Curiosities of a mood disorder

One of the hardest things to cope with post-diagnosis is the medicated life.  Not just the routine of your daily pills, but more the experience of life overall.  Granted, medications are a great way of helping stabilize moods, but they do have the unfortunate downside of lessening their intensity.  ....Even though that seems to be one of their primary goals.

It becomes harder to understand how you feel about things when you are on top of med's.  You are more apathetic, or when you do feel one way or another, it does not come with the feeling of a resounding Yes! or No!  It's more of a "ya sure I guess" or "eh, maybe not,  I don't know". 

Life is about experiencing the highs, the lows, and everything inbetween.  Although mood disorders are dangerous and have obvious potential to ruin relationships, jobs, or life in general, they do offer people with an experience of life that no other person could ever  understand.  The pure euphoria, optomism, and energy to do anything and everything you could ever dream to do.... and the absolute worst of emotions, sometimes one, sometimes many mixed, but always with an end result that people without a mental illness could not understand unless they've been ridiculed, abused, or tormented in life by some other outside force.  That, of course, is the suicidal thoughts and actions. 

So why do we have these experiences?  It's so easy to chalk it all up to being an unknown chemical imbalance and leaving it at that.  But let's open our minds for a minute and wonder, just wonder, if it could be for our individual benefit?  Could a higher power/god (God)/nature, or whatever force you believe in be responsible for giving specific people their illnesses?  And for what cause?

For example, look at Sylvia Plath.  Brilliant poet, yet struggled intensely with bipolar disorder, which drove her to committing suicide at a young adult age.  Would she have committed suicide if she did not have a mood disorder?  Probably not.  But would she have written so poetically, been capable of expressing emotions so well with her words?  Perhaps, but we can't really know.  I like to think she could not.

I think we are blessed with a curse, a curse that if not understood and handled with utmost care can potentially end our lives.  But this curse brings the bountiful blessings of the enhanced human experience.  To feel emotions on a much grander scale, with fluxuations that would give any roller-coaster enthusiast a sick stomach- a blessing that you couldnt trade for the world. 

Would I be the same person I am today if I did not have the same experiences and struggles throughout my life?  Absolutely not.  But I would also not be an artist, and I would not have the passion that I do for the work I create. 

But still, I feel it's wise to hold the reigns- no matter how slowly and steadily the horse then rides.  Take the medication and steady your course.  Although it's so easy to see the benefits and pleasures of letting go for just a while and letting the horse lead the rider and feel the wind across your face one more time.  And the rush of knowing that at any minute the horse may buck you off...