The Bipolar Paradox

This is one of those philosophic posts, when I’m over thinking everything. I can hear it coming – “GJ is in one of THOSE moods again…” The funny thing is, I can’t tell you what kind of mood I’m in. I know it’s changing, I have a feeling it could get pretty bad. It might be mania, I slept little last night, I’m VERY irritable, and I’m not able to concentrate. It might be depression, I have little energy or motivation. It’s probably mixed, which would be bad because mixed episodes are more difficult to handle than manias in many ways.

There is so much that goes along with this disorder that makes no sense. Take the mixed episode for example. I mean how could anyone who hasn’t experienced it understand it? Combine depression and mania in a blender. Mix well. Let those moods beat each other upside the head for a while. Serve over rocks. That’s a mixed episode.

On my personal blog I recently wrote of the “Bipolar Paradox”. So much of bipolar disorder is a true paradox. A paradox is defined as “a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.” Let’s look at this in terms of the mixed episode I just mentioned. A mood that is both up and down. That’s a seemingly contradictory statement that is nonetheless true. The bipolar paradox.

The more you start thinking of bipolar disorder in terms of a paradox the more relevant the definition becomes. You can have a mind that is “un-well”, yet at times that mind can give those with bipolar disorder almost super-human ability. How can that be? The bipolar paradox.

Let’s go a little deeper into the abyss that is the bipolar paradox.

All our lives we’ve been different, and that difference is who we are. It’s part of our identity, our personality. Society is supposedly accepting of differences, and welcoming of diversity. But often society won’t accept us as we are, forcing many into hospitals, and forcing or insisting on medication to kill the difference in personalities. That contradiction is the bipolar paradox.

Too abstract? Let’s get more specific.

Our uniqueness can make us attractive to others. It might be what attracted our friends, spouses or significant others to us originally. That same uniqueness, over time, is what makes us so hard to live with. We attract, we repel. The bipolar paradox.

But let’s take that last example a step further. We want to keep our friends, families, loved ones, spouses and others close to us. We don’t want to push them away. Through a process of medication trial and error we can change our behaviors, and often our personalities. Many of us can achieve the goal of becoming the people we’ve been asked to become. But once we’ve become that person, we are not as attractive and interesting as we once were. We have not satisfied our loved ones. The bipolar paradox.