Not sure about where you live, but here in Philly, the whether has been fluctuating between drastically hot and sunny and Armageddon. This past week people were being rescued from roofs of their cars due to flooding on our major highways. Intense storms toppling trees, thunder pounding, lightening illuminating the sky. And then twenty minutes later, I'd be putting on my sunglasses. Storms have been rolling through so quickly and tumultuously that streets are being flooded out in a matter of minutes when there were no clouds in sight just an hour before.
This, folks, is what its like to have a rapid cycling mood disorder. At least mine. Of course, I can't speak for everyone. Technically, rapid cycling is described as four or more mood cycles in a year. For me, it can be four or more cycles in a week, or even a day. Of course, this isn't always the case - and four cycles in a day is extreme even for me. But truly, I do go to bed every night having little inkling of how I'll feel in the morning. And even once I wake up, my mood often does not predict how I'll feel by lunch time, let alone the end of the day.
To clarify, it's not as drastic as they'd show in Hollywood, where I just completely do a 180 mid-sentence and you can't recognize me. In fact it's nothing like that at all. I can feel the cycle coming on, when I'm awake at least. I'm especially on alert if I know there are contributing factors that tend to make me cycle - lack of sleep, for instance. Or too much external stimulus, a major change to my routine, not getting enough recoup time/self-care time. In these cases, much like watching the whether radar patterns, I can pretty well anticipate that I'm going to cycle. But no matter how prepared you are, sometimes there's only so much you can do. You can try to time your day out perfectly, analyze all the weather forecasts, diligently study the radar, and still get caught outside when the skies decide to open up. Because sometimes, shit just doesn't go like you or anyone else thought it was going to.
So if the whether has left you frustrated these past couple of weeks, pouring down with little warning and turning sunny the minute you cancel all of your outdoor activities, know that I can empathize. This is my brain on any given day. And no matter how much you try to prepare, to do everything correctly, to take all the precautions, to carefully listen to all the storm warnings and predictions, sometimes you miss the mark, or the storm changes course swiftly and there's nothing you could do to change it. And when that happens, you get to a safe space as quickly as you can and, as one apparently only does in big storms or serious flareups, hunker down until it lightens up.
This, folks, is what its like to have a rapid cycling mood disorder. At least mine. Of course, I can't speak for everyone. Technically, rapid cycling is described as four or more mood cycles in a year. For me, it can be four or more cycles in a week, or even a day. Of course, this isn't always the case - and four cycles in a day is extreme even for me. But truly, I do go to bed every night having little inkling of how I'll feel in the morning. And even once I wake up, my mood often does not predict how I'll feel by lunch time, let alone the end of the day.
To clarify, it's not as drastic as they'd show in Hollywood, where I just completely do a 180 mid-sentence and you can't recognize me. In fact it's nothing like that at all. I can feel the cycle coming on, when I'm awake at least. I'm especially on alert if I know there are contributing factors that tend to make me cycle - lack of sleep, for instance. Or too much external stimulus, a major change to my routine, not getting enough recoup time/self-care time. In these cases, much like watching the whether radar patterns, I can pretty well anticipate that I'm going to cycle. But no matter how prepared you are, sometimes there's only so much you can do. You can try to time your day out perfectly, analyze all the weather forecasts, diligently study the radar, and still get caught outside when the skies decide to open up. Because sometimes, shit just doesn't go like you or anyone else thought it was going to.
So if the whether has left you frustrated these past couple of weeks, pouring down with little warning and turning sunny the minute you cancel all of your outdoor activities, know that I can empathize. This is my brain on any given day. And no matter how much you try to prepare, to do everything correctly, to take all the precautions, to carefully listen to all the storm warnings and predictions, sometimes you miss the mark, or the storm changes course swiftly and there's nothing you could do to change it. And when that happens, you get to a safe space as quickly as you can and, as one apparently only does in big storms or serious flareups, hunker down until it lightens up.
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