My manic episode continues, despite 900mg Lithium and 150mg Seroquel. Last night i took 200mg just to see if i could try and calm things down a bit, and while i slept more i have woken up feeling very out of sorts. It started yesterday, feeling very low despite also being jittery and wired from the mania. I feel less manic today than i did yesterday, but that guilt and shame is still there. This means i might be moving into literally The Worst Thing about Bipolar Disorder: the Mixed Episode.

Mixed episodes are exactly what they sound like, you are both manic and depressed at the same time. Doctors give it all kinds of names, dysphoric mania, agitated depression, but it all amounts to the same thing. Hell. I have only had a handful of mixed episodes in my life, and i always end up feeling suicidal or doing something stupid.

My last mixed episode was a few years ago. I wasn’t taking any kind of mood stabilizer, only an anti-psychotic and an anti-depressant. I post on a video game message board (the same one i met Josh on) and i was in a bad place. Really, really dark but instead of my usual depressed “i can’t be bothered to react to anything”, because i was in a mixed episode i was irritable and angry, my brain was going 90 mph ahead of my body and i was also very depressed. My aunt, whom i loved so much, had just died of a stroke and i was angry that i couldn’t get to the UK for her funeral, or to say goodbye when she was in the hospital.

I’m telling you all this in the hope that you will understand what i did next. That you will understand that i didn’t do what i did while of a sound mind.

You know how there are certain topics that you just “don’t go there”? I went there with a poster on the message board. He said something to me that i perceived as an attack, and i threw the death of his 7 year old daughter in his face as “retaliation”. I’m ashamed to even write that, i can barely believe that such hatred came from me, given that i am generally a pretty easy-going individual. I have tried to make amends since, but the damage is done and he now actively hates me. No amount of apology will change that, and that was something i had to come to terms with.

Mixed episodes are where i tend to do the worst damage, because they turn me into an angry, raging monster that cannot be controlled. That’s why i really sincerely hope this is not something i’m headed into, that i’m just starting to come down from the mania, that i’m just feeling a little depressed.