Ying/Yang

I've lived with the whole "Ying/Yang" attitude of my life for too long. So long in fact that I have found it defines me.

To be clear, I'm hypomanic at the moment and agitated mostly. It's not taking much to set me off and I'm worried it could make me manic or mixed or whatever else.

So the Ying/Yang thing. I kind of revel in the darker side of my personality. Not in a bad way but in my writing, my music taste and my teaching style. It's funny because I think I'm right about that side of my personality being dominant. My mood is governed by it when I'm down as well. That's when it's most horrible. For all of my attempts to get better and even when I'm feeling better its still there.

Now the odd thing, a lot of people see me as an optimist. It makes no sense to me. I actually think they see my darker side, which I idealise. I also don't see this changing. I think I'm very out of touch with my light side. When I wrote plays or directed them at Uni they were dark (my final directing assignment was an adaptation of Clive Barkers' short story "Down Satan" (Very clever story and worth a read).

I'm not so sure I even know the other side or if it's worth my while trying to get to know it.

I've never told anyone this before. I hope I've explained it well enough.

I'm not sure I completely understand, but parts of what you wrote make sense to me.

I kind of revel in the darker side of my personality. Not in a bad way but in my writing, my music taste and my teaching style.

I can really relate to this. I think that it is very common for good art to be fueled by passion -- frequently derived from pain. Most of the music, movies, and art I like have a melancholy tinge to them and for this reason I find myself enjoying being in that mindset at times.

I think what it boils down to for me is that the "darker" side of my personality actually cares about things, and feels. When I am unhappy, I have dreams and longings and a desire to improve. When I'm in a "lighter" mood, I just don't really give a ###$. Everything is superficial, everything is fine, and I don't really have an emotional experience.

I would say a lot of what concerns me about long-term treatment for bipolar isn't necessarily the loss of hypomania -- but the loss of the passion and sensitivity and intuition and introspective nature that are part of my own dark side. The problem is, my darker side definitely comes with real pain. To a point, it's tolerable. But... it's very easy to pass that point -- and there be dragons. And job loss. And hospitals. So, as is pretty much a standard requirement for bipolar, I have to struggle each day to strike a healthy balance between how I actually feel and how I want to feel and how my brain wants me to feel.

Anyway... hopefully I got at least part of what you were saying, and didn't ramble too far off-topic..

As an aside, whenever I think of this concept it always reminds me of a song I love -- "Lithium," by Evanescence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJGpsL_XYQI. Despite the name and content, it's not about bipolar and only metaphorically about the drug. Even so, I resonate strongly with the lyrics.

Hey, I know very much how you feel, however, in my case I've been viewing my "light" side as a mask to be worn in public to make others comfortable around me.

arbitrage, I like that it really seems to hit some notes within me, even though I'm not really sure what if anything is wrong with me. Recently I have also found Animal I have Become http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqds0B_meys seem to describe how I feel at times

Interesting, I didn't think I'd feel so different. For me the light side is the good one. When I am happy, I create. When I am depressed, I lie down in a dark corner wishing to die. That's about a complete list of my activities. I need to be on the light side to feel emotions other than soul-crushing pain.

i think that what you are experiancing is an example of the law of opposition in all things. simply stated, you cant see the stars unless it's dark outside. they are still there, you just can't see them.

for me, it is impossible to accurately gauge my condition in terms of mania or depression while i'm in it. so i think you are experiancing some of that too. so in a nutshell, others are seeing the brightness of the stars because they have seen your darkness, and you are somewhat unable to gauge the degree of darkness that surrounds you.

The good vs. bad, or light vs. dark thing is interesting. This contrast seemed to matter more to me when I was unstable.

What do you mean by dark vs. light? I used to think that a darker side of my personality was characterized by negativity, driven by fear, anxiety, frustration, etc. I saw this as not good. In contrast, I saw my lighter side as one full of optimism, hope, faith, etc. This is actually not the whole story though.

Once I got more stable, I saw things not in terms of good/bad, but as phenomenology (neither good nor bad). I have goals, and I try to evaluate my progress towards them. Meanwile, I try to keep an eye my emotional response to prevent negative emotions from becomming dangerous. Thus I'm able to prevent emotional issues that can creep up and screw with my mood. By doing this for a while, I'm realizing that I'm maintaing really good stability.