Cycles: Emotional Rollercoaster

Cycling: Emotional Rollercoaster


Cycling occurs because of randomness. The randomness which can be heightened by environmental  factors, behavioral constructs, and human conditioning. All of these lead into being reclusive, combative, argumentative, and often contradictory. With bipolar it is often very difficult to function in a cognitive manner. Typically within the hour,  one could be having thoughts about various systems, why things can't change, and then become weighted by the overwhelming emotional cascading, pity, apathy, anger, sadness, glumness, introspective, and projecting,

When cycling hits, everything is thrown into a chaotic permutation. Sleep patterns are wrecked, thoughts become broken clogs, and functioning (lets face it, just isn't happening). Cognitive awareness is often the first casualty with cycling. I call these events because they become broken bits of time pockets, blocked out by the emotional swing occurring. This leads into over elated sense of excitement, deep valleys of stress, major shifts of anger, tiny slivers of joy, and cascading waves of sadness that inculcate personal disposition.

As far as the thoughts portion, cycling can affect thoughts, for me they've bounced around like slippery ping pong balls, strewn every which way, or I would just hone in on one area and over analyze it to a point of ridiculousness. 

The key here with all of this is take one situation at a time. At first will seem kind of strange because undoing previous engrained behaviors takes time to unlearn. That its okay to take one moment as it arrives, rather than be overwhelmed with having to do fifteen things at once. We like to think we can do a lot of tasks at once, but truthfully details are going to get missed, and it makes sense to slow down.

The other key piece here is laugh. Bipolar is a very big thing, it can challenge the senses, reason, and inner belief. I have found that laughter, music, and animation are my go to healthy avenues when I am struggling. But, it takes constant work, and having an inner dialog that is trustworthy, and having the compassion to know that there will be good days, and not so good days. I've learned through my cycling that I embrace the challenges, but be extremely mindful of where they are going. I've used key tools in breaking patterns, and learned to accept what is rather than trying to change what I cannot. Thanks for reading.

B.