Brain twists!

 Today I'm going to expound a little more on what begins to occur with me when I start to have an episode. Now again, this is what I feel and do, not necessarily how others are, everyone is different especially when it comes to mental health. But I thought I might explain a little more since yesterday I wrote about medication compliance. Today I thought maybe I would write about brain twists and how (so far) my head reacts to new issues.


My first issue is almost always weird compulsions. When my mood goes off I start feeling the need to spend money. Suddenly I need a whole new wardrobe or oddly a bunch of coffee. Now the coffee is totally explainable, I love it. I have had a beautiful love affair with coffee since I was around 8 years old. I almost always have 4 to 5 different coffees and creamers available at my house. When I start getting manic, I'll buy more, a lot more, like 10+ different flavors. It's a bit much, but also a good indicator to my girlfriend that I'm not doing alright anymore. I will begin to feel panicky about food. I have never run out of food in my life, never been starving, but when the crazy begins, I suddenly need as much food in the house as I can get. Now this wouldn't be a bad thing, but even after buying it I will want to eat out, that way as my brain tells me, we can save the food at home for later. Wacky I know.


Other people will begin to feel so slow to me! Driving, talking, walking, whatever they do it's too slow! My poor girlfriend, friends, and co-workers bear the brunt of this, I get really snappish because I don't understand why they can't keep up.  I don't understand why people can't talk about 4 to 5 topics at once! Why can't everyone understand I've changed conversation topics? Keep up! I'm also a little too blunt when I do talk, whatever is in my head just pops out, it even surprises me at times. I get very critical and a "well that's real life, suck it up" attitude. Sad story, I told a young girl that the Easter Bunny and Santa didn't exist. Like I went out of my way to explain how rabbits don't lay eggs and how it's physically impossible for Santa to make it everywhere in one night. Yeah. It was real jackass move and later I felt so bad, but at the time I told my friends, "Well she was going to find out sometime, better now than later." Total bitch right there. Again, I don't understand why everyone doesn't think the same way too. Driving, I may sometimes start screaming at other drivers or worse, I've run red lights. In other words, the longer my crazy goes, the more of a bitch I become. Part of the explanation is that I'm irritated by my own head and how fast it's spinning.


The worst part starts right before stuff really gets out of hand, I begin to get the urge to start drinking. Not so much of an issue except almost all of my medications interact with alcohol, and, whoops, I'm a recovering alcoholic. Now I don't know how many of you readers have an addiction problem, but when those urges hit it can become almost physically painful. I will dream about it, smell it, and worst, I can taste it. I will find myself desperately doing the stuff my AA program told me to do, don't go into aisles with alcohol, avoid places that sell it, and for God sakes no bars! If by this  point I still can't tell the crazy is about to come out, this is it, this is when I know for certain.  It's normally at this point I know it's time to call the doctor. Sometimes this will actually sneak up on me with no other warnings. Once I went to a gas station to grab a few things. At the register, the cashier asked me if I wanted a certain 6 pack that was on sale. I automatically bought it! It wasn't a certain brand I liked or even knew, but I paid for it before my brain even caught up to what I did! I still have no rational explanation for what happened, I just got rid of it at home. Weird.


These are just a few of the problems that are good indicators for me to check when evaluating my mood. Sometimes it's easy and I can totally see it. Other times, I rely on trusted friends to help me out (and they do, so much more than they know). I may not notice my attitude getting crappy or maybe I will just blame it on work (that happens to everyone), but they can tell when it's a bad day or maybe time to tweak the meds. And that happens, every so often I need a tune up, or a good checkup with my therapist. I've been told that sometimes I may need a short hospital stay although so far with the exception of once a couple years ago, that hasn't happened again. But it could, it's always a possibility.  But I choose not worry about it, I have enough to think about every day as it is!


I'm not whining or crying about this stuff, I realize everyone has some type of demon to face. If you don't, then apparently you haven't been living! This is just to promote a little more awareness into Heather's weird brain, not to excuse any asshole actions or words I may have done or said. I'm truly sorry for those and I hope that I can make up for it. Maybe you might find some similarities as well, and you might realize crazy heads and "normal" heads aren't so different after all!