I'm Leaving Twitter (But not because of him...)
Let's get the cliche out of the way: I'm leaving Twitter for my mental health. (It's a double cliche this week thanks to a certain car salesman.)
But I don't love to do things unless I can point to the reason, and I wanna unpack that prepositional phrase– "for my mental health."
Almost exactly one year ago, I was diagnosed with Bipolar II, a mental disorder that means I drift between periods of depression and hypomania, usually completely outside of my control. I have been extremely hesitant to talk about this on Twitter because... do I even need to say it? There is so little room for nuance and almost no effective way to differentiate my personal experience from the collective experience of Bipolar II. Besides, the last thing my mental health needs is for a post about my mental health to go viral. (The handful of posts I've had do numbers have absolutely fucked me up.)
Moreover- bipolar, ADHD, PTSD, general anxiety, and a whole slew of other disorders are, as it's been explained to me, co-morbid. I actually started this journey thinking I had ADHD and depression. And the truth is, even with a Bipolar II diagnosis, that may still be the case! They labels are only as helpful as they are helpful, and I worked with a psychologist and a psychiatrist to arrive at a diagnosis that we all agree seems to be a best fit. It's not an answer. It's an approximation. And it's the basis for the work I'm doing to get better.
Which gets back to the intersection of mental health and social media that I really wanted to avoid – "Do you avoid calling your parents? Probably ADHD!" "OMG that is such a PTSD MOOD!" I want to be clear, mental healthcare in America is not accessible for a lot of people, and often times the only thing people can do is self diagnose. My umbrage is with the people who are not experts logging on to say what is and isn't ADHD, telling other people what they probably have, and misconstruing their personal experience as universal. My experience with bipolar is very personal, manifesting symptoms for me that it will not for other people.
That being said, if you crave pickles during periods of mania like I do, go see a doctor immediately! You might have Bipolar II, just like me!
In my own mental model, there are three primary affordances for my Bipolar: biochemical, environmental, and personal.
On the biochemical front, I've been taking lamotrigine for most of the last year, steadily working up to an effective dose and deftly dodging the deadly skin rash that can come from misuse. Lamotrigine (or lamictal) is technically an anti-seizure medication, but works for me as a mood stabilizer. My lows aren't so low that I can't see the light, and because of that, I can get a much better handle on my highs.
But I cannot emphasize enough how much lamotrigine has not fixed me. I still absolutely have and struggle with Bipolar. Lamotrigine lets me be me, it makes sure I'm the one in control, and gives me a fighting chance, a chance to make meaningful change. Without lamotrigine, I wouldn't be able to write this email. I made changes before the drugs to fix my inability to focus and my depression, but all it took was a little depression to derail everything, or a little hypomania to convince me I could jump the Grand Canyon on a dirt-bike. Access to medication has given me the first real chance to make changes that stick.
The other two pillars are personal and environmental. The personal are the ways I react, interact, think about my own brain and my actions. As I mentioned above, I used to have the really long dark periods of depression, such that when I did have any sort of good day, I would burn the candle at every end, afraid that the next wave of depression would strike at any moment. Of recent, I've gotten a slightly better handle on reminding myself that emotions are transient, and that having a good or bad day today has minimal baring on tomorrow. (At some point I might write one of these on the gambler's paradox and emotional well being. Reply if you'd like to hear more about that!)
Which leads us all the way around to... leaving twitter; environmental change. I've been tracking some of my episodes of depression in the past few months, and an abundant amount of them point back to a singular source- twitter showed me something I didn't want or need to see. I had already started mitigating this by unfollowing and blocking without hesitation. But between the trends and the takes and the people I felt socially obligated to follow- there was only so much I could do. (This problem was not helped by the fact that a lot of what and who I was interacting with is the fictional construct known as the "audio fiction community", but that's another rant for another time.)
So I'm taking a big step back. The biggest step back I've ever made. There will be some consequences, especially around getting my shows and projects in front of people, but that's part of why I'm doubling down on this newsletter. I'm hoping I might count on you to share stuff when I let you know about it- even just with family and friends.
This last year has been a journey- a lot of ups, a lot of downs. But having a diagnosis and starting down the path of taking my mental health extremely seriously has been incredible. I'm excited for what comes next. And I'm excited that it will involve a lot less twitter.
All the best,
Ponders
P.S. If you have any thoughts you'd like to share, you can hit reply! I'd love to hear from you! And even a quick note saying you liked what I had to say will give me a huge dopamine hit. And since I'm no longer on twitter, I need as much of that as I can get!