Thoughts from Depression after a Mixed Episode
By Victoria @sillycreativexx
Written March 8th, 2025 (in the thick of it)
I can't lie; the weight of bipolar feels like it’s crushing me. Every time I feel like I understand, I feel like she changes up on me. I possibly fucked up my meds a couple of weeks ago and wasn’t taking my lithium for a few days. That, plus many life circumstances, threw me into a mixed episode that brings that depression that surprises me again and again. And makes me feel foolish for being surprised. It makes me feel foolish for feeling like I was depressed before, but this is REALLY it. The crash from mixed episodes has gotten me into the worst places. Sometimes I get a little jealous of the bipolar girlies who “enjoy” their hypomania because for me, the ones I’m able to identify always spiral into a mixed episode quickly, which leads to disaster. But there have definitely been times when I felt like everything was coming together and felt so great, and I was having a spiritual moment. And just didn’t know until the crash came later. Bipolar comes with so much shame. I feel it within myself, from others, even in my treatment. A lot. The shame of feeling like it’s always “something” with you, feeling that people around you don't know quite what to do with you. Just the shame, shame of here we are again. The shame I feel talking about it when I do, like I should just stop saying it. But when I feel like I’m drowning, it's impossible because I don’t feel like myself, and I don’t like myself, and I started getting so frustrated. When it’s like this and it gets to where each moment just feels difficult and I feel like I’m doing all I am capable of, it’s hard not to feel like you’re just failing and weak. Even though I know I’m able to sit through a lot of shit from years of dealing with this. It’s just a waiting game sometimes, and it feels exhausting and old. It’s old and fucking tired. Having this be right in my face crushes me over and over. Because this isn’t what I want out of life, for me and the people who love me. But here we are. Always keeping myself safe and alright because I feel an obligation to myself and them to do that. But I’m just really tired and frustrated.
magazine collage made by Victoria in 2020
Written March 28th, 2025 (hopefully starting to come out of it)
Talking about how I deal with bipolar 2 is something I push myself to do consciously after holding it closer to my chest for a long time. It's still not something I voluntarily give up about myself in most spaces. Sometimes I lie and say I went to my typical local public school when I actually went to a therapeutic high school for mental health issues. You caught me! But I saw a quote I really loved a few days ago that said, “Shame dies when stories are told in safe places.” It made me think about group therapy and how it was invaluable to me in a way I never expected, because I could see people that I didn't already have a personal connection to, really see them, and see things in them and their struggles that I could also see in myself. I felt myself rooting for them and seeing the strengths they had that they couldn't quite feel yet. It showed me I’m not alone in a way I have never been able to truly feel before with mental health. It's cliché, but I didn't know the root of so many of my struggles was shame. So to keep myself okay, I know I need to stay connected to other people’s stories and not shy away from what I sometimes see as the darker side of myself. Because depression often makes me feel like a rotten human being, I know I'm not. Lately, I’ve been repeating to myself almost like a mantra, “I have a mental health disorder. I am taking care of myself. I enjoy life; I just have a mental health disorder that makes me feel like I don't right now.” I know that to get out of this and to have the future life I want, I need to be on my own side. Balancing the self-discipline I feel I need to have to keep showing up for myself and having compassion and grace through my pitfalls is not easy.