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Alarm Clock


April and August are my two hardest months to face. Why? Because the seasons change. Mentally I am strong and I am prepared for change on a daily basis. I can deal with changes easily. Chemically, in my brain, I cannot. So my brain does not want to deal with the changes of the season so it spirals into a manic episode which usually is a lot worse than what I faced this year. All that happened this year is I wrote a lot. And I lost a lot of sleep. A lot of sleep. Instead of sleeping I would think. I spend the night thinking of things instead of being able to peacefully drift away into lala land and dream of sheep.
You can try reading to sleep. That does not work for people who are bipolar. We get to interested in what we are reading and we can stay up all night invested in what we are reading even if it is the most boring book in the world. I don’t even watch tv to fall asleep. I turn off all my lights and just lay there in the dark, in the silence with my thoughts. And sleep does not happen. I take enough pills to put down a horse. 60mg of Latuda which has a sedating effect, 2 ½ mg of Xanax which has a sedating effect, and 1 mg of Lunesta which is an actual sleeping pill which is supposed to gurantee sleep and actually help you sleep through the night. Did it? No. However last night I did increase my dose. But last night was an odd ball night because I had to pick up my parents from the airport so I had to split my dose, which I had to do anyway because I left work early which is irrelevant. The point is. I finally found sleep!
And today I am tired! This is bittersweet! Because I am winding down from my manic phase and everyone loves to be in a manic phase because it produces amazing productivity and energy and creativity, but at the cost of your sleep and an increase to your irritability. I would much rather live a life of sanity and normalcy than be writing in a frenzy. This is normalcy. This is reality.
I actually woke up to an alarm clock for the first time this month. What a shocker.

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