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The Struggles of an Empathetic Bipolar

You jump out of bed, swing open your door and scream fuck you to your loved one, then smile because that did not hurt you. That pang of guilt that you normally feel when you insult that person that you use to deeply care for is gone... you feel nothing...

By Jessica DaughertyPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
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Image source:Torypick.com

Close your eyes, now imagine you are extremely on top of the world happy, like that feeling when you have accomplished something that you worked your ass off for. Maybe it is a job promotion? Or a top score on a test? Pr that person you have had a crush on for ever finally asks you out. You feel unstoppable, extremely happy, and proud of yourself. Now all of a sudden a huge billowing wave of emotion crashes through you.

These emotions do not belong to you but nonetheless you feel them incredibly deeply as if they did, you feel fear that makes your forehead start to drench itself in sweat, and your eyes start to rapidly dart back and forth. Self doubt sets in and your shoulders become to hunch and your arms that were so powerfully on your hips are not wrapping themselves around your chest in a self hug. You feel everything so vividly that your entire body starts to clam up and shutdown.

In the back of your head, you are aware that you were not afraid 10 seconds ago, and nothing in those 10 seconds could have even remotely make you feel the horrific fear and dread that you are now consumed with. You look over at a stranger standing 10 feet away and realize that their body language is the same way as yours. And suddenly you just know that those emotions you are feeling are their emotions.

For the next 10 + hours you are consumed with their emotion and not your own. You come home and lock the room to your door. Your loved one, may it be a family member, friend, or significant other knock on your door and you just scream insults at them at the top of your lungs. You have no clue where that came from, you were so happy, now you just want to be left alone. You want to curl up in your covers to feel safe, and hide. Then... nothing... All of your emotions have been erased. You have none and you feel none. Almost like your switch to your humanity has been flipped.

You jump out of bed, swing open your door and scream fuck you to your loved one, then smile because that did not hurt you. That pang of guilt that you normally feel when you insult that person is gone... you feel nothing... You decide to test this newfound no emotion and punch the wall. The drywall crumbles around your fist and your knuckles begin to bleed, but again you feel nothing. You can feel the trickles of blood running down your hands, but you do not feel the pain. You do not feel guilt. You feel absolutely nothing at all. You begin to make impulsive decisions, because you do not believe you will suffer any emotional consequences for you have no emotions. You tell your teacher exactly where she or he should shove their opinion. You stand up your long time crush with the mind set, "Eh I could do better," you tell your boss to go fuck himself/herself and then walk out thinking "I am too good for this job, I do not need them."

That night you go to sleep with no emotion, no regret, no happiness, no pain, nothing...

The next morning you wake up look at your phone and realize you do not remember the day before. Your mumble to yourself, "Stupid phone must be broken." Go down stairs and your loved one says nothing to you. No good morning honey, or a happy to see you kiss or hug, nothing... Then they glare with a hateful hurt look, and storm out of the room. You look at the wall and suddenly get a flash back of your blood dripping down your fist after you punched a hole in the wall... "No... no no way I did that, must be a flash back to a bad dream," you think to yourself. You get dressed confused and curious as to what happened yesterday. You go to work, or school and you get greeted by your boss or principle and they tell you that you no longer belong there. Your mind starts to race and you wonder "What the heck happened yesterday!" You call your friends and talk to your loved one, and get the story from them. But to you that entire day is blank accept for the "nightmare flash back" which you eventually chock up to as just that. You then decide that their is no way that you did what everyone is saying so you conclude that they made it up. That it is a conspiracy to ruin your life. You then cut them all out or shut them out and move on with your life.

All of this happened because you em-pathetically picked up on someone else's emotions. You felt what they felt. Those emotions whee to strong for you because as a bipolar you already have to many emotions for one person. You became to overwhelmed with everything that your brain shut down it's emotions and you blacked out.

This use to happen to me at least once a month. Now that I have been able to identify the warning signs I have been able to prevent a lot of collateral damage. However feelings still get hurt and emotions still get shut off.

In my next article I will be sharing the coping mechanisms that have and continue to progress in my emotional awareness and prevention.

bipolar
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