Goodbye dreams

I was going to be a successful writer. I was going to spend my days writing hugely successful non-fiction books, bringing a gentle, insightful, spiritual perspective to a number of life's tough topics. I was going to touch the lives of many and change the lives of some.

I was going to start and run a major non-profit organization to offer rape recovery retreats to women who were long-time survivors of sexual violence, given them a place of respite, of hope, and of healing. I was going to do some ground-breaking work in the use of knitting therapy to help these women heal.

I was going to design, build and spend my life in a beautiful Mediterranean-style villa overlooking the water in a place that was perpetually sunny and warm. I was going to rise to the bright morning sun and write from my office with the french doors wide open so that breezes could blow the crisp, sheer white curtains. Fresh cut flowers would fill the house and I'd walk barefoot on cool tiles in warm colors beneath my feet. The walls and shelves would have been filled with beautiful, colorful hand-crafted art. The outdoor room would be the place I spent my evenings, dining on freshly grilled seafood and vegetables under the stars, either alone or with my close circle of dear friends.

I was going to share my success and my sanctuary with the man I've always dreamed of. He was to be handsome, creative, spontaneous, supportive, trustworthy, generous, kind, loving and hopelessly romantic. He would have loved to cook, dine out, travel and dance. We would talk long walks along the beach and talk for hours in front of the fireplace or under the stars.

These were my dreams. I was hypomanic.

Of course I will miss the creativity, the flashes of brillance and the boundless energy of hypomania. But more than that, I will miss the hope hypomania offered. When I was hypomanic, I could look in the mirror and see a bright, brilliant, witty and charming woman who was approaching the second, and better, half of her life with renewed vigor, focus and passion. I could think of the suffering of my past as learning experiences that were merely part of a grander plan to prepare me for the incredibly bright future I had in store. There wasn't anything I couldn't accomplish if I put my mind to it, and the future was as bright as the sun.

Those dreams have all crashed and burned along with my hypomania. Where I once felt invincible, I now feel impotent. Before I could do anything, now it takes everything I have to make it through the day. I can't seem to find a way to look at the future as anything more than countless hours, days, weeks, months and years of the same deep, dark pain that I've been feeling for the past several months. I'm not suicidal, but is it any wonder that I often imagining going to sleep and just not waking up?

That's the odd thing about sleep, or the lack of it. When I'm hypomanic, I don't need to sleep. It's a waste of precious time. With so much to do, why waste it on sleep? But when I'm depressed, I don't want to sleep. I think it's because I don't want to wake up and go through another Groundhog Day existence. What's the point?

I understand now that hypomania is not *healthy* and I can see that my dreams weren't realistic, but at least they gave me hope. The alternative really sucks.

Update: 10/9/2007

Today I'm in the process of moving all of my previous posts from Wordpress to Blogger. It's a tedious and time-consuming process, but the one benefit has been the necessity of re-reading each post to decide which to move and which to delete. I debated on deleting this one because I no longer feel the pain I felt when I wrote this 6 months ago.

But I decided to keep it because it is a great example of the cyclical nature of bipolar disorder and of life in general. A lot has happened since I wrote the original post and as dark as those days were at the time, they did not last. Had anyone told me that back then, and some tried, I would not have believed it. I didn't see any way possible to come out of the darkness. But I did. Was it easy, not at all. But with the right combination of medication, a supportive health care team, a wonderful friend/mentor who also has bipolar depression, and a lot of hard, focused work on my part, I've made it into the light. And in the process, I've been blogging about what I'm doing and what I'm learning, with the hope that not only can I help myself the next time I'm depressed, but hopefully that I can help someone else as well. I imagine that I will face more episodes of depression in the future, but now I know I can stare it directly in the eyes and that I will prevail.