been rolling for about five weeks now. far too active, meeting with my city councilor and such nonsense. championing free public transit, making myself a target for The Haters and my life cannot bear close scrutiny as i'm not "out" about my bipolar. two of my neighbors mocked insulted and ridiculed my joy over our new subway which is just SPECTACULAR!!! Oh so beautiful! i've been following the project since it's inception ten years ago and it just makes my heart expand that it's finally open! the stations knock your eye out, all concrete and glass panels and steel and intriguing public art and the train is a marvel, so smooth. everyone in the city is going mad with excitement over our new subway.

except for The Haters. there's three of them. one woman is so openly and staunchly racist she is a de facto white supremacist. when she uttered racial slurs in my presence four years ago i cut off all associations with her. but i stayed friends with her best friend as i thought she was very nice and helped me with my dog and was generous with giving me her nice things that she wasn't using and i appreciate that.

but she insulted me about my joy over our subway. sure, it was a flawed project, over-budget and overdue, but it's here now and why don't we just all say: THAT TRAIN HAS SAILED!!! haha!!!!!!! anyways i distanced myself after the insults and thought we could just co-operate re the care of my dog.

then a third friend of their's, a young man new to the building, highly educated and bright and working with victims of violent crime and teaching a course in "victimology" at college and getting his Ph.D. mocked and insulted my joy over my mission of free public transit, attacking my integrity and competency. it was all very personal and upsetting and so very unexpected from such an erudite young man with a vocation re working with vulnerable minorities who have been victims of violent crime. i thought he'd be a supportive ally! no, instead he undermined my confidence. quite successfully as i have abandoned my mission of free public transit. i just can't be a target for hatred.

later that night i got to thinking about how their racist sentiments were the kind of thinking that killed six million Jews and getting more and more scared and crazed about how the one who helped me with my dog had a key to my apartment. my neck started stinging and got all red and mottled and my chest too and i had a rushing sensation in my lower back hips and i had trouble moving and thinking. i wanted my key back so badly but it was after dark and i was too scared to go get it.

it was an intense fear reaction as the incidents of verbal abuse triggered past trauma with my physically and sexually abusive brother, gas-lighting alcoholic mom and verbal, emotional and psychological abuse from my dad. i'm very hyper-vigilant about verbal abuse. i know the parties involved were wrong and i have a right to be upset but probably not to have such a huge reaction -- sure it's because of my past being triggered but at any rate i still have to deal with the fear and anxiety and honor my emotions but not make things worse by escalating them, try and ride them out with calm.

so i called the crisis line and they said take a friend with me to get the key so i did that and it went okay and the next day i changed the locks in case a copy had been made. then i just tried to stay calm in my home and only go out for my dog's potty. but i had planned a trip with a group and i just couldn't face three days of no privacy and forty new people and two noisy musicals. my senses are raw and frayed and i jump at any little sound in the building.

so i got a medical certificate from my doctor and now have to submit an administrative nightmare of paperwork to the travel insurance company to get a refund. aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

anyways, you'd think this intense fear reaction would be enough to douse my hypomania but no, here it is 4:00am and i'm wide awake. i'm on Lamictal for the first time in my life (a cocktail, other meds too) and i don't know if it's good for me. i feel really, really high and am worried i will do something catastrophic. i'm all chaotic and twirly. i changed my bank code and forgot it so now i can't use my debit card. i lost my reading glasses for a few days and couldn't read anything. i had a whole conversation with someone and later i completely forgot it, couldn't remember a thing. i asked our new building cleaner for help washing my windows when i don't know the guy from Adam and it's not a good idea to have a stranger in my home.

i'm so scared i've been wearing surgical masks out to make like i have a communicable disease to discourage people from talking to me. i also wear a black cap black hoodie with the hood up and put all the crap from my purse in my packsack to erase all trace of femininity and my cab driver still called me "beautiful lady" three times! wha?

been doing totally uncharacteristic stuff like attended two football games in a huge stadium and having a ball when i've rejected pro sports all my life because my mom was a fan. i'm having a good time but wondering "who is this person?" having an identity crisis. i seem to be able to charm and persuade people easily and it is giving me delusions of grandeur. i've been tripping on this musical group which does Mormon oratory set to rousing soundtracks and studying an undergrad thesis on the power of Mormon oratory and starting to speak like a Mormon leader. it's all great fun and laughing and laughing but i am soooooooooooooo over-the-top.

i've discovered this Overeaters Anonymous group that i looooooooooove, the women are so loving and spiritual and accomplished and effective and competent and yet so very troubled by relationships with food. i'm sure overjoyed to have found this wonderful group of women but when i share i am partly practicing my public-speaking skills, oratory!

i'm having delusions that i am destined to be a great leader, that all my long years of suffering will finally come to fruition and i will be a mover-and-shaker and make a difference and see justice done. i don't know. i guess i have SOME skills re leadership and public-speaking and oratory but it's better for me just to do art. i can't deal with the barbs of the general public and you have to have a thick skin to be a leader so that's probably not gonna happen.

have been writing like David Foster Wallace himself, like a fiend, like a whirling dervish, like a demon, like i'm possessed. done a nice installation of visual art too with a cool lighting effect of this flexible strip of LED lights -- so bright -- with magnetic tape drawn out of an old Bob Marley cassette tape. it's pretty nifty if i do say so myself. art is so much more appropriate for me as a passion than leadership. i can do it privately and if i never show anyone, well it'll be there when i pass and can be made public. talking more about my journals here as have been writing every day for 17 years and they might be of interest to a psych student to write a thesis. i know that sound grand but i think my writing shows the thought processes of a bipolar and that might be useful to academics.

anyways i'm real worried about myself and can't seem to calm down and act methodically and safely. my doctor asked me if i'm hypomanic and i mean, how would i know? i just babbled incoherently. you don't ask a drunk if they're drunk, do you? you don't ask an addict if they're high. why ask a bipolar if they're hypomanic? how would i know anyways?

so what are some things i can do to calm down and stay safe and stop all the chaotic behavior?