Losing Time When You’re Bipolar
The two sides of the disorder distort the clock
I’ve lost chunks of time. Poof, vanished. I lived through them, I know I did because I’ve got the memories, but it’s as if it all happened at once. There was no sequence of events. Everything occurred in a flash.
I remember being a kid and a young adult. I remember getting married and having a baby. I remember getting divorced. But it all happened now.
Time and I have always had a strange relationship. I had a hard time keeping up with it. ADHD made my mind drift. There were lots of missed flights and forgotten appointments. I never wanted to blow things off, but I just couldn’t remember.
Then there were the bipolar episodes. It’s said that in depression, time feels as if it’s going slower. Meanwhile, mania makes time speed by. Like driving a Ferrari in city traffic, all that stop and go is bad for the engine. Keeping track of how far you’ve gone is tough that way.
GPS in cars was invented for me. My sense of direction was always off, and I hated getting lost. I never used to take the time to appreciate whatever new place I found myself in because of a wrong turn. So often, there was something I was supposed to see.
