Mood Watch - 20

The publication of “An Inappropriate Illness” generated a great deal of constructive online discussion. In addition to a number of attaboys from my colleagues in the history department, I also received about ten private emails from people around the country who knew of, or were themselves struggling with, a serious mood disorder.

The rough consensus in both the public comments and private emails was that disclosing the existence of a mood disorder or anything like it remained, even in academe, a risky thing to do. Thus I had people tell me how brave I was. I don’t know about that. I do know that some of the emails were so affecting that they moved me to tears. I felt honored to have been able to strike a blow, however modest, against the stigma that still imprisons too many people with mental illnesses behind walls of silence.

I have also been engaged over the past couple of days with a totally unrelated matter that has reinforced a sense that I can and am making a constructive difference. Thus, on the whole I’ve been feeling about as good as a man can feel. And the very best news is that I continue to sleep around six hours a night.

The only symptom I notice right now is a certain sense of feeling “scattered” — trying to keep track of two many things at once — and that seems less attributable to biochemistry than to how hectic the start of a new school year tends to be.

Mood Watch - 19

Staying up all yesterday worked — I got a good night’s sleep without having to take an Ambien CR or anything, and feel fine today.

Mood Watch - 18

A week ago I felt physically fine. Then within 24 hours I got walloped by the fiercest head cold I can recall ever having. “Three days coming, three days with you, three days leaving” is the conventional wisdom about head colds, and it usually holds true with me. This one compressed the first three days into an afternoon. By Tuesday evening I could breathe only through my mouth, and then with so much difficulty I sometimes literally felt as if I were on the verge of suffocation.

It wasn’t quite so bad on Wednesday and Thursday, but it was midday Friday before I felt even slightly like doing any work. Still, as the cold began to subside, my mood and energy level rapidly picked up, and from Saturday until now I’ve been in perfectly good spirits, able to focus on my work (even the stuff that requires creative thought), and very productive.

Needless to say, I slept a lot during the worst of the cold, and as late as Saturday night I slept a good eight hours, and so deeply that I didn’t wake up until after 9 a.m. But that has ended my eleven-day run of hypersomnia. I didn’t feel even slightly tired last night, so I just plowed through a back log of work, and as is my usual practice I’ll try to stay awake today so as to get back on a normal sleep schedule tonight.

Mood Watch - 17

I continue to sleep more than usual and more easily than usual, though the hypersomnia isn’t quite as pronounced (or maybe I’m just getting used to it). I feel okay when I’m around people but when alone I often feel a sort of free-floating anxiety; and either way my sense of self-worth isn’t much. I try not to think of reasons to justify the lack of self-worth, which is the way one’s thoughts tend to drift. Instead as far as possible I consider it simply an artifact of the illness.

I wrote that column for Inside Higher Ed. The editor had some minor suggested revisions. I made them and sent back a final copy. The piece will most likely run next week.

Mood Watch - 16

Still sleeping a lot. At such times it’s surprisingly difficult to stay awake, and when I am awake my energy level is perceptibly lower than it has been. I’m starting to feel sort of anxious as well — nothing major as yet, just a vague sense of important things undone, rather the way it feels to leave the house and think you’ve left the stove on. I’m still able to forge ahead with my work, though, and that’s a positive sign.

Mood Watch - 15

Fell asleep around 11:30 last night; woke up at 2 a.m. By mid-morning I was very drowsy and slept from noon until about 6 p.m. I was awake only an hour before the z-monster got me again and I slept a further three hours.

This sounds pretty ho-hum, I imagine, but sleep is the single biggest indicator of an impending hypomanic or depressive episode, and the rules of the game with bipolar disorder say that “good sleep hygiene,” as it’s called, is imperative. That’s why I pay so much attention to it.

At the moment I still feel fine otherwise, but maybe a shade or two less buoyant. It’s hard to tell what will happen next until it does.

UPDATE, September 13, 4:27 a.m. - Slept an additional four hours, from midnight to 4 a.m. In and of itself that’s a good thing, as it has set me back on what is more or less a “normal” schedule. But the ease with which I did it, having slept so much during the day, is noteworthy, and not necessarily in a good way.