I remember having mood rings as a kid. I’d squint at the colour, I’d squint at the chart, and then chuckle at how little it actually told me. How I wish I had even that much guidance these days.

My mood is a fickle thing, you see – I never know what’s coming or going. It often sneaks up and takes me by surprise, which is why I work so hard to apply control to my life. It has always been my hope that having x, y, and z pinned down would make things easier and less violent in its swinging. Well, a schedule is  a boon to helping with things like bipolar disorder, but there’s only so much you can do when the epic battle being waged is internal… and somehow behind your back too. Because my mood is so all over the place, it makes it exceedingly difficult to figure out what it’s doing moment to moment, much less identify the wider, more obvious trends as they are occurring.  I can usually catch it on an upswing because of the pure joy that overloads my soul, but that’s still comorbid with jagging anxiety ’cause well… it is what is for me, ha ha.

I guess I’ll keep doing the best I can do to handle each moment with as much sanity as I can muster. If I think I’m feeling anxiety rising, I’ll try to take a deep breath and roll my shoulders. If I think depression is trying to sneak in, I will try to continue on as normally as possible, not giving into the sucking morass. Racing thoughts, I will try to drown out with song (emphasis on try). If I’m joyful, well… watch me dance and sing; just because it’s an episode, I see no point to not milk it for all it’s worth! I might never have more than a few minutes’ awareness of when something emotional is going down (and thank meds for having that much warning!), but I hope I can continue to find the inner strength to handle it with grace and something vaguely resembling patience. Still doesn’t stop me wishing that it were as easy as a mood ring, but I’m grown up enough to accept it might never be. So it goes, so it goes.

Have yourselves a lovely Thursday!

<3