Bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depression, is a mood disorder that causes radical emotional changes and mood swings, from manic, restless highs to depressive, listless lows. Most bipolar individuals experience alternating episodes of mania and depression.
Of course, it also describes me, which is why I was looking it up. Is it possible to develop such a disorder in one's fifties, or was it always latent in me? Maybe. After all, during my pre-menopausal days, that basically described my cycle. I used to say that the only time I saw life truly and saw it clear was when I was having a period. The rest of the time I was a happy idiot: anything could bring me joy. I enjoyed small triumphs and beauties and I ignored the horrors and banalities of every day life.
And I've been a happy idiot for much of the past month and a half. Visiting the family, enjoying scenery from the train, playing music with my sisters and Mom, sledding, hiking in the woods, sharing New Mexico with V, taking pix, writing haiku, burning CDs, baking, knitting, spending time with T, watching Deadwood, discovering new books, catching up with friends....all good. I could spend hours listing and describing what's good about my life.
That's the manic phase. And then.....
I walked into my therapist's office this morning, smiling, getting out my knitting, ready to talk. She said, "It's been awhile, did you have a good time with your friend? You're smiling..." And I starting crying and didn't stop for the next hour.
I guess you'd say I'm in the depressive phase now.
In fact, I'm an exhausted basket case. I made it to rehearsal, but started sobbing on the drive home. I thought, this cannot be good for me, despite what my therapist tells me. I'm wiped out. And I shouldn't be driving. So, I looked up "chemical effect of tears" in Google. I found what I was looking for:
Emotional tears are composed of more protein-based hormones, such as prolactin, andrenocorticotropic, and leucine enkephalin (a natural pain killer), which is suggested to be the mechanism behind the experience of crying from emotion making an individual feel better.
But I also discovered a recent study that women's tears reduce testosterone in men. So, not only am I exhausting myself, but I'm preventing myself from getting laid.
Now, that's something to be depressed about.
