Pessimism and Bipolar Disorder
While pessimism in something that only affects most people a small percentage of their life, for me pessimism is an everyday occurrence, one that control a majority of my day. Having bipolar 1 disorder with psychotic features causes my brain to operate most times on the highest level of pessimism. My brain likes to take the present and mix it with the future, my brain likes to present the worst case scenarios in a manner that both debilitating and fear invoking. With my bipolar depression, my brain can only see the worse case scenario in my current struggle. My mind keeps telling me that on November 16th my life is over. No matter how hard I try to divert it, it still focus on the pessimistic view of the future. I often find myself telling myself why do something because it is not going to matter because in under three weeks you will lose everything and be going to prison for a very long time. Everyone around me acts like the best case scenario is going to happen which is both refreshing and disappointing at the same time. It kills me every time someone talks about something we are going to do past November 16th. My dad was talking about our Thanksgiving meal this year and it hurt me because I don’t know if I will be around then and because my dad could be alone on Thanksgiving.
Extreme pessimism is a real thing with bipolar disorder and it is something that can make an already debilitating disorder even more debilitating. It is a horrible thing to hear people talk about a great future when your mind is stuck on the worse course of events. The pessimism that goes along with my bipolar disorder has also started presenting with a twisted future where people are better off and no longer being brought down by me because I committed suicide. Lately suicide is becoming to look like a better option each and every day as I struggle to see the value, I bring to anyone’s life.