do not metaphor me

I woke up this morning feeling on the edge of a bipolar rage episode.  For those who are not bipolar, I’m going to take a moment to explain it as Google AI Assistant does hopefully without boring you out of your mind.

First, “Bipolar rage is an intense and sudden burst of anger that happens during manic, hypomanic, or mixed episodes of bipolar disorder.”  Which means a person’s reaction is larger than called for by the trigger or it could happen just because.  And that is a hard thing for the person receiving the anger to grasp or accept sometimes.  Or to not get bitter and upset about always having to be the strong one, the level one in the relationship.  To know the best way to handle the situation is to not react and just breathe it out.  Something extremely difficult since doing and saying nothing could be a trigger to escalate the situation.  It really is the person with bipolar that needs to remind themselves the emotion isn’t “real” even though it very much feels real.

However, I have found you can figure it out by asking yourself a couple of quick questions, was my heart racing before or after I started feeling this way?  Because sometimes it will begin to beat fast before any trigger or emotion steps into play.  Another thing is you can ask yourself, does my chest feel tight?  Am I extremely hot and sweating? Do I have a twitch.  I know you can also ask yourself these things about a panic attack.  Because bipolar rage feels very closely like one. But instead of flight kicking in, the irrational urge to hit something, yell and cuss does.  And it is almost impossible to control.  The good thing about it is, if there is one, the episode is considered short in the realm of bipolar episodes.  It only lasts a few minutes to a few hours instead of weeks or months.   

There are several common triggers.  The first is the cause of mine today, lack of quality sleep.  Last night I did not sleep well at all.  I was extremely hot, but I needed the weight of several blankets on me to relax me.  So, I would wake up because I was hot and sweating.  Throw the covers off of me.  Lay awake until I got cold again.  Pull the covers back over me and settle back to sleep.  This cycle happened at least six times last night.  Therefore, I woke up on the wrong bipolar side of the bed this morning, you could say.

This bipolar state can also occur when medications have been changed, or (another one of my common triggers) during high stress situations.  And by high stress I mean, like an argument.  It doesn’t take much for me to take an argument to boiling anger.  Bipolar rage can present if a person feels criticized.  I cannot count the times in my life I have asked someone, “Are you making fun of me?”  And not believed them when they said no.  Leading to me cussing them out until a fly wouldn’t land on them.  (As the saying goes.)  And lastly, my most common cause of all the triggers, feeling misunderstood.  That emotion has been the bane of my existence.  I could bore you with hours of things I have felt misunderstood about.  Especially when it comes to my family.  It is countless the times I have insulted them by saying things like, you just don’t see me or accept me for me.

There are several things I do during and after a bipolar rage to cope the best I can with them.  The last one I will share with you first.  I always apologize.  First of all, it keeps you humble and accountable.  Remember when I said it makes the ones you love feel like a punching bag?  Well, you don’t want them to feel like you are taking advantage of their love also.  Secondly, when you apologize and list all the things you were feeling that you know were not real, it makes it easier to recognize it while you are in it when it happens next time. 

That’s when you pull out of your pocket preemptive coping skills.  Two of my Go To’s are walking out of the room and singing a song.  For instance, today I went and took a shower and thought played the chorus to ‘Let it Out’ by Switchfoot in my head over and over.  Another thing you can do is whatever art, hobby, or talent you possess.  Like I used to write poetry, but these days I’m more inclined to crochet something.

The thing to keep in mind is bipolar rage is an extreme form of anger.  It is not something that can be rationalized.  So do yourself a favor don’t even try.  However, you deal with it as if it were common anger.  You walk away.  Say as little as possible.  Do a task that calms you down.  And while you are doing that think about how you are going to apologize.  Because the honest hard truth of the matter is this.  Even though you sometimes cannot control the rage.  You still are accountable for your actions during it afterwards.