Pages

16 November 2009

Eyargh! : Or, the Demented Battle Cry of a Lunatick Philosopher

I came home early today, nominally because this is the third week in a row when I've had some sort of a virus or other and I am very tired.

Why am I so tired? Because I stayed out far too late on Saturday night. The night bus let me off in front of my door at 3.07am. Where did I go? A rather insipid student night not at my own university but at the rival one across the road. Why would I go to such a place, I who firmly dislike not only loud music but also nights out that involve dancing? Because I have an idiotic crush on a girl that isn't even a proper crush because she's not someone I would date in real life, though I'm not tremendously sure of what real life, my real life, is at the moment because everything seems to have been upended and I've had a cold for three weeks which does not make for clarity of mind and I really thought I had broken my habit of getting crushes on younger women but I guess not and I don't know whether to be distressed, indifferent or amused about it, not that she's that young but still.

Last Wednesday night I didn't sleep but a couple of hours and yet had no trouble being awake and alert on Thursday and I have been talking back to the newspaper, out loud, while on the train in the morning and distractedly twitching at noises from the street while reading in the common room and forgetting to eat and having alternating flashes of panic and rage in the morning while trying to find the right books to take with me for the day and trying to weave through the people who meander dazedly down the tube platform in the morning when really they should be trying to get away from the crowded part and get down to the very end where there are only five or six people standing and 8.00am is really not so early as to make dazed meandering really necessary. I have been staring at people generally which I have largely explained to myself as being the result of moving to a place where there are more than 1,000 times as many people as the last place I lived, to a city whose population is almost as large as that of the entire state of North Carolina, which is almost as large in area as the entirety of England and Wales put together so that, as you can see, the people were a great deal more spread out and therefore not as easily stared at but then that falls apart when one considers the subset of all that staring which is a new-found involuntary tendency to gawk - let's not mince words - at other women, which is not very polite and has the added detraction of making me feel like I've turned into an adolescent boy: I've had 'staring issues' before but not like this.

And the real reason I came home early is that I was worried I would do something weird and aggressive because I am having the harsh tail end of a hypomanic blip and I am extremely uncomfortable and I don't quite know what to do with myself and and and...

And too many things are happening on top of one another and sometimes simultaneously in the wrong order and I can't calm down and writing this has helped some and I thought it would but (eyargh!) why have I had colds for three weeks and why do I have to choke on the dregs of mania?

4 comments:

  1. I flinched at the talking-out loud in public admission. I did it again today and someone swung their head around and glare at me (I was just ouside the hospital where I work so might have been mistaken for an escapee).
    Sympathies on the viral-fog. Combined with hypomania it must feel a bit like over-dosing on on cold-cure tablets. I do hope it lifts soon.
    Sounds as if you should be soaking in a hot bath of vitamin C.
    Hypomania would be all very well aside from the jaw-twitching, eye-shifting low-level paranoia that all too often marrys it.And that dreadful but vague sense that you need to remove yourself to the quietest corner before something calamatous happens (which will be all your fault).
    I hope that passes too.
    I'll be sending a sleep-fairy your way tonight. She's been good to me these last few nights.
    K.x

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kate - Thank you for the sleep fairy: she did a good job. I think I'm lucky that I can pass off my audible mumbling as philosopher dementia, if anyone I'm likely to see a second time notices it. I just always wonder how long I've been doing it when I catch myself and then I start wondering whether I ever do that and fail to catch myself and if so, whether I've done it around other people and not realised.

    I probably have.
    Lucy - I don't know what to think, myself.

    I'm still in the land of ringing ears (happens a lot when I'm panicky and stuck in a room and it's very disorienting) and I can't quite figure out what's going on but I came home and took a klonopin, which is lazy, but this has now been going on for days and I give in.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Recently I've been worried about what people think about me. I don't want to appear weird.

    But people shouldn't judge by appearances.

    I hope you feel happy soon.

    When big changes happen in our lives, we often react by going off the rails a bit mentally.

    ReplyDelete