Emotional Compulsion

As always I'll start with a disclaimer that these are just my thoughts and nothing more:

In my years of analysis I've come to realize that a large percentage of our actions are compelled by the emotions we feel, the majority to which we are mostly unaware. It makes basic sense when we think about it. Feelings of gratitude often push us toward selfless service toward others or a desire to express that gratitude to someone. A highly emotional movie or card about loss often leads us to actions of going out of our way to express the understated love we have for others. Neurologists say that the memories we remember most readily are those that also stimulate the emotional part of our brain. If you think about it you'll probably find it to be true, especially the further back in life you go. We can easily see this in the ease by which we remember lyrics to songs but so quickly forget the material we poured over for hours in college. Music evokes emotion and thus makes the memory more easily imprinted in our minds.

These are self evident but it goes beyond that to the more extreme actions in our life. Trauma, major or minor, creates strong emotional stimulus in our minds and our natural reaction is toward compulsion of sorts to ease the chemical stressors on our brain. Think of it in relation to the reaction you might have to having a face to face encounter with a tiger with little means of defense. The natural rush of adrenaline alone will create a surge of energy that tells your body to act, run, hide, or show aggression. The reaction might be different for everyone, but most are compelled to act in some way when that adrenaline hits. Our brain is filled with all sorts of other chemical reactions to stress, trauma of loss, pain, and others and we all find a way, healthy or not, of how to react to those chemical and emotional reactions.

Bipolar at its heart is mislabeled when termed to be a "Mental Illness." In today's society that implies a connotation that it is strictly a psychological problem of the mind. Bipolar Disorder is actually a neurological disorder. It is the over stimulation of the brain with chemicals that drive certain emotional responses, sometimes heightened responses to what would be normal emotional stresses. For example, one might feel down after watching a sad movie, while someone with bipolar disorder might be overstimulated by that emotional appeal and fall into a deep depression. For me that is actually true, for others that might be a bit of a stretch. Every person is triggered by different things and different emotions are harder to bare. The other side of bipolar is that sometimes you have abnormal reactions to certain emotional stimulus. Something that would make a normal person sad might actually cause a silly giddiness in another or they might even be unaffected by other emotional stimuli.

I say all this to make the point that I've recognized one of the harder things for any person, bipolar or not, to do in life is learn to recognize when they are being emotionally stimulated and drawn toward compulsion on a case by case basis; and to also then have the strength to not act on those compulsions that are not helpful, healthy or reinforce increased negative emotional responses. A simple example is binge eating, something many can relate to at one time or another. You have missed out on a big sale you thought you had in the bag at work or you get a call from the school that your kid is acting out. These would cause in most a feeling of disappointment on some level and for most there would be a desire to fill that emptiness and despair with something. Many people use food to cope. It's symbolic in that it fills your belly and it appeals to appetite of self-indulgence. The difficulty is often to recognize the connection with the cause of that disappointment and or to have the will power to not act on it, because though the food may be comforting at the time, it usually makes us sick, lethargic or frustrated later. This is all nothing new to most.

Take that to an extreme and you can start to understand the difficulties of living with Bipolar Disorder. There is constant emotional over stimulation from so many triggers, on a level of severity much greater than a normal person experiences. The over stimulation feels like a convergence of intense emotional distress that is coming from so many emotions, at times, that it is difficult to act in anyway but to find instantaneous relief. This is why it's referred to as madness, especially in a manic state. To expect someone with the illness to be able to make rational decisions, much less step back in the chaos and recognize individual triggers and then take a different course of action seems almost impossible to the sufferer, especially in the height of major episodes and in the first few years of dealing with the illness. But that is what good management of the disorder requires. It's a skill best learned in therapy. I've been blessed with the financial means to attend individual therapy for most of the time since my diagnosis and I attribute this to much of the change in my mental approach to the illness.

What Bipolar Disorder requires on some level, in a way that seems somewhat robotic to the sufferer, is to constantly make choices almost completely ignoring your emotional desires and thoughts. You have to look at the consequences of the compulsive behavior and always remember it from past bad choices and know that regardless of what you feel is best, that the direction of professional and more rationally grounded friends and family are the choices to make. It sucks at times because acting on emotion in some way makes us feel good and that we are being true to ourselves but when that behavior is self-destructive on any level it has to be changed.

This is all good in theory but it is a hell of a lot harder in practice. It's a constant battle and often ends up being a trade of a worse coping mechanism for another bad one, stepping down in severity over time, step by step. I still act out more than I should with all I know. My wife might read all this and laugh because I don't practice what I preach as well as I should but that's life with the illness. The hardest thing to gain with Bipolar Disorder is consistency in life and consistency is what most progress requires. You get up everyday and resolve to be just a bit better and make one more step forward. After 11 years you can look back and see a lengthy past with lots of little steps, or as Bill Murray termed it, "Baby Steps."