Slow Motion

The world is in constant motion.  Unfortunately, when I'm having a bad day, nothing stops; everything and everyone keeps moving along.  I was finding myself slipping further and further from the reality of life and deeper in to my own darkness and isolation.  No one can live like that?  At least, I can't.  I can't sit in a hole and feel sorry for myself, that's just not my nature.  I've been taking baby steps to re-enter social life, but its been a long process.

I'm starting to feel a little more even keel and decided that today I was going to go to a birthday party.  It was wonderful seeing all my friends.  I've missed them.  They were all warm, cracked jokes about bipolar disorder, insisted that I was a trend setter (Demi Lovato and Catherine Zeta-Jones recently announced their struggles with bipolar disorders as well) leave it to my girls to find a way to make this "posh"!  The weather was gorgeous, the party was a little crowded; i suppose that's to be expected for a joint birthday party for two boys ages 2 and 5.  About halfway into the party, I could feel the walls closing in around me...time to go.  It all just became too much.  I was feeling drowsy, irritable, rushed, and even confused. 

My children weren't really ready to leave, but thank goodness we had swim lessons later in the afternoon and I was able to tell them we needed to go get ready.  I didn't make it though.  By the time we got the kids ready for swimming, I was in full melt-down and needed to go home to sleep/rest.  My husband trudged on with both kids to lessons and managed them all on his own.  I...went home and took a nap.  That's the first time I've done that to him.  I've always managed all our activities; I guess today, I just pushed too hard and I was overwhelmed. 

The only way I can describe things when I get into my melt-down mode is that the world starts moving very quickly and I am stuck in slow motion.  Its everything I can do to function.  I can't drive, I can walk or talk, or focus.  I'm just...done.  I'm feeling like that more and more lately, but usually sleep helps it go away.  After my nap today, I went on to have a very productive and happy evening.  I made a nice steak dinner and then worked on a wedding project for my niece.  I even went back out and did some shopping for the project. 

The slow motion sucks.  It literally takes a chunk out of my life.  I feel that I miss out on so much with these lapses.  I'll definitely talk to my doctor about this at my next appointment...