cycle

Well, I might have known. As the day progressed yesterday, a bit busier than I had anticipated, my mood grew more and more irritable and ragged and while I felt energetic and talkative I was bristling and starting to spin out of control. Then in the early evening I had to go to see the doctor. I had a long wait in the waiting room during which I grew increasingly anxious and agitated; the doctor saw that I had lost weight, six pounds since my last visit two months ago, and that my liver was enlarged again. So another round of tests to worry about, although by now I don't worry so much. So I left and walked to the Fifth Avenue stop on the R line to go home. I bought myself some chocolate, since I had to starve myself yesterday prior to the appointment because of the blood work that would be done--you can't eat after late morning in order for the results to be accurate--and so, after a full day including swimming, I thought I would pass out.

I ate my chocolate during the interminable wait for the subway. Maybe the wait was not that long but in my state it seemed endless. After arriving in Brooklyn I stopped at the grocery store and bought a huge carton of cat litter that weighed a ton and had to carry it home. At home a large box was waiting for me from UPS and so I staggered upstairs with both. Yoshi had come to walk Mabel and make dinner (very nice of him) and so I knocked on the door so that I would not have to fumble with the keys while balancing the boxes but he did not answer so I ended up dropping the box and by the time I got in the door I was in a foul mood. I could not really eat the dinner he made because he used kim chee and it was very spicy and my stomach has been messed up and the doctor told me "no spicy food" (damn) and so I was irritated and hungry and he seemed distant--perhaps because of my irritation--and then the unfortunate subject of his previous night's dinner engagement came up despite the fact that I had vowed to myself I would not mention it, and in my state I made a sarcastic remark and so that drove things even further downward.

So Yoshi went home and I took a shower and took a lot of trazodone and a klonopin so that I would fall quickly into a deep sleep. But waking this morning I just feel irritable and hyper and think that I had better keep to myself today or else I might regret things.

It is clear that my cycle is so predictable: depression for four days or so or a week, a day or two of normalcy, then the gradual upswing to hypomania. The normal days are wonderful. The other days are not so wonderful at all.