I noticed that after my therapist told me I didn’t fit the criteria for a manic or even a hypomanic episode, my depression has started creeping up with the elevated mood still here.

Maybe he’s right.

Maybe I don’t understand how I really feel still.

I had a good friend and roommate tell me one time that she couldn’t tell when I was super drunk.

That I acted the same as when I’m sober for the most part.

That’s called masking.

And I’m really fucking good at it.

I don’t show people how I really feel because that just leads to more destructive behaviors and discussions that confuse me.

How I look is not how I feel.

It never has been.

How come no doctor ever caught my hallucinations?

Because I’m really fucking good at covering them up and not showing them.

Is the voice yours that you’re hearing?

Sure, I guess, I’d say.

And that would be that.

End of discussion.

I mask so well that I practically ruined my life during my last giant psychotic episode.

I was so out of control that I couldn’t mask anymore.

And suddenly everyone could see the real me.

The me with hallucinations and delusions and the me who thought the CIA was out to kill me and stalk me.

I masked so long that I lost myself.

Now I don’t really know who I am.

Who am I without the mask?

Now that I’m processing very publicly with this blog, the mask is gone.

I can’t do it anymore.

I masked so long that I wore it out to a point of no recovery.

My mask has disintegrated now.

It’s no longer available for use.

And that’s a scary feeling because who am I if I’m not masking what I’m going through?

Who is the real Keren?

How do I act now that I’m living out loud?

What does that even look like?

I’ll have to just keep giving myself time to figure all this shit out.

(a couple hours later) My Mom said this is a time to practice not taking things personally.

That my therapist didn’t mean for it to be personal, he was just saying that.

Just making an observation and it’s his observation and I don’t have to agree, but it is what it is.

And that very well may be the case.

And she’s got a good point.

I know I do have to stop taking things so personally, that is something I am continuing to work on.

And maybe I’m not describing my symptoms well enough.

But it’s traumatizing to be told how I feel. 

That’s a big part of my failed marriage is my ex husband not believing how I feel. 

It’s invalidating. 

I shut down after being invalidated and the EMDR didn’t do much that session.

It still worked a bit, but not as well as it normally does.

(a couple hours later) I just realized that a fucking psychotic episode can look like a nonstop fucking manic episode.

Picture the most constant risky behaviors back to back to back for decades at a time.

I did it to cover up the symptoms.

The symptoms aided my destruction.

But I now understand that I get really long psychotic episodes with a touch of a mood order thrown in from time to time, like my diagnosis says.

Did something just click for me?

Because it’s very obviously not a mood disorder with psychosis sprinkled in.

I don’t have to be either manic or depressed.

I can be euthymic.

I don’t have to be manic just because I’m in an elevated mood.

This could be me in a happy state.

Fucking mind. blown.

I feel like the definition of the diagnosis that I have, the schizoaffective, bipolar type, has just set in.

Like it just fucking clicked and now I feel a touch anxious about it.

So, I was a nonstop partier and nonstop worker for too many years.

I did that to cover up the symptoms.

Because being psychotic looks like non stop mania.

And I’m in a psychotic episode right now, not manic.

Maybe that’s the difference?

Maybe it feels manic because I’m never in a good mood anymore?

I don’t really know what a sincere good mood feels like anymore honestly.

It’s been a few years.

But maybe this is it.

That would be welcomed.

I was starting to lose hope again till Thursday evening, but that’s a different entry.

(about an hour later)I was hearing voices at my parents house today.

I didn’t want to say anything (sorry y’all, love you), because it wasn’t terrible.

But it was distracting.

It was some murmuring sounding like someone was standing just behind me mumbling.

Radio dj, that’s the closest thing I can get it to.

Like a radio dj is talking in another room but I can never make out more than a word or two here or there.

I think I’m in a psychotic episode, and my bipolar is euthymic.

That’s my conclusion.

Touché, Sean (that’s my therapist).

– Keren