I try to do things that keep me from always digging into my own brain. Introspection is best done in measured doses. If I spend too much time and effort thinking about how wrong my brain is, it becomes worse. So, I try to occupy myself with other things that might be helpful to me whether it is learning something or it is something that I do for the simple pleasure of doing it. I’d put going for a walk or reading a book or watching TV or even spending time with family and friends in this category.

Reading can be especially challenging when I’m manic and can’t settle my mind long enough to concentrate on just doing one thing. When I’m depressed, I just don’t read. It’s one of the major indicators I notice about myself when I’m first starting to become more depressed.

I like to listen to audio books while I’m driving about town and to school and back. I find that in just a few weeks I can listen to quite a long book without listening to it at home, although I do also sometimes listen to them while I use my elliptical, which I need to spend more time doing. Currently I’m listening to A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn. It’s book one in her series A Veronica Speedwell Mystery. I just finished listening to book two, now I’m working on the first one. I know, I got them in completely the wrong order. Not sure how I managed that, but regardless, I’m listening to book one now.

The series takes place in 1887 London and is about a Victorian adventuress and her friend Stoker who is a reclusive natural historian. The book is a historical mystery and adventure story. Unlike so many books today, it is not a romance… I’m thankful for this. I’m enjoying the story of a woman and a man in a real relationship that is meaningful and exciting and doesn’t need to use sex to keep the story going. I’m also thankful for that because I’m not in a relationship like that and reading about them can make me sad. So, I sometimes like to avoid them.

Another thing I do is to study to improve myself and to increase my knowledge. Well, and for pure entertainment too. I’m going to college and that keeps my brain very busy.

What’s my point? Surely I’m not trying to get you to read or listen to this series I’m into. If that’s what you think, you’d be right. I want to convey to you that we need to stretch our minds beyond what they insist upon thinking about. We ruminate about terrible things all the time. It’s part of the nature of Bipolar Disorder. We get stuck thinking about how horrible things are or let ourselves get caught up in anxiety that won’t stop.

My main way to distract myself has been to watch TV. It keeps my attention, but I don’t feel any better after I turn it off. What I want, is the strength to engage in something else, something beyond my moods and dark thoughts.

I’m feeling reasonably well right now. I’m taking advantage of it by watching interesting documentary videos on that new streaming video service called Curiosity Stream. I’m checking out the first month that’s for free to see if it has documentaries that I’ll find interesting… stuff that will take my brain in other directions than it normally does. I’m trying to watch TV that isn’t just drama too. I’ve been watching shows with my daughter like The Incredible Dr. Pol that is about a rural veterinarian. I dvr it and then we have dinner together and watch the show. Not only am I watching something other than a drama or sitcom, I’m doing it with someone I enjoy spending time with.

Again, what’s my point? I realize that I’m healthier when I think diverse thoughts… when I break out of the cycle of rumination and allow my brain to play. Whether I’m talking with someone, watching TV or a video, reading a book or listening to an audio book, the more I embrace a variety of interesting things, the better I feel.

Sometimes I can watch a whole documentary. Sometimes I can read a whole book. Sometimes I can only read a single page. You know what? That’s alright. Even one page – that’s a success.

Find something new to occupy your brain with. Try out watching something on YouTube you’ve never watched before. You can find so many things to watch and listen to on YouTube. Sometimes I like to be inspired by watching a TED Talk or Tony Robbins (he’s a success guru). Other times I’m in the mood for music you don’t normally hear on the radio like that from Two Steps from Hell or I might want to watch Lindsey Stirling who is a violinist, dancer and performance artist.

The point is that when our brains are cooperating enough for us to expand beyond our illness we need to seize the opportunity and embrace it. We will be better because of it and our lives will be richer for it.

I first recall having these urges when I was a teenager and I was babysitting some kids in my neighborhood. The house was beautiful. One whole wall was glass and was above an embankment leading down to the woods far below. I was sitting in a chair facing the glass. Suddenly, I had an overwhelming urge to throw myself through the windows and down the embankment. Confusion and fear overwhelmed me. To resist, I held onto the arms of the chair I was sitting in. The urge was terrifying. I continued to have similar urges through the years.

Later, when I was in Bible college, I remember clearly standing in line for lunch and having the same terrifying urge. I tried not to whimper as I struggled not to act on my urges. I felt like I had to scream and run around knocking people over and throwing their food trays. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. It was so frightening.

What made it so much more difficult to understand was that two professors at the school had been trying to cast demons out of me. I didn’t think of the urges as having anything to do with spiritual things (more about this another day) and I still don’t.

Through the years the violent urges continued to occur to me with frightening fury. They didn’t stop after college. Sometimes I gave into the dark urges. I would throw things and break them to pieces. I screamed and yelled and threw more things.

Eventually I had three children. I was divorced and raising my kids on my own. The kids were often terrified. Sometimes I did snap and the urges would overwhelm me in public. I frightened some people and made others angry. My brother’s partner wouldn’t talk to me for years because once at their business (they own the family business) I lost my temper and the urge to strike out won. I picked up the lunch room table and threw it across the room while screaming and raging.

The violent urges are still with me. Lately they’ve been growing in intensity again. Just yesterday at school I had to restrain myself from screaming at people and shoving them violently.

I was petrified. What if I couldn’t control myself again?

Last night I was thinking about what I was feeling and I realized that I’ve never told any of my counselors or psychologists about it. I’ve decided to keep track of these disturbing impulses and explain what happens to my counselor. I hope I can get across just how disturbing and powerful these urges are.

Does anyone else experience these kinds of urges? How do you deal with them?

Periodically I go to the bookstore and see what the popular press is selling in the local Barns & Noble bookstore on Bipolar Disorder and other related issues. This last time I got a few books that I wouldn’t normally get. I don’t usually use workbooks when I buy them, so I bought a workbook calling itself a handbook this time. It’s a handbook for happiness and surprisingly, I’m actually going through it and doing the exercises. My stack also included a memoir on the life of a woman who suffers from Bipolar Disorder (BPD).

The memoir on BPD has definitely captured my attention. I got all the way to page 101 before I had to stop and breathe. The woman’s story was crushing. It is a vivid exposé exactly spelling out the symptoms of sever BPD. If you’ve never been able to express how you feel at your worst, this book could do it for you.

Although I’m actually taking the time to read this book, I’m not going to tell you the name of the book or the author. Usually I can’t pay attention to a book long enough to get through it all the way much less half of it. The first memoir I ever read changed my life. It forced me to admit I was sick and that there was help for me. That was The Unquiet Mind by Kay Jamison.

I’ve stopped reading this unnamed memoir because I’m questioning its truthfulness. If I went through all the massive amounts of prescribed medications, alcohol use and bizarre behavior. She suffers through alcohol poisoning, doses of prescribed medications that defy explanation, no sleep and sleeping with different men almost as fast as she can meet them. She’s petite woman and has suffered from eating disorders before being diagnosed with BPD. This is her second memoir. Her first was on her eating disorders and she was publicizing it when she was only 23. (If you know who I’m talking about please don’t say who it is in the comments.)

I want to understand why this woman isn’t dead. How can you never sleep, over medicate and drink more than four bottles of alcohol a day for years and still survive? Was this a New York Times bestseller because of the truth of it? Or the sensationalism?

I will finish this book. I owe it to the author before I decide what’s really going on. I have started researching her online but so far have only found her website, her on Wikipedia, and a couple of interviews about her first book on her eating disorder struggles. I would like to be able to contact the author and ask her directly about how she’s survived.

She paints a picture in the 101 pages I’ve read so far that shows the worst of how BPD is. If I’m certain that this book is authentic, I’ll be happy to recommend it to you. It might be a good book to show that no matter how sick you are there is still hope. But then, it may make you feel like you should just give up because you’re not as strong as the author is.

Until then, I’ll try to suspend my disbelief so that I can read it fairly and be open to its veracity.

Have you ever come across anything like this? What did you do?