Bipolar Me

Traveling is often a challenge for people who have bipolar disorder. Some people can’t do it at all or can’t even leave their houses, which I certainly sympathize with. I really do. There have been times in my life when I could travel and times when I could not, because of my mental state.

Right now, I’m able to. I’m taking advantage of this to go with my husband to Ireland for ten days. We started planning this trip last fall, which has, of course, given me plenty of time to overthink everything – but not to reconsider. I think this will be one of the best things we have ever done together, apart from getting married.

If everything (and by everything I mean Facebook) works right, this post will appear while I’m overseas. I didn’t want to just skip a week in my blog, so I’m trying out the feature that lets you schedule posts ahead of time. I worry that it won’t work, which in the greater scheme of things wouldn’t really be so bad. Just more overthinking.

In addition to overthinking, I am over-scheduling and over-packing. I have been bothering our travel agent with questions about driver’s licenses and phone service. I have made reservations for eight different scenic places and interesting events. (I think they require reservations because of COVID, because they don’t want too many people to show up for tours at the same time.) I have a list of things I need to do before we leave. Every time I cross one thing off, I add another at the bottom. I used to be able to pack for a long weekend for both of us with only one tote bag, but those days are long gone. My list of what I will need to have with me threatens to spill over my luggage allowance.

In the past when I’ve traveled, I’ve had some success with giving myself permission to feel the way I feel – to take a day off from activities if I feel low, for example. This time, what with all the pre-booking, I may not be as inclined to do that. We do have days scheduled with less driving around and I have noted times when we can simply explore local pubs and restaurants. We’re even bringing along a card game in case we feel too useless to leave our bed-and-breakfast.

I have no guarantees that my mood swings will abate while I’m gone, of course. Making sure all my meds are refilled and packed is top on my to-do list. That’s much more important than packing a card game. I can see myself getting cranky about getting to the various locations in time for our reservations, but I’ve been fairly stable lately, so I hope I don’t tip over into something worse than grumpiness. At least my husband will be there to help me laugh and decompress.

I think that time to decompress is necessary while traveling. It may have been my hypomania that told me to make reservations for every occasion. And I hope the looming shadow of my bipolar disorder doesn’t sabotage the whole thing. This vacation is very important for us, which probably means I have too much invested in it, and I don’t mean just monetarily. It’s most likely the last time we’ll ever be able to travel abroad, so I want to make the most of it.

I just hope that making the most of it doesn’t send me tipping over the edge into depression or hypomania. I’m never good psychologically with financial affairs or not knowing what’s going to happen. I’ve seen those tendencies in myself increase with time. I hope that this vacation is what I need to shake me loose from some of those feelings. I hope that I will look back on it, after this bit of writing becomes public, and realize that I have proved my relative stability by being able to go through what is intended to be a magical time. But I guess expecting magic is too big an expectation to put on a vacation.