Fast ups and down - like in minutes - how common is it?

I almost forgot.

A few of my friends have mentioned that they think it is strange that I do this.  Of course none of them are bipolar.  But even a few of the bipolar ones have said the way I can sometimes hit these mood points in minutes is "a bit odd."

So it was suggested I write about it, so since I just remembered, here I am, writing about it.

One day I was on the phone with one of my friends while my son was having one of the worst meltdowns I think he's had.  He even slapped me in the face, lightly, but he still did it though he was horrified after the fact.

I would be calm and I would progressively start to get angrier and I would be provoked by him and finally I would yell once and boom, instantly I'd be calm again.  It's the same sort of thing that happens when I argue with MOH sometimes.  I can finally get so mad that BOOM I blow my top and then I'm instantly calm.

Now that doesn't happen every single time.  But a lot of the time it does.  And sometimes I can even pull myself to calmness if some other part of me is needed, like my Momness.

Whereas when I was younger and I lost my temper, like really lost it, I could end up blacking out.

As a teen and adult, I've threatened people with scissors, I've gotten into fights, when I was 7 or 8 I broke a girl's ankle and threw her into traffic (she deliberately broke one of my toys and I lost it on her).

In hindsight I am shocked that I was never charged with anything because maybe then I would have had a proper diagnosis sooner and gotten the help I needed sooner.  Who knows?

But the blackout rages were scary.  It wasn't always that I would forget everything, but it was like I'd come back to myself when I was already too involved to stop.  That point of commitment had already passed when I wasn't in control.

So now that it hasn't happened in years and years, I look back on it and think that I somehow developed the ability to explode and then go back to calm (or close to calm) as a self-protection mechanism, not self-defense, because I think it really only protects me from myself.

Whereas the laughter mentioned in yesterday's entry is definitely a form of self-defense and to trick abusers into thinking that I have somehow wrested control away from them, it's a checkmate move in a game of psychological warfare even if I may have lost physically/emotionally/sexually.

But that's straying into stuff I don't want to talk about so I think I am going to try and make a game plan for that damn table.

Ciao.

I spent most of Wednesday playing Twister with Fear

Seriously.

Every time I took a step in one direction, it blocked me.  One, slippery, inky, immoveable foot on red, a long, strong, arm on yellow, toppling me over, like a turtle on its back.  Unable to flip over and get its bearings.

MOH and I had a big talk with our young man today who had some legitimate questions about the upheaval that's been going on lately and that, for once, have not been focused on the emotional/neurological issues of himself or his older sister.

He actually timed me the other day.  As soon as I walked in the door from my peer support group, which was followed by a smaller peer social outing for a cool beverage of a non-alcoholic variety, my pride and joy looked at me as if I had broken curfew and said, in an affronted tone, "MOM!  Do you know you've been gone for exactly 4 hours and 15 minutes?!?!?!"

To which I replies, "No I didn't.  Thanks for telling me, honey."

Then I ruffled his hair and gave him a smooch on the forehead.  Apparently not the reaction he was looking for.

He was gearing for a fight.

Now if it's one thing the more verbal members of our family have in common is that we all seem to leap into verbal sparring in the blink of an eye.  We're yellers and interrupters and we all like to get the last word.

Oh, and I almost forgot.  Every single one of us is convinced that we are, without fail, almost always right.  (And you know that can't be the case since everyone should know that I am right at least 88% of the time!)

I was taking a break from my BPD 2 reading and reading about ADD/ADHD since I have been convinced, for years, that MOH has it - in part because our oldest girl has it and because in reading about it a few years ago so much of it sounded like him (granted, at the time I did say that a good portion sounded like me but I thought I was being some sort of hypochondriac or something) and, of course, along with my BPD 2 diagnosis, I was also diagnosed with ADHD.

So when I was doing this reading last night, I got very scared because I started to wonder if our young man, who already has an ASD diagnosis, might have a co-morbid case of ADHD that has gone undiagnosed.

And then I have to wonder - what does that mean for our not-so-little-one? The lover of pink, coins, shoes and animals?

So those were the fears I was wrapped up in today.

What in the world would it mean if EVERYONE in our family has some form of neurological disorder?

How could we survive as a family?

Would we self-destruct?

If we did, would it all be my fault because I took to many years to get some real help for my own issues?

Playing Twister with Fear, my friends.

And Fear is one nasty bitch of a player.

You know why?

Because she'll trip you, she'll push you and then she'll try to hold you down until you just give up.

But I don't feel like giving up right now.

Hopefully I will still feel that way tomorrow.