In the rainstorm

Today I sat outside in the rain. It rained very hard for a long time and I just sat there enjoying the feel of the water, the smell of the rain, and the sound of raindrops hitting everything around me. I got a lot of weird looks from people driving down the street, though. But I didn't care. I wanted to be in the rainstorm. I certainly feel like it's in me.

As I said in my last post, I'm not sure whether I'm getting depressed or manic. Funny, I can usually tell, even at the beginning of an episode. But I can't tell this time. I'm experiencing a lot of the signs of a beginning depression, but there's a lot of signs of a beginning mania, too:

anger, anxiety, sadness, edginess, crying, less sleep, surges of energy, no energy, crankiness, overly sensitive, loss of appetite, neediness, recklessness, more sexual, impulsive, wanting to spend money, less ability to concentrate, wanting to be violent, wanting to stop my meds.

As you can tell, there's elements of both. Part of me is very afraid that instead of being one or the other it will be another mixed episode. In my last episode the lines were blurred between mania and depression. It was so awful. I don't ever want to feel that way again, and I'm so scared that I'll have to.

Probably one of the worst parts of starting to cycle is that I can see myself changing. I can still think and realize that I'm not functioning properly. Able to see what's happening, but unable to stop it. That's how I feel right now. Helpless to stop what I know is coming and unable to escape.