(I Also Write Children's Books!)

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Where Did The Time Go?

Needless to say, since all of my characters are crazy, so am I. The special neural chemistry that produces angry, abused Little Red Riding Hoods and dreamland paper streamer goldfish relies heavily on good 'ol bipolar disorder.

One of bipolar's fun little quirks is 'manic related insomnia.' Sleep requires relaxation. It's quite hard to relax when you're manic, even a little manic. You tend to stay up late, or wake up and have trouble getting back to sleep. This has an interesting side effect. In order to remain functional when you're low on sleep, you get more manic! And that increased mania makes it harder to sleep. This cycle is quite capable of proceeding until you're bouncing off the walls and have to be hospitalized. I've watched it happen.

Thankfully, my bipolar's fairly mild. The insomnia's not going to rev up until I'm hospitalized. Instead, it'll rev up until, like Thursday, I've had less than four hours of sleep and I'm incapable of doing anything that requires thought that day. Then, in desperation, I take a magical drug called 'seroquel' for a few days. Seroquel is very, very strong. The first day, like yesterday, I'm usually so tired and doped up I'm incapable of doing anything that requires thought. Fortunately, I adapt quickly. Today I'm mostly functional, which means I should probably increase the dose (I'm taking really tiny amounts) tonight.

So what I'm sayin' is, I'm in the middle of Chapter 2, but I didn't get any writing done the last couple of days. Hopefully some today!

No comments:

Post a Comment