Fog

It’s Friday night… it was a long week.

It’s been a long summer.

I’m tired.

Literally.

My brain is exhausted.  Bipolar has been running wild and dancing naked with anxiety and my brain is wearing out… which is not a great thing.  My sleep has been improving but it’s not perfect, and not enough to help my brain yet.

It’s been coming on for days, I think, but the last two days I’ve become aware of it, or perhaps, finally concerned by it… I’m having hallucinations.

That probably sounds totally scary to those of you with neurotypical brains.  It’s not actually that uncommon, and it’s a little disturbing, but probably not for the reasons the average person might think.

My hallucinations are visual, although I’ve had some playing at the edges of auditory, which is a bother.  But mostly visual.

I don’t see (or hear) angels talking to me, or demons for that matter, it isn’t fully formed apparitions in my line of sight.  It’s seeing movement or shape or color from the corner of my eye, but when I turn there’s nothing there.  Sometimes it’s just a flicker, but lately it’s becoming a little more solid, like… something or someone moving, and then I turn and nothing is there.  It’s really the most disturbing when I’m driving because I jerk thinking there is a car coming up from the side, but then there isn’t.  This, obviously, is a disturbing way to drive.  It’s also a little scary walking when I’m crossing streets, for the same reasons.  I see movement off to my side, and I think a car is running a light or something and going to hit me.  It never is, of course, when I look, but it makes me tense and jumpy.

So here’s why it’s not like Hollywood would have you believe.  My doctor explained this type of hallucination to me years ago, because I’ve always had them at times in my life.  They are related to my bipolar, and to sleep deprivation.  I’m more vulnerable because of bipolar, but sleep deprivation can cause them for non-bipolar people if it is severe enough.

They are caused by brain exhaustion.

They are caused by REM sleep…  You may know REM sleep from, you know, dreaming.  That’s the stage of sleep in which humans (and animals?) dream.

My brain is so exhausted that it is slipping into a REM state when I’m awake.  I’m dreaming while I…am not sleeping, for a split second at a time.

I’m also getting more disoriented.  This morning when looking at my pill boxes I was upset that I hadn’t taken my pills “all day Friday!”

Sub Brother said, “Today is Friday.”

I said, “Oh, then I only forgot to take them this morning.”

This was while we were making breakfast.  I take my morning dose with breakfast.

Sub Brother pointed that out, too.

People joke about being off for the summer and not knowing what day of the week it is… and I get that.  But it’s very different from feeling like your brain is soup and information just rises up randomly and disconnected, even when you try to reach for it.

It feels a little like walking around in pea soup fog…  I’ve lost my landmarks, and my orientation, even familiar things are unfamiliar, shrouded, and confusing.

And so… I go to bed… to try again tomorrow.

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