Turning a Coping Mechanism into a Coping Strategy.

I think of a coping mechanism as something that a person does not really think though. It's an automatic response to stressors. I think of coping strategies as pre-meditated, deliberate, healthier ways to deal with stressors. Using strategies requires a lot of self-awareness, courage, and practice. I'm thinking about some of my mechanisms and how I might change them to strategies.

1) Excessive silence and stillness. This can come over me suddenly, and I often can't break it. I call it the Tin Man--a sort of paralysis. Since it's not in my control, I have to build practices that will makes my body stop thinking that it needs the Tin Man to keep me safe or sane. So what can I do?

• Read. If only a poem or a piece of flash fiction. It will engage my brain and distract it.
• Talk. I need to tell someone that I'm getting frozen and why (if I know). 
• Trance writing. This was highly problematic when I taught, but at home, I can let myself write desperate nonsense until some clarity comes to my writing and my mind.

2) Soda. I love soda. I could chain-drink it all day. But I know I have used it as a distraction far more than is healthy for my body and my teeth. If I'm stressed or shocked, I reach for a Cherry Coke.

• Quit. I've done this a couple of times, hoping to break the habit and lose weight. I didn't lose weight. Right now, I buy the tiny 8 oz. cans.
• Substitute. I don't like diet sodas. I have milk, apple juice, and sometimes iced coffee. They can cause their own problems, but having beverage options helps.
• Drink more water. I can have as much water as I want. I like that feeling of abundance and gratitude.
• Have Icebreakers Cinnamon Sugar-Free Mints. They're good for when I just need some flavor.
• Take a Xanax. Sometimes, the anxiety is too strong, and I really need help that nothing carbonated can give me.

3) Shopping. I love shopping. I'm not indiscriminate unless I'm quite manic (buying three sets of coasters when we already have coasters. Buying almost identical T-shirts). I love finding new treasures that can become part of my life. I like seeing what people have made or dreamt up. I'm calmer when I know I have plenty of what I need (especially writing tools, books, and comfortable clothes). So how can I keep it under control? 

• Shop my house. I have some pretty decorative boxes above my kitchen cabinets, and I don't know what they hold. Stationery, letters, rubber stamps? I can take them down and see what I can use right now. My desk holds notepads, pens, and stationery. Again, I can dig around and find something to use right now. I can explore my wardrobe for clothes I've forgotten. 
• Window shop online. This one can be dangerous, but it can also help me have fun as if I'm shopping without actually spending any money. I go to a favorite site (Loft, Target, Amazon, Papaya!) and search it thoroughly and fill my cart, adding discounts I find (a bonus satisfaction). Then, I close the page and let it go.

If I have some money, the issue is not so much whether or not I spend it but how I will avoid buying something that isn't all that special or necessary. So I have some guidelines.

• Enjoy buying useful basics like a plain black T-shirt.
• Buy beautiful items. If the work, designs, colors, or details grab me hard, be it a sweater or a notebook, I'm going to pause. If it's also useful, I may make it mine. 
• Buy what's rare. If it's on sale at Loft with an extra 40% off, and I love it, it's probably going to happen. If I see something special and just know I'll never see it again (or never be able to afford it again), I may buy it. 
• Buy what will enrich life. A candle I burn while I take a bath. A pair of unbelievable theatre tickets. A big pink robe to wear when the boys want the AC on.
• Hold it. If I'm someplace like Target or Michael's, I'll hold my favorite items as I shop. I sort of feel out what owning these items would be like. Then, I put away the items that don't speak to me.
• Let it simmer. If I see something special at the mall, I'll continue shopping. When I'm ready to leave, I may go back for the item if I kept thinking about it. If not, I let it go.

I'm always trying to find and develop coping strategies. When almost every moment is a struggle, I need all the mindful coping I can manage.

The Impossible.

I'm amazed at how crippling (sometimes literally) mental illness can be. A trigger could be anything or nothing apparent at all. Who can win against that?

Some of these blows happen daily at any time, and some are less frequent but can be extreme. The scope of what's possible, what I can do or communicate or find, narrows.

Here is what often is or seems impossible.

• Showering. This often feels like a massive task involving too much of my body and too many steps. I'm in a better place with that now--music has helped. I have to reach out of the shower to find the right song, whatever that may be. And I may wash my hair twice because I'm not paying attention to what I have to do.
• Eating. I don't feel hunger pains often. When I do, I'm usually already sluggish and dizzy. Preparing food is hard, but the worst part is trying to find something that seems edible. I skip meals. Then, on rare occasions, I feel completely famished and much more motivated to eat.
• Putting on makeup. I love makeup, and I love playing with it. But some days, I can barely put on my foundation. If I have even a little glitter around my eyes, you can know that I am trying. But eyeshadow and eyeliner are the real tests. On a good day, you'll see lipstick, blush, and all-over sparkle. 
• Moving. When my symptoms are high, I sometimes experience what I call the Tin Man. I'm suddenly unable to move. I can usually move my eyes, but I can't speak or get out of an uncomfortable position. Josh will sometimes rearrange my neck or my legs for me. The Tin Man seems to leave on its own eventually. Josh thought the name meant one of us is heartless, but it's about not having enough oil, and I haven't discovered much about the oil I need.
• Gathering enough affection. Josh and I are pretty affectionate. Oliver is pretty dedicated to his own space. Bruce gives good hugs. Sometimes, I feel so hungry for love in any of the languages.
• Being with several or more people, even if I love them and they love me. I need an escape hatch. With breaks, I usually do okay. Most family is aware of that.
• Cleaning. I often don't notice what needs to happen, or the awareness almost paralyzes me. I try to do a little each day--some laundry, the dishes, picking up toys, tidying up some of my clutter. Josh takes over a lot of the work. I am trying, and I hope to improve.
• Feeling fully comfortable in my body again. I have little hope for weight loss; I'm just trying not to gain more.
• Life without meds. This is probably just true--I will take varying medications for the rest of my life. I may deal with changing meds and side effects every couple of months.
• Doing anything but sleep. My body and mind cry out for rest or escape.
• Reading. The resistance can get strong. I believe I can't do it, and I know I won't retain much anyway. But of course, reading is one of the greatest tethers tying me to Earth.
• Writing product. Luckily, I've been able to keep up writing practice most days for a long time. But I don't know if or when I'll write a product (story, poem, essay) let alone submit it.
• Living without dread. My brain seems always able to find something to latch onto. The absence of work is a massive help, and I believe I'm so much better now that I'm not working. Still, my brain wants to overload and send me fleeing or fighting nothing.
• Understanding my illness and myself. I've read books and articles and studies. I need to learn to ask questions of my therapist. How do I sort my feelings, thoughts, and actions? Do answers exist that I simply haven't come across yet? I know I need to learn more.

A Bipolar Body.

My bipolar body is mine, and my experience won’t match that of others. But bipolar disorder is a physical experience as well as a mental and emotional one, and the medications dissolving in that body leave their own calling cards. One of my greatest frustrations with BSD is my inability to distinguish symptoms of the disease from side effects of the medication.

I’ve almost always been pretty thin. My Irish Dance legs were too muscular for me to really be slender. A few years ago, I got to the point of accepting that I would never really be thin below the waist. But lithium and probably Abilify (along with a pretty serious case of self-medicating with Dr. Pepper, I’m guessing) have, in the last two years or so, bestowed 40 pounds upon me. It’s shocking. It’s a shock every day. I apologize to Josh; I don’t look like the creative writing major wearing size 3 LEI jeans. He always finds something kind to say. So far, diet changes and exercise don’t seem to be helping.

I blame another problem on Abilify because—well, the timing seems right, and my psychiatrist thought it was likely. But it could be something else. A mania doorbell ring perhaps. My whole body nearly screams with burning tension. It feels lie fire ants in my bone marrow. I can’t reach them. I stretch compulsively, constantly, trying to escape it. But another medication, benztropine, almost completely took all that away. Thank God. Something that really works! But I’m not crazy about having to stack medications to cure side effects.

When mania is coming on, manifesting itself quickly, I feel burning and shuddering in my arms and legs. The light changes, becomes more fluorescent. Things look different—did they change the wallpaper? I move more—more tapping, more gestures, more looking around. My eyes seem to bounce. I sit forward, ready. Thoughts come stacked 3, 4, 5 deep. When I try to address them, they unravel and speed away. I want to talk. I need to talk. I trip over words. I use the wrong words. I lose ideas, unsure if they were brilliance or crap. I don’t have to sleep as much.

The beginning of mania, or hypomania, can be so empowering. But mania intensifies. Visions engulf me, usually terrible tragedies that my brain thinks it must work though in simulation. How would I get my family out of a burning car? The images don’t stop until I’ve figured out what to do. My brain seems to be shredding itself. Something compulsive like shopping can numb me a little, for a while. Only sleep seems to help me in the moment. I think my brain uses my sleep to heal, layer by layer of frozen or torched consciousness.

I used to experience something like temporary partial paralysis. I call it the Tin Man. I lose the ability to move, even to turn my head, rearrange my limbs, ask for help. People close to me have noticed. Luckily, this hasn’t happen for a long time.

Even in important situations like a meeting about my son, sometimes, my body and a lot of my mind just check out. It’s like the frustration of a computer restarting because of updates you know nothing about. My mind is stressed, so the body takes over and turns the volume way down.

I’m clumsy. I trip. I walk into walls and corners. I get dizzy. I have trouble with physical multi-tasking like walking and talking at once. A few months ago, I fell hard outside Dean and Deluca.

When I was on a high dose of lithium, I threw up almost every night. Even now that I’ve been on a lower dose for about 2 years, I still randomly throw up about once a month. Why does the body want to get rid of the medicine? The disease is smart, smarter than I am sometimes.

Depression makes me feel sluggish in every way. The part of myself that wants to go live, to do what I love, is in a dungeon, and I can barely hear her. Tin Man happens sometimes. I feel that I’m worthless, that I don’t belong, that I’m all wrong for my family and everything else. Thoughts float by, some about self-harm, splicing images between ordinary thoughts. Sometimes, I get scared. My face is vacant. Josh calls it the thousand-mile stare. The depressed bipolar body could sleep for days. It’s trying so hard to get better. But it’s like lying on my back in a swamp. Even if I get up and get out, I’ll still have to remember who I am and find my way back home.

I take 6 different medications to be stable. They don’t save me from everything, and they sometimes make me exhausted or make me throw up, but I know I have to stay committed to them.  I have to do all I can for the body and the brain.

What Paralyzes Me.

This is a difficult topic. Sometimes, I feel heaviness or numbness in my limbs or whole body. Moving is nearly impossible. Josh has sometimes helped me unfold myself and get to bed.

• A sense that I have completely misjudged a person--believing him or her to be better in some way.
• A sudden change in major or important plans. Even some smaller changes (like going to a different movie) challenge me. My internal structure is so fragile, like a dollhouse made of icicles.
• Jealousy. It can freeze me.
• A phone conference (which, luckily, I don't have to do now).
• Money troubles (which can paralyze my mind if not my body).
• Fear of losing my family (my darkened mind is quick to provide scenarios).

I've been on a good mix of medications lately, and the paralysis ("the Tin Man," as I call it) has not happened for a good while. I'm grateful for that.