{"id":237,"date":"2012-11-04T05:56:47","date_gmt":"2012-11-04T13:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/2008\/06\/28\/quiet-brain\/"},"modified":"2018-05-15T09:58:19","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T16:58:19","slug":"quiet-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/quiet-brain\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to a friend about bipolar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A friend and I had a long talk about bipolar last night. He said that he would not get rid of his bipolar disorder if he had the chance. I was shocked by this as the illness has really caused him serious trouble. I know that I would do ANYTHING to get this illness out of my life. Tonight, I started to think more of our conversation. Here is a letter I wrote him:<\/p>\n

Hi,<\/p>\n

I was just going to write in my journal but decided to write you instead. I\u2019ve kept a journal since 1990! Can you believe that! When Ivan (my ex who has bipolar one) was in the hospital I wrote down everything that happened. I recently went back to read them- as I was thinking of doing a memoir- and my memory was actually different than what happened. It was weird.<\/p>\n

Since I\u2019ve learned to manage the illness more successfully, I\u2019ve had some weird things happen. Tonight for example \u2013 my brain is quiet. I\u2019ve wished for this my entire life- what I didn\u2019t expect was how unmotivated it would be. When I\u2019m depressed, my brain is so active that it pushes me to do things. I write better when I\u2019m slightly depressed believe it or not- at least in terms of my bipolar books. It\u2019s so odd. I used to think- if I were well enough, I could rule the world<\/em>!\u00a0I’ve recently learned that people don’t normally live\u00a0with a relentless drive to get things done. It’s all I think about when I’m not well.<\/p>\n

When you said you wouldn\u2019t trade the bipolar \u2013 maybe you meant that you don’t want to lose the creativity. The creativity that comes with\u00a0bipolar disorder is always on a tight rope. It’s very easy to fall off- and then\u00a0creativity ends.\u00a0\u00a0We don’t get to keep the super high creativity and stay stable. That’s a fact.<\/p>\n

Mania is so creative that it often spins out of control. I do have some wonderful times at the beginning though. So, if I were slightly manic for the rest of my life, I would love it.\u00a0Since\u00a0I’m rarely manic, \u00a0I\u00a0 have to come up with ways to make my depressed \u00a0brain push me to greater things. I\u2019m so driven to get well that I write about the process daily- as a record and as a way to help others get well. My management ideas are working. I just hope I don’t ever lose my drive.<\/p>\n

Julie<\/p>\n

I’m interested to know what you think….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A friend and I had a long talk about bipolar last night. He said that he would not get rid of his bipolar disorder if he had the chance. I was shocked by this as the illness has really caused him serious trouble. I know that I would do ANYTHING to get this illness out of my life. Tonight, I started to think more of our conversation. Here is a letter I wrote him:<\/p>\n

Hi,<\/p>\n

I was just going to write in my journal but decided to write you instead. I\u2019ve kept a journal since 1990! Can you believe that! When Ivan (my ex who has bipolar one) was in the hospital I wrote down everything that happened. I recently went back to read them- as I was thinking of [ Read More ]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11441,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/11441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}