Emotions and CP

I have been thinking a lot about anger lately, how it feels, what it means, rage vs anger, etc. My art therapist was like, "What does anger look like?" and hands me a box of oil pastels. Um, yeah, ok... huh? I have no idea. Good thing we ran out of time! But I've been thinking a lot about emotions lately and other things along with it since then. I've also been taking melatonin when I'm not tired just to go to bed because I don't want to do anything else. Not the greatest of things to do...

So the other night in a fit of frustration about wanting/not wanting to take that, I decided to do "BORED" instead of angry; because bored was easy. It took me a few hours to do, because my motor skills aren't the greatest, but I'm more then satisfied with the results. Except that well, I spelled lonely wrong. OOPS... The fact that the TE got cut off of INCOMPLE(TE) was completely accidental, I didn't have the spacing right, but I think that's GREAT!

Then because I liked itand was still in an introspective mood, I did "DEPRESSION" the next day. Notice the difference in color. Significant I think, although not entirely thought through in that way.

And then I kept thinking about it, because I want to do "ANXIETY," but it's not entirely thought out yet. I thought about how if you did a quick word association with me things would come out not making any sense, because the first thing I think of these days when I think of depression is "atrophy."

This is something I don't think I've ever written about on this blog before. How for everyday you just lay around and don't weight bare (just walking to the bathroom and back doesn't count) it takes 3 days of moving around to gain back the muscle mass you lost. How nobody told me this, but I learned years ago when I was hanging out on Disaboom that using a wheelchair in general is a risk factor for osteoporosis, and that there were people with CP in their 50s that were still somewhat ambulatory that were falling and breaking things like 80 year olds fall and break things.

I didn't used to automatically think of "atrophy" when I thought of "depression," but somewhere in the last 4 years these thoughts got burned in my head, so that instead of getting myself out of bed, the last time I went through a decent depression I started taking calcium because I was concerned about what it was doing to my bone density. I don't want to break a hip when I'm 54; 54 is too young. Laying in bed all day, I'd concluded, was no different then sitting in a wheelchair all day.

So here's how it goes:

You say: DEPRESSION

I say: atrophy

You say: ANXIETY

I say: PAINFUL!

You say: MANIA

I say: EXHAUSTING!

Try looking those symptoms up in the DSM. They won't be there. But if you read these 2 old blog posts in combination with this one (if you haven't already), you'll begin to understand how my CP manifests itself in my mood disorder.

If a Tree Falls in the Forrest

Mania

I've come to the conclusion over the last few years that I'm the epitome of "atypical" when it comes to bipolar. But what can I say, other then I'm ME! and I'm odd.