It seems the topic of change is still on hand. I spoke with my mother when grocery shopping on Saturday.

I’ve noticed how when I look back to my elementary school days that there were moments I had no control due to my emotions/mania. I mean… NO control. This was noted when we were grocery shopping earlier and kept passing this loud woman who seemed to be on a mania high.

I told my mother something… either that I hoped I never was as bad as her or asking if I had been. I recalled my times of mania and told Mom about how during them I knew better. I knew what I was doing, but I could not stop myself. Looking back on those times, it embarrasses me in some cases, but I also remember that I really had no control.

I was melodramatic, made huge deals over little things, was loud and could not contain myself even when a teacher would give me a look back then when I would become manic. Whenever I was not, I remember just being quiet, kept to myself or just followed along with the three girls mentioned in the previous entry.

I later talked about the girls mentioned in my last entry to my mother while doing some errands later on in the day… I realized then that… Well… I am just now beginning to be myself now.

After taking a good hard look on my past… My elementary school days… If I had no control over myself back then… I never truly was myself at that time, was I? I also remembered how Shred once said I was interesting to him when we first got to know each other because my moods were unpredictable. I met him in middle school and that was when my mania started to have depression counter it.

So, elementary school was mainly mania and calm. Middle school was mania, calm and irritability/depression. Eventually it was calm and irritability/depression.

Thinking of that saddened me too. “I never knew what sort of mood you’d be in the next time I’d see you.” I never knew then either. Was it really me at that time either then? Did that mean not even Shred really knew me? Sure, he knows my thoughts, my mannerisms and the like… but… everything presented in physical life… was it all an illusion as well?

I no longer worry much about mania. The only way I show it is in my few obsessive periods. All that happens there is intense focus on some sort of project or activity that starts with a bang and soon wears away. The analogy would be a sugar rush. Some people can eat a lot of sugar and get a huge sugar rush, but it does not last long.

Other traits are just talking too much. I’ll talk fast, likely go in circles. Those usually happen when I am loopy or excited by a discovery though. I can usually tell that I’m talking a mile a minute and note such while discussing to someone. It is solved usually by laying down.

Depression… this entry would likely have depressed me when younger. I likely would have felt very paranoid as well about true friendship/relationships and questioned my identity and all that crap. I don’t seem to get depressed all that much anymore… if ever. The only thing that starts up that is when I undergo stress for too long.

When I am undergoing too much stress at once rather than progressively though, is when I am irritable. I still have bouts f irritability. They don’t occur that often either. They pop up less than the faint signs of mania even. I’ll curse and such, last time I fisted the desk I was in front of and growled a ton… but that was a while ago. I was able to calm myself down half the time when focused enough.

For the most part, though… I am calm. I love it. I admit I am not emotional like I used to be. I don’t think a mile a minute anymore. I’m likely quite dull… but after so many years of intensity… the calm is welcomed greatly.

I drew a picture due to all of this. I suppose one could call it a self portrait. It is not a realistic one; for once I drew myself as I usually draw anything else. This time it was in pen. It is my body from the waist up. I colored my hair, skin and eyes blue. It looks like I am shedding of petals. The layer closest to my skin is a dark, possibly navy, blue. I had in mind for it to be black, but such a wish was not a possibility. So it is half black and half blue, I suppose. The second layer is white, but is shaded in light blues.

Shred would likely understand the choice of coloring to some extent. It also… somewhat puts a song I like into a new perspective. “Bright to black and blue.”

The first layer had been white. White… innocence, childhood… and mania that I mistook to be my moments of feeling happy.

By middle school that layer began to shed.

The second layer was black, or in this case a blackish blue. Paranoid, adolescence… and an uncontrollable depression that had lingering rage or irritability.

In the center is my new layer of skin that is still attached to me. It is blue. Calm, adulthood… and I have never been so content in my entire life.

It makes me wonder… if I finally started to be able to be myself after I left my old town. It was then when all the stressors in my life suddenly stopped. No school, no people outside the home… just stayed in the house and did chores. I began to be medicated correctly at the time as well. I stopped clinging to old friendships that died when I entered middle school. I no longer dealt with my sister… et cetera.

I remember when I was in my black mode I missed my childhood in elementary school. I look at that time now though… I feel no nostalgia like those girls likely do. The girl who is now a masseuse misses the manic counterpart of mine. I cannot say I do. In truth, I feel a bit detached from my past… because I don’t even related deeply with my childhood self anymore.

Was that really happiness I felt then? Were those girls really my friends or were they friends to the imbalance of chemicals in my head? Heh… Writing that suddenly reminded me of the word I often used when in middle school. “Doll”.

I guess that is it then. My youth was a shell. I left my cocoon? No… Something tells me it was never a cocoon. I never transformed. I simply woke up. I guess the egg came before the chicken. It took me twenty years to break the damn shell.