Have you ever had one of those moments where everything made sense, even if it was just for a moment, before it all crashed down into confusion? I had one yesterday in therapy.

I’ve not written much about my therapy, because, well, quite frankly, it’s personal and none of your stinking business. But what occurred yesterday has shaken my world considerably and I feel like I need to write about it to make sense of things.

While discussing various innocuous subjects, my therapist stopped me mid sentence and told me that he wanted to ask me some questions and proceeded to ask all these questions about my mood swings. How often, do they seem regularly spaced out, etc. The more he asked, the more nervous I became, wondering what he was trying to dig out of me. Then, he said something that for one moment, just one brief moment, made everything in my past fit. So many questions were answered and everything made sense.

“I think you may have Bi-Polar Type 2 disorder” He said.

I’ve thought about this many times in the past, wondering if there was something possibly wrong with me, something that was beyond my control. But every time I thought about this Bi-Polar thing, I would think about the people who swing to extremes, from excessive mania to a level of depression that I’ve never even come close to and I quickly discount the thought. As he described the details to me, I sat there in utter panic, my heart racing, my eyes watering, my mind speeding through memories and moments of my life plugging this concept into them to see if it fit.

The expensive shopping splurges (Hello, did I need a BMW?), the same day trips to Tokyo, the fact that I get all excited about something and never follow through on any of it. There are so many examples of this in my life, in my love and in my career.

Hearing those words from someone trained to know about these things gave it a level of credibility that my mind would never allow, and I sat there across from him, in complete shock, and panic. What now? What does this mean?

And through all that panic, there was a faint glimmer of hope. Hope that I could finally control my demons and actually learn how to deal with my life, learn how to follow thru on things without berating myself for failing again and again. I say faint glimmer because there was a stronger fear that maybe this was “hooey”. This was just a concept that upon further exploration would turn up to be nothing and I’d be right back where I started.

I’ve never shared this kind of thing with even my closest friends, so you should feel very close to me right now. (Not quite that close, back up a little, a little more, there, that’s better). I’m not too sure what direction this will go so I’m tentatively optimistic that there may be credence to this.