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready to let everyone know. I’m not sure if it’s something that everyone even needs to know. The benefit of me telling everyone under the sun is that I don’t have to hide (Well, I’m sorta not hiding. I go out on dates in public all the time. My favorite coffee shop has seen me bring in at least three different people.). The risks are hearing and witnessing the disapproval and dealing with all repercussions. Being cut out of people’s lives and scolded. I have no idea what else to anticipate. Hopefully y’all understand why I don’t up and shout it from the rooftops. Maybe I will one day.

Ch-ch-changes (in titles and diagnoses)

Hey, everyone! I decided to update the name on this blog. See, when I was setting this up initially, I was really hoping that "manicpixierealgirl" hadn't been taken, with the name being a play on the term "manic pixie dream girl." (Ooh, a hyperlink!) The term has significance to me. Per my last post, I used to define myself by my romantic partners, embedding myself into their lives however I could and trying to become who I thought they wanted me to be. Which never worked out. Thankfully. And after getting dumped by my long-term on-again/off-again boyfriend in 2004, I decided that I needed to become more than an extension of someone else if I was ever going to be happy in my life.

Fast-forward many years, a recent ex-boyfriend would often refer to me as his "manic pixie girl." At the time, I had no idea what it meant, thinking that he just threw some fun words together, and I just rolled with it. It wasn't until I saw a reference to it online that I realized it was a thing. I read up on it, and while I'm sure he didn't mean it in the manner in which I took it (I imagine he solely meant it in a way of being a chick who in fact did brighten up his world, but I don't think he was minimizing me to solely that), I was not appreciative of the term because of the chord it strikes within me based on my former self (and, in some ways, my current self--as per my last post on disentanglement). I remember telling him, "I'm not that. I'm a manic pixie real girl." Because I'm three-dimensional. I can help you in furthering your story, getting to your goals, but I have my own story in which I'm the lead character. I have obstacles to overcome as well. Many of which are inside of me.

Which brings me to the name change of "hypomanic." For anyone who knows me, I try my best to be transparent about my mental health because I don't believe in fueling the stigmatization. I spent a long time denying it, even to myself, for several years. Looking back though, I have dealt with anxiety and depression for at least 23 of my 34 years of existence. I used to write poems holed away in my room in middle school while I listened to Garbage's first album on repeat. Back in the '90s, being emo wasn't a thing. Or it was, but we didn't call it that. And I used to think of myself as a goth, but I wasn't that either because I was too chipper when I wasn't fantasizing of ways of to rid myself of the burden of existence. Which most people seem to find jarring when they think of middle-schoolers having suicidal ideations, but I don't bat an eye at the notion because it seems to make a lot of sense to me. I mean, you remember middle school, right? That was when things started to unravel at the seams for me because prior to that, no matter how chaotic my home life was, I had school to back me up. I had friends on the school bus and in my class, my teachers praised me, I was on the honor roll, and I was "academically gifted."

But all that changed in middle school. I learned that a lot of my mannerisms weren't socially acceptable, and I couldn't keep up with what was. I even gave myself flash cards after observing people and watching popular television shows as a a means of trying to educate myself (which didn't work for me). My goals for the beginning of each school year were to make my way up the social ladder and be nominated for the "spring court" at the spring dance they had each year (which never happened for me). Anyway. I talked about my suicidal ideations to my best friend at the time so often that she got tired of it, saying more or less, "Do it or shut up about it." I remember I was cutting a [formerly] frozen pizza into slices for myself and my younger brothers and thinking of what I could do with the knife in my hand, but what my friend said on the other end of the line when I said that out loud jarred something inside of me. I'm sure that she'd never say anything like that in adulthood because it's definitely not the kind of thing that you ought to say, but I recognized her intent behind her words. Did I really want to die? And I realized that I didn't. So I, somehow, managed to do some thought-stopping techniques whenever I started feeling that way, and I didn't talk to people about them for a good, long while.

My anxiety increased in high school. It was totally a thing in middle school, but looking back, it worsened during that phase of life. Which makes sense, because I'd just spent three years being laughed at by the vast majority of my class. So I questioned the motives of many people, including but not limited to the cute boy on the junior varsity football team who asked me out on my 14th birthday. Like, there was no way that this guy wanted Live Action Daria to be his girlfriend, right? And I spent a lot of high school questioning everything, overreacting over everything, and worrying myself into migraines and even back pains, causing me to miss days of school. I didn't even put it together at the time what was happening.

Also, I’d always had insomnia. Always. I remember being five or six years old, waking up in the middle of the night, unable to fall back asleep, sneaking upstairs to my oldest brother’s room, and watching shows with him until I was ready to try again to go to bed. I remember playing movies in my mind while trying to fall asleep at night, getting almost through the entire third Back to the Future movie before finally losing consciousness. A lot of the time, I’d stare at the ceiling, noticing my eyes adjust in the dark. Despite that, I’d still wake up each morning around 6:00 and didn’t even need an alarm clock until middle school. Even then, it was just for backup because I overslept once. And after that, I double- and triple-checked my alarm each night before bed, and maybe a time or three more after lying awake for a good half-hour.

Absolutely none of that changed when I got to college. I would spend a lot of time holed away in my dorm room, writing in my online journal about things that had happened throughout the day, chronicling my life and maybe convincing myself that I had finally made it. I had found a circle of friends who seemed to appreciate me, even though I was also left out a lot of the time--probably because I was creating some self-fulfilling prophecy by hiding in my dorm room typing about my life rather than living it. Probably. I’d vacillate between confiding all of my thoughts in my friends and bottling it all up. Because sometimes I didn’t believe that these people really wanted to be around me. Maybe they were just tolerating me. Some days, I was able to talk myself out of that.

Some days, I was up and out the door all day, keeping myself busy. Armed with a camera (a REAL one, with film even--until my mom got tired of having to pay for me to develop rolls, so I eventually upgraded to digital), I’d go out and document things as I saw them. I would volunteer a lot of my free time at the university’s literary magazine. I would study the course catalog and plot out my courses for as far out as I possibly could. I decided that, in addition to studying psychology, I would double-major in sociology with a concentration in criminology. This second major ended up being a second degree, with me deliberately spending a fifth year in school to accrue enough credits to earn a second Bachelor’s. But I also wanted to study anthropology and philosophy and gender studies. I wanted to sign up to learn three different languages. I wanted to learn French, Spanish, and German. I wanted to join the school newspaper. I wanted to be a DJ for the school’s radio station. I ended up doing none of those things, but I did take as many courses as I could most semesters and even enrolled for a summer session. I eventually applied for a couple of jobs on campus and worked 20-30 hours a week in addition to taking 4-6 classes. I joined clubs and became a mentor for underclassmen. I was doing things! All the things!

Other days, I’d realize just how overloaded I was and would reinforce staying in my room. I’d skip entire days of classes. I’d have migraines and have to call out from work. I resigned from my job as literary editor, and eventually did the same for my job at the library. I no longer co-chaired the dorm’s choir club, and I dropped a lot of other clubs. Like I said, I never did all of those other things, like learning three languages (I did take the minimum amount of hours I needed for French), working for the school paper or the radio station, or picking up any minors. I did take philosophy classes for fun though.

I had my first anxiety attack in the middle of my third year of college, waking up in the middle of the night in a panic, feeling disoriented thinking that it was morning because of how bright my room was, but then being confused because I realized that the light came from my roommate’s lamp while she worked on a paper while quietly playing Postal Service through her laptop speakers (or maybe loudly through her headphones). Shortly after that night, I began developing chest pains. For a solid week. Before I decided to go get that checked out at Student Health. They ruled out anything medical and determined that it was psychological, so I got set up with a therapist.

I don’t know. At some point, I realized that I had debilitating anxiety, and eventually realized that my self-doubt and shadowy thoughts that could sometimes only be lessened by going to sleep and doing what I now call a “cold restart” were, in fact, signs of depression. And I saw therapists off and on for a few years. Then consistently for about a year around the time I turned 30, after moving back to our home state after being gone for seven years, dealing with making new friends in a new city (because despite being in our state, we are still about two hours away from family), and mourning from a miscarriage that had happened within weeks of moving. Unfortunately, my therapist didn't do me much good because she spent a lot of the time trying to get me to validate her abilities as a therapist, so I was more of her therapist and got more out of being my own therapist whenever she’d cancel sessions than when I actually met with her. So I stopped going. Like I said, I got more out of helping myself, which was joining a lot of social groups through Meetup.com, spearheading a charity/community involvement subgroup in one of my social groups, and trying to launch a photography business, all while being a stay-at-home mom. So I’d stay busy. Sometimes too busy. Realizing I had overextended myself once again, and would end up needing to cancel a lot of engagements, removing myself from a few groups, and stepping down in the community involvement group.

Anyway. To make a very long story short, I’ve dealt with anxiety and depression for most of my life and have been conscious of it for 10-15 years. However, it wasn’t until maybe a year ago (after a couple of years of medication management and a year of therapy with a GOOD therapist) that I started wondering if maybe I was misdiagnosed, kinda sorta slightly. I’d been on Zoloft from 2014 to 2017, briefly taking a break while pregnant with my second child, but it lost its efficacy, and I ended up getting on Wellbutrin, which helped a fair amount. But eventually that didn't seem like enough either. My psychiatrist and I discussed our options, and I’d considered having my dosage increased; however, I was dealing with a lot in my life last year, so I decided to wait until things were more stable. Because maybe it wasn’t that the medication wasn’t working so much as my life sucking, so I didn’t want to medicate myself into numbness. But life has improved dramatically over the past six months. After about four and a half months of the good life, I realized my mood hadn’t changed enough to reflect just how good I’ve had it. So I got my Wellbutrin dosage increased. But after a month and a half, the only thing that happened was that my mood worsened.

I mentioned in my last post that it had been a rough couple of weeks, between work and sickness. What I didn’t mention was that I’d spent a lot of last week depressed. In fact, on Thursday, I spent a lot of my free time doing literally nothing. Thankfully, I was due for a psychiatrist appointment and went on Friday. Initially, I was going to talk about getting on a different medication. However, I remembered that I’d taken a genetic test a year or so ago, and Wellbutrin was supposed to be good for me. So what was making it not so good?

Y’all know that I’m a therapist, right? So I know a thing or two about diagnostic criteria for this and that. And I did some self-discovery last year, and then again recently, and I meet a lot of the markers for Bipolar II Disorder. This is not to be confused with Bipolar I, which is the type that most people think of when anyone says “bipolar disorder.” I hadn’t really thought about type two because they don't really go over it in school. My mania has never been exactly destructive. If anything, it’s helped me be more productive. It’s what got me to learn HTML in high school to work on my own website. It’s what allowed me to learn what I know about Photoshop or how I was able to make minor adjustments on pictures through simple programs like Microsoft Paint and even Paint Shop Pro in college. It’s what’s gotten me to clean my entire house or rearrange a room in a day. What has made me commit to running half-marathons in recent years and what makes me want to write a blog. But when I run out of energy, I realize I don’t have a lot of hours in the day. So I need to manage my time wisely. Anyway. This isn’t mania, but hypomania.

Per Wikipedia (2017), hypomania “is a sustained state of elevated or irritable mood that is less severe than mania and does not significantly impact quality of life . . . Because many of the symptoms of hypomania are often mistaken for high functioning behavior or simply attributed to personality, patients are typically not aware of their hypomanic symptoms.”

So I went to my psychiatrist and hoped that he was willing to listen to me. I know that doctors tend to dislike when patients show up talking about a thing they read on the internet. And while I am a recovering hypochondriac, my diagnostic game is on point, and I’m not just a random person who googled symptoms. I have a Master’s degree in counseling and am working on my doctorate in counselor education and supervision. My husband and I share a DSM-IV, and I have a pocket guide to the DSM-5. And I do this sort of thing for a living. So I go into my psychiatrist’s office, and I say, “The increase didn’t work, and I think I know why. I think I have Bipolar II. Not Bipolar I.” And I go on about hypomania. He seemed familiar but wanted me to cite specific examples to make sure (which is legit). So I talk about my years of insomnia. I talk about how I own a ukulele but don’t know how to play it. How I overcommit socially. How I sometimes have the energy to go out and run and tell myself that this is the year I’m going to run a marathon. How I’ve taken up blogging. I didn’t even mention 70-hour workweeks during my gap year between college and grad school or 60-hour weeks of work and internship near the end of grad school, or how I took classes while I was preparing for my wedding and was doing homework on my honeymoon, or any of the other stuff I mentioned earlier in here. And my rapid speech may or may not have helped, because that’s just how I talk. My mouth goes faster than my brain sometimes. Anyway. So he lowered my dosage back to 150 mg from 300 mg of Wellbutrin, and I’ve been put on a mood stabilizer (Abilify 5 mg, starting at 2.5 mg a night for the first five days, and then the full 5 mg after that). It’s definitely too soon to tell if this has helped, but my follow-up is in about three weeks.

To make a long story short, I’m not manic: I’m hypomanic. Hence the change to “hypomanic pixie real girl.” And with the change in title, I want to also address my anxiety and depression, in hopes of continuing to battle the stigma. Maybe I’ll help someone who deals with these things too, and they’ll feel less alone. Maybe I’ll educate someone who has no idea what this is like. I’m still totally focusing on polyamory too though.

Disentanglement

Disclaimer: Sorry for the delay in this, but if you know me, then you'll know that it's been a rough couple of weeks. First off, the whole family was out of commission with a big bad stomach bug for a lot of last week. Then there was very little downtime at work (meeting clients, evening staff meeting, progress notes) and homework-- had a major assignment due Sunday that I spent a lot of Saturday working on so that I could spend the rest of the day with the boyfriend. Then we spent all of Sunday with my family. Anyway. Blogging was not on my mind much, other than, "You should totally do that. You talked this up a lot. Don't let it be one of the many things you build up and then put away." Also, I apologize if this post is all over the place because I have been working on it off and on throughout the week. Could I look it over prior to posting it? Yes. But if I do that, then it’ll delay me actually publishing the post, and I don’t want that.

I wasn't entirely sure what I would post about next. I had thought about posting an update to some Frequently Asked/Anticipated Questions post that I'd made on my Facebook last year, but I want to table that for now. I've decided that I want to discuss "disentanglement," which I mentioned in the last post.

So what is it? I don't have a poignantly-phrased definition for it, but it's a way of being your own person with your own hobbies and routines. It sounds simple enough, doesn't it? And maybe you truly are like that already. Or, if you're like me, you think you've achieved this, only to later find that you haven't. This was the case for me when we first started out as polyamorous. See, I prided myself in being my own person prior to three years ago, because when I first met my husband, I was going through a struggle with finding who I was outside of a relationship. It was actually why I hadn't dated him sooner. Before him, I was always trying to find where I fit in my significant other's life, rather than choosing to live my own life and seeing if this person's life was a good match for me. Anyway. After getting together with my now-husband, there were some growing pains with finding the balance between being a girlfriend and being any other role in my life, but I made it work. We moved in together after a couple of years of dating, with me uprooting to live with him in another state, so that was difficult at first. But I made friends with people at work, I enrolled in grad school and made friends there, I walked around my neighborhood and would take trips to the local coffee shop, I made road trips with friends sans my husband and would not feel like I was being ripped away from my other "half" because we were two different people. So that seems pretty autonomous, yeah?

Sorta. I mean, it is. But I didn't take into account that when I wasn't in school, when I wasn't at work, and when I wasn't on road trips, I was with my husband. Which is totally fine. But it was a routine. School and work were a part of it, and friend time was built around it. Couple time was a happy, necessary part of my life.

And it still is!

But looking back, it was the most important part. Which is also totally fine! But! If you're going to live a polyamorous lifestyle, you need to reprioritize a bit. Although some would debate against that. This is where people would argue about which polyamorous structure you're following: hierarchical, egalitarian, or anarchical. I argue that hierarchical and egalitarian are on a spectrum, because I feel like I'm somewhere on it, rather than being either/or. My husband and I started out as hierarchical, meaning that our relationship was primary. Eventually, we became more egalitarian, with all other relationships being equal (as the name suggests), and now we're somewhere in between I guess. It's hard for me to explain. Regardless, no matter which structure you follow, you still need to check your priorities.

And check your jealousy. So yeah, we're revisiting that. Because it's everywhere.

When my husband would go on dates, it was hard for me at first. Particularly since we were dating the same person, so I didn't have either partner with me because they were both gone. But eventually when I had more partners, I was able to occupy my time more. But then when other partners were busy--such as when I was dating a married couple, and they would like to spend time together (as they well should), and my husband was gone, I would hurt. In part, because I was jealous. Maybe that was the biggest part, honestly. But also? I was lonely. I was used to having someone. Hell, that's part of the deal in getting married. You always have that person, right?

It wasn't really until I was talking it out with my therapist that I realized that I'd become dependent on my husband over the years, and even dependent on my other partners. And, to a degree, I still am, because I'm a work in progress, just like everyone else. What my therapist suggested: become happy being alone. You have to be good with being around yourself. Because sometimes people aren't going to be there. And that’s okay. I think it’s also about trusting your partners, in that time away from you does not mean that they do not want to be with you and that they are going to be with you later (whenever “later” is). Just like when you’re with one partner, it doesn’t mean that you don’t care about your other partners. It might be about recognizing that you feel some sense of ownership over another person. Maybe. And if that’s the case, you need to work on letting go of that because you don’t own anyone (unless y’all have agreed on some sort of dynamic… but this blog isn’t about that. You do you!).

One thing it definitely comes down to: Realizing that you are responsible for your own happiness. I mean, yeah, you’re with your partners because you’re happy with them, right? (If not, definitely reassess that situation.) But. You are your own person. You have your own thoughts and feelings and wants and needs, and you are responsible for how you behave, how you handle your emotions, how you address any flaws or quirks, how you communicate your wants and needs, and how you better and enrich yourself through your hobbies and self-care and so forth. Your partners are a part of that and are a part of you, but your relationships do not define you. And that can be a difficult realization because then it means you have a lot of mental restructuring to do.

The good news is that you can do it. It takes time, and that’s okay. And so long as you communicate what you’re going through, ask for patience, maybe even ask for tips on how your partners have or are going through it, then your relationships will be okay with it too.