A friend dropped by yesterday and I my medication hadn?t yet kicked in. I?m usually pretty manic last thing at night and first thing in the morning (yes, would drive many people nuts!). But I drink Lemon Balm tea, which is a muscle relaxant and makes me pretty laid back, quite mellow. The result? Mellowmania.
In my teens and adult years my mania literally developed in leaps and bounds. But this masked the real diversity of Rapid Cycling Bipolar I?d had since infancy, because I tended to avoid venturing out if I was in equally extreme but phobic, severely distressed or depressed or rage states, which were all the mixed bag of my month, my week, my day, depending on how fast my moods cycled.
Low Salicylate diet really reduced the cocaine-like force behind my swings, omega 3s, calcium-magnesium, mega B complex all really helped and Glutamine kept me out of the darker side which might otherwise have killed me. Finally a very low dose of Seroquel does the rest and certainly autism is easier without fleas than with.
I don?t take enough Seroquel to build it up in my system which means I get windows on the ?old me? as soon as it wears off but this worked better to daily, weekly, monthly remind me why I wanted to take it. Because however glorious mania could be, there?s a point at which its endangering, highly exhausting, socially and communicatively sabotaging and more dysfunctional than it is wildly creative.
I?ve had a better quality to my creativity within a state of mellowmania than I have had in the disorganised, agitated, unpredictable and constantly vigilant, flighty state of mania, proper. But its so important to slow that train or you?ll burn out.
So here?s to a common garden weed, lemon balm, and the tea made from it. May you and your friends not melt on the side of the kitchen table as the relaxant sets in.
Donna Williams *)
www.donnawilliams.net
In my teens and adult years my mania literally developed in leaps and bounds. But this masked the real diversity of Rapid Cycling Bipolar I?d had since infancy, because I tended to avoid venturing out if I was in equally extreme but phobic, severely distressed or depressed or rage states, which were all the mixed bag of my month, my week, my day, depending on how fast my moods cycled.
Low Salicylate diet really reduced the cocaine-like force behind my swings, omega 3s, calcium-magnesium, mega B complex all really helped and Glutamine kept me out of the darker side which might otherwise have killed me. Finally a very low dose of Seroquel does the rest and certainly autism is easier without fleas than with.
I don?t take enough Seroquel to build it up in my system which means I get windows on the ?old me? as soon as it wears off but this worked better to daily, weekly, monthly remind me why I wanted to take it. Because however glorious mania could be, there?s a point at which its endangering, highly exhausting, socially and communicatively sabotaging and more dysfunctional than it is wildly creative.
I?ve had a better quality to my creativity within a state of mellowmania than I have had in the disorganised, agitated, unpredictable and constantly vigilant, flighty state of mania, proper. But its so important to slow that train or you?ll burn out.
So here?s to a common garden weed, lemon balm, and the tea made from it. May you and your friends not melt on the side of the kitchen table as the relaxant sets in.
Donna Williams *)www.donnawilliams.net
