Day 14 2/18/2020
For anyone who has been following me and this blog for the past two week I want to say thank you for following my journey. I will also apologize for not posting the last two day. Since about Saturday I have been managing my way through my first manic episode since starting my new medication regiment. Both Sunday and Monday were days that I couldn’t find the motivation to get out of bed, much less do anything else. If it wasn’t for my parents pushing me to literally get out the house, more in an effort to get me to do the things I needed to get done, I more than likely wouldn’t have left my bed or room until today when miraculously I felt ten times better.
I am not entirely sure what brought on this episode, as I can remember starting to feel off as earlier as last Friday, and everything coming to a sudden cultivation yesterday evening, when I, for no reason, started to breakdown crying in my car while driving home. While I’m not sure why I started crying, the overall reason, it was spurred on by some of the songs I was listening to. Even that was odd to me, as the songs that I was listening to were some of my favorite songs by one of my favorite rappers Joe Budden. Now, if you have ever listened to Joe rap, you know all of his music consists of mental illness and relationship stories. Due to his content, I have listened to him for years, mostly when I am in a depressive mood because even though his lyrical content is that of a depressive nature, it helps me cope with what I am going through at the time. Normally however, I don’t usually cry when listening to his music. I normally either just become numb and have no feeling or get angry. I guess the combination of these songs and whatever was going on in my mind at the time was too much for me to handle.
Thankfully, I was able to make it home safely, driving on the highway going 70-80 while crying is no easy task. Upon returning home, I went straight to bed, complete bypassing my entire family, who was sitting in the kitchen having a conversation, without saying one word. Sitting in the dark watching Netflix reruns of some of my favorite shows, and episodes that I connect with in this situation, I was able to at least stabilize myself enough to fall asleep. What was noticeable for me was the fact, despite all this going on I was still conscious enough to remember to take my prescription, which one it kicked in was extremely helpful. After about 30 minutes, the amount of time it takes for the Lamictal to get into my bloodstream, I was feeling substantially better and could feel my mood shift to a more normal feeling. While this is definitely a great thing, I don’t like the fact that on the tail end of the pills life cycle in my body, I can fly completely off the handles until I take the pill again.
My entire ride home yesterday, about an hour give or take, I was not only crying but contemplating suicide, something I thought with the pills I would never experience again. My thoughts jumping from, “If I were to ‘lose control’ of my car right now, it would be considered an accident and not suicide.” Too, “Where would I be able to get a gun, because that would be the fastest way for this pain to go away.” After having these thoughts, and upon pulling into my driveway, the thoughts subsides and a feeling of numbness appeared. The crazy part about this, I welcomed the numb feeling, as it not only felt normal and recognizable, but was more manageable than crying. I am used to the feeling of numbness, the feeling of not feeling, and unlike most people, I would assume anyway, I relish this feeling because it means I have endured the worst of my current pain and one of two things is about to happen next. I am either, going to get past the whole situation, or I will remain in this numb, non feeling state until I get help or snap out of it myself. The latter usually being what happens.
As all of this pertains to music, both yesterday and today I had to endure meetings and consultations with a variety of people while navigating these feelings and this mind state. Let me tell you it wasn’t as bad as you would think. I was able to have a two hour long meeting with a studio head yesterday with no issue at all. The feelings I spoke about above didn’t and usually don’t occur until I am alone, which is good because I am able to handle myself in public and with people, but odd because as soon as I get alone I crumble. Today, even though those feelings had past, I was able to conduct several team and management meetings with the studio staff, in an attempt to construct a structure for our new business. Once we get everything up and running, I can’t wait to share all the details of what we do and how we do it with this blog. To me its extremely exciting and I think you guys are going to enjoy not only the process I begin to share as we build, but also our overall concept.
Before I end this post I would like to ask the readers of this blog a question. My goal in starting this blog was to write one post each day chronicling what I am feeling, how my day went, and how I am managing being on Lamictal while trying to run and build my own business. One thing I began to notice last week, is that on certain days there isn’t much of an update, as from one day to the next sometime not much changes in my mood or what happened that day. Sometime the day is just non-eventful, and I don’t want to water down this blog with daily posting of nothing and just posting for the sake of posting everyday. At the same time I don’t want to only post when something happens, because this could lead to days and possibly weeks without a post because nothing eventful, at least in my eyes happened and there was no significant mood changes or alterations that would be of note. With that being said I open this question to the readers of this blog. Would you like me to continue writing a post each day, or would it be better to spread out these postings to every other day or so, to ensure for better content?
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