#manicallyrhapsodical

[manicallyrhapsodical]

when did i start hating birthdays?

my birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and i’m not sure how i feel. when i was a kid, i loved my birthday. it was a day (more like a week; i was spoiled) focused entirely on me! people gave me presents, celebrated with me, and told me how much they loved me. what’s not to love?

however, as time passes and i get older, the idea and concept of birthdays becomes less enjoyable. maybe it’s because i’m a summer birthday, or perhaps this is just how birthdays are regardless, but birthdays now remind me of how forgotten someone can be. don’t get me wrong, without fail, i’ll get birthday wishes from my family and best friend, random people i don’t expect anything from but am pleased to hear from, and friends i’m surrounded by now. however, it doesn’t matter how many people reach out to me; i always think about those who don’t.

why didn’t they reach out when i did on their birthday? how many people would still reach out if i deleted my social media and people didn’t have a reminder? i thought we were better friends, so why hadn’t i heard from them?

one of my deepest fears is that of being unliked by people and either not knowing why so i can’t fix it or knowing why and being unable to resolve the issue. to some extent, i think we all suffer from this fear. however, this is something that can paralyze me and make it hard to function. i think when things like birthdays roll around, it presents an opportunity for my overanxious brain to cling on to wondering if people even really like me or if i’m just as annoying, overbearing, awful, abrasive, and socially clueless as i sometimes feel i am.

recently, i had a friend over, and at the end of the night, i felt like i may have been a bit too callous in my humor and offended them. when they left, i kept myself up for hours, wondering why i was the way i was and trying to think what i could do to resolve this issue. the following week and a half, i made myself physically ill with how anxious i felt about the whole situation, and i woke up throwing up every single morning over the fear of them not liking me anymore. i kept myself up late at night, killing myself, thinking of how i could resolve the issue and could get them to like me again. finally, i subtly asked if things were okay between us after a forceful push from a friend.

to no one’s surprise, they hadn’t been offended and thought nothing of that night. while i know i’m not the first or the last to feel these emotions, i can’t help but liken them to my upcoming thoughts about my birthday.

what if people forget because they’ve secretly loathed me for years? what if people purposely don’t reach out because they want me to feel bad? even worse, what if no one reaches out because no one cares? what if no one reaches out, and i’m forced to confront that maybe i don’t have as many friends and people who care about me as i think i do?

these are the ramblings and thoughts of an anxious mind, and i do what i can to control it. misery loves company, and i’ve appreciated talking to a few people close to me who can empathize with how i feel when my birthday rolls around each year. obviously, this isn’t an overnight fix. still, hopefully, things can resolve themselves enough in a few weeks that i’ll spend more time being grateful for the time and attention i get instead of dwelling on the anxieties of the “what-ifs.” who knows?

[manicallyrhapsodical]

when does exhaustion end

i feel so tired.

this isn't a new sensation that i'm bringing to the table that no one has ever experienced before, and i'm well aware of that. i talk to family and friends and listen to their conversations and their fears, hopes, worries, and wishes, and i sit and note the silent thread of weariness through them all.

why haven't i got over this anxiety yet?

why have i not been able to accomplish this dream yet?

why am i spending so much time worrying over this?

when will this finally happen to me?

i feel tired of reading the news and wondering when things will improve. i feel tired of reading what politicians who represent me say on my behalf when i couldn't disagree more. i feel tired of listening to everyone tell me their issues when i know they can't tell me what i'm struggling with. i feel tired of having to do more work than my male counterparts because they somehow never end up with the same workload as me. i feel tired of having to do emotional labor that goes unrecognized and unthanked because it's something that's simply expected of me. i feel tired of asking questions and never being asked questions in return. i feel tired of reading statistics that prove my anxieties and bad gut feelings right. i feel tired of having to reach out. i feel tired of having to complete favors that will go forever unpaid. i feel tired of having to keep mental issues secret so as not to make anyone feel uncomfortable or burdened with my problems. i feel tired of living up to my expectations. i feel tired of living bound by my anxieties.

i just feel tired.

i am privileged. my life is easy. my mental health diagnoses could always be more severe, and i have things figured out and medicated. i have food, shelter, money, and enough of my wants to not worry about what's missing. this isn't a new emotion or a new state of being that i've just discovered that i'm bringing forward for everyone to examine. i know that, and i understand it. this acknowledgment of that feeling exists in the liminal space between the internet and my brain; i'm okay with that for now.

being tired runs rampant, and i'm unsure what to do with that knowledge. i don't handle my exhaustion well, and i don't know what to do to fix it. what to do?

[manicallyrhapsodical]

a stone left unturned

when i get into something, i get into something. i am not someone who partly commits. whether that’s a good or bad thing is yet to be decided.

when i decide on a new hobby, everything is swallowed up in becoming the best i can be. when i want to try out watercolor, i’m not satisfied with doing it for the pleasure of doing something artistic and letting my mind wander. i am constantly thinking about how to do it so well that people think i’m an artistic prodigy and whether or not i should be switching majors. when i begin listening to a new artist, i read every article about them, every interview with them, and every gossip thread on reddit, twitter, and facebook. i know their blood type, every detail of their published life, and the lyrics for every song they’ve ever thought about releasing. when i find a new recipe i enjoy, i won’t eat anything besides that for at least 3 weeks. i become the cucumber quinoa and let it consume every part of me.

but just like that, it always ends. one day, without warning, i will become totally and wholly sick or bored of whatever it was i spent weeks obsessing over. i won’t touch quinoa for months until i remember the recipe i once so dearly loved. i’m bored of my new favorite artist, and they get relegated to the bottom of my playlists and skipped over because i’m so sick of listening to their music. i stopped doing watercolor because it takes so long to get set up and done, doesn’t it? why is that? why can’t i commit to a simple hobby or liking? why must everything be accomplished in extremes?

i’m not sure. i’ve examined this behavior several times, but i wonder if i’ve ever examined it enough. while i do tend to be overly introspective and critical of my behaviors and character make-up, there are some things i’m willing to leave alone for the moment being. maybe one day i’ll examine this behavior more closely, but a stone will be left unturned for now.

[manicallyrhapsodical]

texting is of the devil

texting makes me anxious. it didn’t use to, but the older i get, the more i hate it. texting feels like an awkward battle between guessing whether or not someone actually likes me or if i’ve secretly been annoying our entire friendship, and now, in this moment, they’ve decided to act on those feelings and not respond to me. texting is a volley back and forth over whether i’m doing too much or not enough.

should i have sent two messages? did i use too many exclamation points? why did i pick that emoji? what if they don’t want to respond, but now they feel forced to? what if they’ve secretly hated me their entire life? why do i continue to try and force my presence on them?

it’s enough to make anyone mad.

after i send a risky (to non-family or best friend) text, i always have to delete the conversation off my phone (not permanently) and turn off my notifications so i can’t obsess over it and make myself sick, wondering when they’ll finally reply. after 3 hours, i've turned my notifications back on. after 9 hours, i’m silently cursing them out. after 12 hours, i’m silently cursing myself out. after 24 hours, i shut down my phone to stop thinking about things. once it passes 36 hours, i’ve either forced myself to forget that person even exists, or i’ve made myself so nauseous because of anxiety that i’m now throwing up.

i didn’t use to be like this.

[manicallyrhapsodical]

greta gerwig you are so precious to me

i love the movie lady bird. on the letterboxd app, you select 4 movies to sit on your profile to be known as “your top 4”. since i downloaded the app 3 years ago, lady bird has not left that spot once. i haven’t watched it in a couple of months (which is a while for me). still, i’ve seen it enough times to accurately remember the feeling i get every time i watch it: recognition and that warm, tender feeling you get in your chest when you’re absorbing something you love and connect with.

i first watched lady bird in my freshman year of college. until then, i had been living at home and had just recently moved out for school. my mom and i have always had an interesting relationship because she loves me more than the world and would do (and does) anything for me. still, we also struggled because of how similar our temperaments were and because she sometimes expresses her love in ways that i can improve and become better. looking back on things now, i can more clearly understand that, but in the thick of the moment, we often fought, and i felt like i would never live up to her expectations of me.

i watched the movie by myself, on my crappy laptop i had bought for college, and just cried. i’ve tried to explain my love for this movie before, and the closest i can get to describing how i feel is that this movie feels like home. it feels like home in the way that i can see myself in that family dynamic. i can see myself in lady bird wanting so badly to escape while not realizing that she’s been dreaming of her hometown the whole time. i can see myself both in the past and present in wanting so badly to be accepted and liked that sometimes we do things that aren’t really who we are. i see my mom in her mother and how they interact and show their love for each other, as “twisted” as it may seem in some moments. the movie feels like coming home after a long time away, whether because you’ve been avoiding coming back or you haven’t been able to.

i love that we live in a time and place where these media pieces are coming out that we can love and relate to deeply. i love the human experience of being able to watch and read things that we can learn from and grow from. i love connecting with other people who feel similarly towards the things i appreciate. i love seeing these stories come to life so that i can feel validated in emotions and thoughts that i’ve carried for years. what a wonderful world we live in!

[manicallyrhapsodical]

i'm an ENFJ - what are you?

i absolutely love and adore personality tests. you name any test, and more than likely, i've taken it. do i 100% fully believe and ascribe to the results of the various personality tests i take? no. do i let myself, for a brief moment, unconsciously attach my life experiences, character make-up, and personality traits to the purposefully vague explanation of what 4-letter combination i am? yes.

i've been an "enfj" my entire life, and i can remember that from the top of my head. i also know that i'm a member of the "slytherin" house, i'm high on the neuroticism scale, and that i'm most like jo march from little women. i'm a "red" personality type and a "type 1, wing 2". i'm as avoidant as they can come, and my first clifton strength is "competition". i know where i lie on the political compass (false) and the exact percentages of my "big 5". my star sign is leo, and i'm a "lawful neutral." i check up on my horoscope occasionally to ensure i haven't missed anything too important.

i play these results off as a joke, and i'm quick to make fun of myself for being so invested in these various tests and quizzes. however, suppose i really sit and rummage around in my mind for why i love doing these silly little quizzes. in that case, i came to the realization reasonably quickly that i enjoy labels and things being in their place. why would these various pieces of my "personality" and "self" be any different?

i like knowing where things belong. i like having a specific set-apart home for everything. i compartmentalize like it's going out of style, and i address and handle things in an orderly fashion. i have list upon list of things i've ever felt the need to document. i have spreadsheets to arrange my school year and a spreadsheet ordering my favorite taylor swift songs and albums. nothing escapes being categorized, labeled, and sorted in my life, so why wouldn't i hold on to these labels to help make sense of who i am?

i know that labels can be used to be hurtful or to categorize things unfairly. i know that snap judgments of who people are or where things belong can do significant damage. however, can't i just be able to take my stupid quiz and let that convince me for a few minutes that who i am makes sense?

[manicallyrhapsodical]

was it worth it?

i wake up unsure of anything.

i haven't remembered my dreams for quite a while, so to escape sleep this morning by remembering one feels like quite an accomplishment. however, the more i try to hold on to the details and storyline of what my subconscious came up with, the more it escapes me until i'm left with one person and maybe a fledgling idea of one scene in my dream.

not much to write home about.

i go back to sleep, trying to get at least one more hour. only sleeping in until 8:30 am on a saturday feels like a crime, especially when you committed another crime by going to bed at 6 am. before i go to sleep, i sit and calculate how many hours i'll get before the inevitable death of my rem cycle by iphone alarm.

i wake up again at 10 am, and i know i won't be so lucky this time. breakfast is made and eaten, and i pull up the movie i didn't quite finish last night before getting sidetracked by wondering if i should conclude the previous night's thoughts.

things must be linear, after all.

i sit to finish everything up and again wonder if staying up late was worth it for this. i can't tell if i'm starting another hyperfixation or becoming manic and devoting time and limitless energy to another grandiose project. for now, i'll sit and wonder about that possibility while letting you know it was worth it. i'd stay up late again to have an outlet for my thoughts that aren't being shared elsewhere.

wonder what will happen tonight?

[manicallyrhapsodical]

4:04 AM

i think everyone has a right to create a crappy blog filled with the musings inspired by late-night thoughts and worries. i’ve never cashed in on that right. it wasn’t until i sat thinking about whether or not it could be considered manic for me to make a blog, a tumblr account for the said blog, and an opening article at 4:04 am that i decided to jump into the world of the “writer’s blog.”

i’m someone who doesn’t intend to stay up late to do things. i plan when i’ll go to bed, complete my night-time routine early, and get in bed at a decent time almost every night. however, i inevitably find myself sitting up between the world of being wide awake and feeling like i could crash the second i let it happen. i stay up late and enjoy the free time that being up at 2 am with me, myself, and i grants.

when i was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder, i remember both my therapist, the psychiatrist, and the medical professional who diagnosed me all telling me how important it was that i got my sleep. on my official “test results,” one of the 9 recommendations for how to move forward with my official diagnoses was to read and study how to sleep better and to implement the practices learned. my psychiatrist mentions every time we meet the importance of getting sleep so as not to trigger a manic episode. my therapist has me take check-in quizzes before we meet each time to report on various things, one of which includes how my sleep is, to estimate what my mental state is before i go in. 

yet without fail, at least once a week, i stay up past the “allowed” time frame i’ve given myself. if i’m being honest with myself, it tends to happen more than once a week, but you won’t catch me admitting that to anyone out loud. 

being up late gives me freedom i don’t always have during the day and serves me for both the better and the worse. i read books and dig deep into researching topics i’ve meant to get around to. i plan my week and how i’ll fit everything into their neat little slots. i tidy up my to-do lists and organize everything from my email to how my photo albums are categorized. labels are added, the excess is deleted, and wants and needs are fulfilled.

on the other hand, i’ll spend hours scrolling through reddit forums, seeing if anyone has experienced the crushing guilt i’m now feeling from mistakes long ago made and how they got over it. i sit and stalk people from my past, silently reprimanding myself for not being farther along in life. i google the feelings and thoughts i’ve been having to see if that’s a potential trigger warning for a manic episode. i listen to a guided meditation to see if it’s strong enough to break me out of the anxiety attack i inevitably bring upon myself.

eventually, i can no longer stay awake, either because i feel slightly ill because of my increasingly frequent sleep deprivation or because i talk myself down off the ledge of seeing just how long i can stay up. when the morning comes, my two hours of sleep never feel like a worthwhile trade for all the good i did in the early hours of the morning. 

i wonder if i’ll feel the same when i wake up this morning to a new hobby on the side, all pristine and ready for me to partake in. guess we’ll find out.