Bipolar II at the Holidays

My neighbor has Parkinson's. He now spends all of his time in a hospital bed, with caregivers on site and on call. A former librarian, he is one of the kindest, gentlest people I know. With cats coming in and out of his room and hopping on the bed at will, he is settling into his hospice regime. But that doesn't mean he is in any way out of it.

On Boxing Day I came by with my traditional offering--a coffee cake my mother used to bake for every major holiday. The recipe makes enough for two coffee cakes, and while of course one could simply cut the recipe in half, it's more fun (and neighborly) to make an extra.

Tom looked fairly comfortable and was glad to see me. (As was his black cat, who appreciated the visit and got some nice pets and scritches while I was there.) We got to talking--he is looking for someone to come and read to him aloud. In the old days, we would see him walking to his job at the library, often balancing several books on his head just for fun. He's balancing two books now as well--reading, or having read to him, a Bill Bryson history of the world and another book called Bipolar II: Enhance Your Highs, Boost Your Creativity, and Escape the Cycles of Recurrent Depression.

Bipolar II is not a diagnosis I had heard of, but Tom described it as being more or less normal--in other words, having moods. And moods are something with which I am well acquainted. In our household we have a gesture, and a sound, to describe my behavior. Wheee-wheee, kind of like that, with a corresponding rapid hand motion from right to left and back again. A little like a pirate ship ride at an amusement park. 

The fun part of my moods usually occurs in the morning, when I wake up cheerful and energetic, ready to face a day of hiking or even a day at work with vim and vigor. I remember teammates in college being super annoyed with me at 6 AM as we trekked out to the stadium for our lifting workout. It was still dark, they were sleepy, and I was chirping like a bird on speed. 

This morning routine has gotten me through 2025--a year that brought much frustration, disappointment, and complexity, particularly at work. I had to show up every day energetic and ready to come up with creative solutions to funding problems, interpersonal conflicts, and bureaucratic hurdles. And I did. By the end of the day I would be exhausted and frustrated. I even started joking that the hour between 4 and 5 was the one when I was most likely to cry--sometimes in anger, sometimes even in pride for our students who are each in their own way excellent. I got a box of tissues for the office and decided that if I must cry, cry I would. By the time I headed home each day, I had lost that spring in my step and was feeling a tad grim. Sometimes the skies would even still be blue--and I had spent another day at my office desk fighting with email and spreadsheets.

Are these mood swings ready for diagnosis? So far they do just sound normal. But I've also recently begun to find myself becoming rapidly enraged. Which is scary. I feel like my zero to 60 speed rivals that of my new EV in "sport" mode. It might be the world around us... tyranny at home and abroad, vicious attacks in the news every day and in many places across the globe. Children wounded and dying. Animals abandoned. Environmental damage ramping up to new levels.

It might also be some kind of reaction to the extreme calm I try to practice, the one where I have a solution to every problem. A brilliant scholar and teacher kicked out of his country? Let's see if I can master the bureaucracy and offer him a haven in the storm for a year. A new and frustrating interface to the library catalogue? Let me show you how to navigate it to find the Soviet journals from the 1940s-80s you need for your research. Your son can't get a response out of his instructor to fix an incomplete from last spring? I think I may know that instructor and be able to help--even if the university in question is hundreds of miles away. You are having a hard time responding to the critiques of Reviewer B? Let me offer some advice as to how you can restructure your paper to better showcase your argument.

So if I am so efficient and effective, projecting a preternatural calm in the face of conflict and potential complications, why am I becoming irrationally irritated at small things, like the stupid habit at my university of crossing out all the Ms on campus? The anger can have me cursing and wanting to break things--and I am not a violent woman.

(I do spend time almost every day un-defacing university signage, especially these signs in our parking garages that were designed to cut down on suicides. I mean, really!)

Certainly this holiday break has been welcome. Though I don't practice a religion, with Christmas and New Year's falling midweek I have not been tempted to work. Instead I am thinking about how to "enhance my highs and boost my creativity." So far that has mostly meant running on the bike path and walking in the woods, starting a few macrame and sewing projects, and baking up a storm.

The cookie extravaganza this year included two new recipes, the classic "peanut butter blossoms" (not recommended for those with nut allergies) and some very tasty gingerbread roll out cookies. I've only made one round of shortbread (lemon poppyseed) and still want to bake some rosemary shortbread. Plus I baked an apple pie. It's not Christmas without an apple pie.

Our cookie cutter collection was put to use on both regular sugar cookies and the gingerbread--the tiny stockings, maple leaves, and snowmen, but also the holiday boot (or perhaps another kind of stocking?), the little man, the little teddy bear, and the traditional pig, cow or sheep (can't quite tell!), and groundhog! And trees, stars, bells, houses. Even one train engine. That plus the toffee squares and thumbprint cookies definitely qualified for a manic baking episode.

As always, books are everywhere in our house, though somehow lately I mostly page through them rather than reading to the end. I'm trying a new recipe today (from Supra, not Tito's Cookbook) and am making my way through a novel by a Belarusian author. Maybe when my son leaves town I'll really dive into something. And I'll find another audiobook for hiking in the Glen.

In a day or two I'll sit down with the notebook I use every December to chronicle the year. But for now I can say that I organized a few successful events; canned all kinds of sauces and preserves; and rescued a dehydrated and starving cat. Whom I'm now trying to train not to destroy the furniture. 

It's important to celebrate your wins. And it's also worth thinking about ways to create your own environment, to maximize the calm and channel the energy. I am not making light of mental illness, and I'm not sure how I feel about "Bipolar II." It seems to be all the rage, including in a highly recommended (on the internet) book called Bipolar, Not So Much: Understanding Your Mood Swings and Depression. A (probably AI-generated) summary on the B&N website reads in part:

No longer is this a one-size-fits-all diagnosis, and antidepressants are no longer the one-size-fits-all treatment. Mood disorders are now seen to form a spectrum of problems, from common depression on one end to full bipolar disorder on the other. In between these extremes are multitudes of people who are on the middle of the mood spectrum, and this book is for them. 

A spectrum, that's what my pirate ship ride is all about--higher highs, lower lows, but also the middle moods. Heading into 2026, I intend to use my moods for good, not for evil. If only our elected (and not-so-elected) officials across the world would do the same.