Life is Always a Work in Progress

I have struggled with bipolar disorder all of my adult life, and like many others, it has taken me on quite a ride. I have tried lots of different medications over the years, as well as self-medicating with various substances, in an effort to smooth out my roller-coaster life.

Eventually I found some drugs that helped keep me lucid and productive enough to hold down a responsible position and get my rent paid every month. For a while I was ecstatic. I felt like my world had been cleared of fog, and I was off and running! I could do anything I wanted with this newfound energy and enthusiasm for life.

I was thrilled at just being able to get up and go to work every day (well, most days), like a ‘normal person’. I was overjoyed at the sheer magnificence of life’s tantalising possibilities, dancing just outside my office door every day. I loved being able to gaze out the 12^th floor window of my bay-side office at the sunshine, and watch boats bobbing around on the water outside.

After a few months the mania settled down and day to day life set in. Suddenly being locked in a concrete box all day looking through the window at the world outside didn’t seem so appealing.

Discontentment started sizzling inside me, distracting me from the tasks at hand. I enjoyed my job and liked the people I worked with, but I felt like I was jumping out of my skin with agitation and frustration. I wanted a life that I could honestly feel satisfied with, and it became increasingly obvious that this was not what I was living.

After a lifetime of ‘managing’ my illness and focussing on just getting through each day, I realised that I had never really thought about what I wanted my life to be, or what I wanted to gain from it. My thoughts had always been centred on trying to hold down a job and staying out of debt.

Since finding the right medication, and with a much clearer head, I could now see how very the things I was doing every day to be productive and survive were also stifling half of who I was. Because I was acting on old ideas of the ‘right’ things to do, I was making decisions with no conscious thought about whether those things would contribute to my personal happiness.

I decided to become much more conscious of the way things made me feel. Previously my only emotional options had seemed to be feeling shitty or feeling crappy, but I had started to experience the more subtle shifts that had previously been drowned out by stronger emotional currents.

What is to follow is the result of my investigations, experiences, self-analysis and lots of talking to other people about what it takes to move towards a happier, more content experience of life. I have written this to help give my journey structure while I continue every day to focus on creating a satisfying life. My hope is that it may also help others who are feeling trapped and alone in a life that doesn’t feel like it should be theirs.


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Author:
Neurons works online from where ever she happens to be a the time.
Learn how you can do it, too, by visiting www.neurons.ws or www.livedontwork.com.