I guess I wrote a whole book?

If you'd like a crossover of Crimson Peak, Cinderella, Twilight, and Dracula (that's also gay and says fuck you to the patriarchy) you might like my horror fantasy book, Daughter of Or!

Xiao Shuai: Bro duh. Like. Literally.

Suo Wei: Bro I know. But I think he is sick and twisted also because of reasons unrelated to his mentall illness. He is just a horrible petty little shit.

Aaaaa the toxic slutty bipolar mania representation in my little snake gay series. And when Xiao Shuai was educating symptoms of schizophrenia, and Suo Wei asked about bipolar symptoms - he pointed out the symptoms right from the schizophrenia symptoms chart. Is this series true?? I couldn't be happier.

Silver Linings Playbook, Homeland, and REVENGED LOVE THE CHINESE TOXIC YAOI

U know I'm a mentally ill person, and it's serious uwu

Underneath my love of Mickey’s character and Ian and Mickey’s relationship in general, here is my problem.

They chose not to show a functional relationship when someone lives with mental illness. 

It’s not like it had to be functional right away, of course. It takes time in reality, right? I mean, the show spent TWO SEASONS with Ian sick. Sick. An untreated, sick teenager. The show spent TWO SEASONS with Ian and Mickey’s relationship in turmoil. As the season went on, I felt there was movement, momentum - however wobbly- toward a renewal. A messy renewal, sure. But a new sense of purpose, a new stability, however delicate, as the season began to close. I’m a person with bipolar disorder with difficult mania control. I’m in a long term relationship. I’ve had problems. We’ve had problems. He’s had problems. It happens. I was waiting, eyes shining, waiting for the show to show how fragile, yet strong, those relationships can be, even in hard times. Because that’s how they can be. 

But that would be too kind, too easy.

Hey kids. I've decided I'm going to (probably only) record my Ian/Bipolar plot thoughts publicly on my tumblr through the season, even though I have lots of other Shameless feels, just like everyone else. At heart, it's about the portrayal of mental illness, not of the Ian/Mickey boyfriends storyline. That said, they will overlap, certainly. Here we go.

Portrayal and tone this week: Although the screen time was brief, I was OVERJOYED to see Ian as a person first, bipolar symptoms second, Not symptoms first, person second. Read it a couple of times if it kind of seems the same. It's not all guns and yelling, and it is important for Shameless to show that. He's an incredibly sweet and loving person. He is not erased by illness. 

Symptom-wise this week: I was SO happy that the synopsis of "Ian goes on a cleaning spree of the Milkovich house was as mild as it was. I had blurted my bristled thoughts about the synopsis wording a bit in this post. Otherwise, he's in a nice, productive, functional place at the moment. This is not an "old Ian" time. He's still symptomatic. But again, not erased. 

Twenty Cents: Recently, I was asking advice from a friend about manias, which are my main pole dance. Mania is also common in her version of bipolar. I asked how she manages hypomania and physically/emotionally works on pushing through any fear when a higher climb to acute mania is common (the main issue I'm really trying to get under control med-wise.)  Doctor visit last week was hard. She said I seem to basically in some sort of mixed mania/mixed mood with some pop-up of mania, almost constantly lately. Which makes some sense since I rapid-cycle, but still. That probably began on the heels of my November episode, when I shifted to acute mania that was escalating very very quickly, scary scary things starting to happen. I thought I was doing better for a while, or at least not that bad. She said, "What happened?" I was jokey like, "I don't know." She said, "No, I mean think. Think hard. What happened before that. What was the stressor that could have contributed to that rapid escalation?" I have no idea. For all we know, there wasn't one.

Three-ish weeks ago, I had a more "classic" depressive episode (not moving much, frozen, staying in bed.) Two weeks ago, I went in. Last week I was back to jiggly legs and pressured speech. "WHAT'S UP DR. P? I'M DOING WAY BETTER!" So I'm back to every week for a while with significant med adjustments and a new strategy.

Back to my friend. She was like, "If it's mild, go ahead and be productive. Get it while the gettin is good." It made me laugh because it felt true to me. Before dx, I would have just felt on top of the world! So involved with all my dreams! So much energy for everything I hardly ever had time to do!  Now I know better. I know it's symptomatic, even if it's hard to admit when I feel so good. But if it is positive and any hallucinations and aggression and paranoia aren't  there, I'd still rather clean the house, make some lists, vacuum the car, can some applesauce. It gives the mind somewhere to focus. Somewhere to ride it out and hope for the best. I know it's not altogether "good," but it does help channel that energy.  Sometimes it doesn't last, but it can take some of the pressure off, even though it's still happening. It can pull out and ease the antsy feeling out of my body, if even for a while. I hope that makes sense.