Ups

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that I am bipolar, although not to a debilitating, Spike Milligan-like degree. It's only when you look for it that you recognize the "up" phase, but I'm quite clearly in one at the moment. They are rare, but I have to assume that I was in one of these phases in May 2005 when I decided, for no reason that I can fathom, that I could beat $15-$30. This lasted for about three weeks, and then, suddenly, I said to myself "What on earth am I doing?"

It's a moot point whether I have always been like this, but booze and lack of a diagnosis have kept it hidden, or whether the "illness" is getting more extreme over time. I suspect a bit of both. This could, in the long term, be worrying, and I shall have to keep mt eyes and ears open for the condition becoming more extreme.

Since I am in the middle of the "up" bit, it's clear that the whole thing does not cause me much concern. I had always thought that I was just a depressive. To have the compensatory "up" bit as well seems just like abonus. But one has to be careful. You become less concerned about consequences, more daredevil, and more self-confident. This can have positive consequences, but it can also have negative ones. I can sit here thinking that my dollar hooldings in poker accounts are in essence meaningless, but that does not make them so.

I was half-tempted to go to the doctor's today and say "I'm bipolar. Treat me," and to tell him that I was probably the first ever manic-depressive to actually go to the doctor during an "Up" phase rather than a "down" one.

Here's the kind of hand you can play when you are brimming with confidence...


( hand )