Where Bipolar Disorder And Obsessive Thoughts Meet, Hyperfixation is Born
TRYING TO FIGHT MY MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES HAS LED TO YEARS OF CATALOGING THE SIDE EFFECTS AND SYMPTOMS OF THEM, WHICH FEELS LIKE FIGHTING THE HYDRA OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY — CUT OFF ONE SYMPTOM, TWO MORE APPEAR.
By Claire Joy Moss
Anna Manikandan / Unsplash
I’m not a scientist, or a doctor for that matter. I don’t always have my head screwed on straight, but I can tell you that what I lack in technical knowledge, jargon, and general know-how, I make up for in experience. I’m not a doctor, but I have been struggling with bipolar disorder since I was a young kid and was finally diagnosed when I was 17 years old — after 60+ absences from my junior year of high school, two ER visits, one terrible psychiatrist, and one two-day stint in an adolescent psych ward. I like to believe that I know what I’m talking about after eight long, exhausting years of managing and struggling with moderate anxiety, major depression, and bipolar disorder.
Years of trying to fight my mental health issues has led to years of cataloging the side effects and symptoms of them, which feels like fighting the Hydra of Greek Mythology — cut off one symptom, two more appear. One of the largest Hydra heads for me has always been hyperfixation, or obsessive thinking.
“Have you ever been riding in the passenger seat of a car with a friend, family member driving — someone that you really trust? The person in the driver’s seat is steering erratically and unsafely, but you’re powerless to do anything. So you lean back, look out the window, and hope for the best? That’s what hyperfixation feels like.”
Hyperfixation, as I call it, has controlled my life at more points than I can count. I’ve hyper fixated on people, places, and things, as well as phenomena, events, and an immeasurable number of other things. Hyperfixation can be a coping mechanism (thank you, The Lightning Thief Musical hyperfixation for getting me through part of this 2020 pandemic). Or it can also be an ugly thing that rears its head when you least expect it, one that leaves you crying in your bed at two in the morning, praying for the first time in weeks that some higher power will scoop your fixation out from your brain and leave your mind silent at least for an hour or two. It’s debilitating. It’s controlling. It’s terrifying.
My hyperfixation became a prevalent, noticeable issue during my senior year of high school. My first “fixation event” I can recall was one that I still hold close to my chest, and is probably the first instance of this controlling force based in the chemical imbalance of my brain chemistry. I’m quiet about it, and will still take the specifics of it to my grave, because it is something that I am so embarrassed about, although it is something that I didn’t (essentially) have much control over. Even writing about it now makes my skin crawl and my hands tremble. It involved specific high school events, an unforgiving administration, an emotionally manipulative teacher, and a group of enablers who were my friends at the time. I feel the lump in my throat — it’s still something so difficult to talk about, but this fixation caused pain and depression and anxiety and gallons of tears for a year and a half. At that point in my life, I was spinning so out of control that my brain needed something to latch onto, and the fixation was born.
“In the recesses of your mind, you maybe acknowledge that it’s sometimes easier to hyperfocus on something than deal with the problems invading your life. You can hear yourself talking about the object of your obsession, rambling, watching as your friends tune out or giggle nervously, but it’s better than worrying about anything else in your life, right?”
Have you ever been riding in the passenger seat of a car with a friend, family member driving — someone that you really trust? The person in the driver’s seat is steering erratically and unsafely, but you’re powerless to do anything. So you lean back, look out the window, and hope for the best? That’s what hyperfixation feels like. You can hear and feel yourself zeroing on something, obsessing about it. And you know that it’s 100% debilitating and that it’s going to end up hurting you, but while you’re screaming about it, the radio is cranked up, drowning you out. It’s two sides of your brain, armored up and warring with one another, but the one side has a full army and the other one is just you with a butter knife. Outnumbered and outgunned, you let yourself slip into this shifted reality of hyperfocus, twitching and telling yourself “I’ve gone through this before — it’ll only last a few months. You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, you’ll be —” until you cry yourself to sleep.
In the recesses of your mind, you maybe acknowledge that it’s sometimes easier to hyperfocus on something than deal with the problems invading your life. You can hear yourself talking about the object of your obsession, rambling, watching as your friends tune out or giggle nervously, but it’s better than worrying about anything else in your life, right?
I don’t know what the clinical way of dealing with hyperfixation is, but I try to combat it in the ways I know work for me. It manifests in a few ways, so I’ll remove the medium of manifestation. Am I posting too much on Instagram? Great, I’ll delete it for a few days. Finger hovering over that text chat? I’ll delete the chat. Lying in bed, replaying or pre-planning conversations? I have a notebook on my windowsill in which I’ll write my thoughts out, or turn them into a short story that is later folded up and never read again. If I’m feeling like I’m hovering on the verge of a major fixation event? Naptime it is.
It can be exceptionally debilitating, but after my major hyperfixation events, that can actually be centered around a single factor, I’ve learned to deal. I cry, I pray, I hurt, I cope, and I move on. I look back on those times, feel silly, and then go back to texting my two best friends. I don’t expect these obsessive episodes to completely remove themselves from my life, but maybe talking about it will help me, and it may help other people who feel embarrassed and alone. You’re not. I’m here and I struggle too. Maybe we can all take a break from our obsessions and focus on ourselves for a little bit — it never hurts to try.
Claire Joy Moss is an aspiring journalist living in Boston, Massachusetts with her cat, Lucy. She loves choral music, video games, and writing articles in her head when she can’t fall asleep. She hopes that her words can be as cathartic for her readers as they are for her.
