I’ve found some more…

I believe I’ve found a new trigger which hosts a multitude of other triggers more or less significant. This heavy trigger is the supermarket.

The problem starts before I get there, the first layer of anxiety resides with the shopping list. Do I have everything? Did I forget anything?

The fact that it takes me thirty minutes to get there isn’t a problem and relaxes me a bit before facing food shopping which is probably one the thing that I hate the most.

At this point, my anxiety must be rising as I feel warmer and agitated. This is it. I’m in the lion’s den where all these items are lined up and put away in impossible places to find. As if they did it on purpose, to annoy me. It takes me probably more than double the time than any regular person. I go back and forth from one end to the other to look for an item, and I get confused, I forget what is it that I have to buy organic or not.

Eight-time out of ten something triggers a hypomanic phase where I start to buy stuff in abundance, and the list goes out the window. I end up buying items that we don’t need. I can’t think clearly and become irrational as this goes on. I don’t even think of the ramification of my actions and the impact on our bank account and our needs. The inevitable will happen which is a significant clash once I reach home.

The arguments start with no rhymes or reasons. Violent verbal jousts take place for quite a while. Even though I intend to do the right thing, it ended up in a disaster.

The other triggers that occur in the supermarket have something to do with the crowd, the people. I don’t feel I belong in this world anymore as I can’t seem to handle it.

So there you go, this is how one regular bipolar II experiences food shopping. No wonder what I don’t like doing it. Not once did I do it right.

To summarize this fiasco. It generated and triggered the following; mild to severe anxiety, manic episodes, crowd phobia. It is only a trip to the food store but causes as much internal damage as other more significant incidents.

After all these years I very happy with the fact that I finally realized that supermarket or mass shopping centers trigger all sort of negative feelings and emotions. Now that I became aware of it I need to try to manage these shopping trips with a much better approach. I don’t know how for now, but I will be able to figure it out.

A small insignificant incident such as the one mentioned above can swing a good day into a bad one on a dime as it did today. Everything was fine, no arguments until this trip which changed today’s dynamic dramatically.

I guess, with this illness, we’ll never stop from discovering what makes us do things, what triggers us. And we all are different with different trigger points. Maybe by sharing our experiences, we will find some common denominators and helps find solutions.

Peace and serenity

Lawrence