Last night I had a definite episode of mania. Wanting to stay up all night again, feeling like doing a million things at once, wanting to jump out of my skin, tempted to spend way more money than I should, barely able to sleep. If you read my rant yesterday, then you know that I was already dealing with a lot of anger, so I can’t help but wonder if anger can bring on a manic episode? I honestly don’t know whether that is possible or not, I should probably ask my psychiatrist, but it does seem interesting that after being upset and angry I became so manic.
Something else happened last night that made me even angrier than I had been when I wrote the rant post yesterday. Someone else in that Facebook group commented on the post I had written that only 1 or 2 of my mental or physical conditions could be disabling. They said that the Asperger’s and Bipolar might be disabling, but the PTSD, Social Anxiety Disorder, Fibromyalgia, CFS, Plantar Fasciitis, IBS, chronic infections, Degenerative Disc Disease, and bulging discs are NOT disabling. That really set me off.
At first I just told the girl that she should research the conditions and learn more about them if she thought that. However, she went on to say that I was the one who was ignorant and that I would probably “argue with a brick wall”. That really made me mad. I even asked her why she was being such a bitch because I hadn’t done anything to her. For me, saying something like that is EXTREMELY CONFRONTATIVE, but I also felt so proud of myself for standing up for myself for once in my life. Standing up for myself has always been a real challenge for me, so much so, that many people have told me over the course of my life that I needed to stop being a doormat and quit letting people walk all over me.
In person, I would still likely have a really hard time standing up for myself, mostly because when things become confrontative or stressful, I tend to struggle with selective mutism, which is a common thing for people with autism to deal with. Throughout my life, whenever I was bullied or abused, I almost always found myself temporarily struck dumb, unable to formulate a response or rebuttal. It generally only happens when I feel threatened in some way, but it is very frustrating. I figure standing up for myself online is at least a start though!