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myplusminus · 6 years

Text

A message to my friends.

Today is my birthday and that marks 35 years of life, and 35 years of struggling with bipolar.

I posted a sort of desperate status not too long ago when I was in a bit of a state, and I realised that many of you don’t even know what’s going on with me – a few friends have suggested I write this to help people understand. I’d also like to dispel some of the myths and stigma surrounding bipolar.

HISTORY:

Bipolar can be genetic and it does run in my family. Unfortunately my grandfather had it too. He was a very conservative man who would be very unconservative when he was manic – sleeping with woman he shouldn’t (he was with my Grandmother) and doing drugs which he disagreed with otherwise amongst other things. I also have 2 cousins with bipolar.

TYPE:

There are a few different types of bipolar. I have “bipolar 1” which is considered the most serious form of bipolar, described as:

“Bipolar 1 is “classic” or “textbook” manic-depressive illness, with serious and damaging episodes of both mania and depression. In a severe manic episode a person can lose all touch with reality. Left untreated a manic episode can last anywhere from a few days to several years.”

Although it is sometimes true, unlike the public perception of bipolar, I am not wildly cycling through moods. For me it has been more slow-burning. I can be depressed for 3 months to 2 years and at one point I was on and off manic for a period of about 3 years. There are also many different types of moods such as “dysphoric mania” and “mixed” etc. but for the sake of simplicity I’ll just stick to depression and mania.

I’ll start with MANIA:

The public perception is that this is a great feeling, almost like a drug, like ecstasy. I have experienced this kind of mania and it can be great. Everything and everybody is fascinating, it’s great for socialising (most people love to talk about themselves and I will be full of questions), my brain seems to be working very fast, creativity is on overdrive and I could stay up for days studying.

The downside to this state is your inhibitions, morals and self-control melt away. I am a deeply moral person and rate my self-worth on my ability to be honour these morals.

When I am manic, I will happily barrel on through destroying everything I have made. I will buy all sorts of strange things off the internet spending all my money, tell my boss exactly what I think of them, sleep with people I shouldn’t, say incredibly thoughtless things to people I care about, destroy projects I have been working on for months etc.

I can also be really annoying. I remember repeatedly sending this picture of a dog (this one https://www.vexels.com/editables/preview/137533/dog-meme-generator#/) to one of my colleagues via instant messenger, then I emailed it, then I taped pictures of it to his chair/phone/desk etc. For some reason I thought this was hilarious and I didn’t seem to be able to stop. I really pissed that guy off.

The more textbook “crazy” things I did that people like to lap up about us crazies is things like believing I was going to be abducted by aliens (I was 14, and fuck you Whitley Streiber) and having a full blown panic attack when a helicopter flew over our house, believing I could control traffic and that one time I went to China to start a business.

Now the DEPRESSION:

Eventually the mania wears off and I am left picking up the pieces of my damaged relationships, job, my belongings and I’m still receiving weird shit in the mail.

The gravity of what I have done fully hits me. I go to work trying to be as invisible as possible, I could be absolutely blanked by previous friends, my boss is pissed at me. I have to apologise to my family for the gazillionth time, I have no money for bills/food and I just want to curl up into a ball under a blanket somewhere and never come out.

I can get into really dark places. The worst things my brain can imagine will present themselves in my head and I am helpless to stop them. It maliciously discovers the things that are the most upsetting to me. Dark, horrifying images, any bad thing I ever done and feel guilty about, reminding me on a very deep level what an awful, despicable person I am. The events are played over and over and over. I don’t feel like people properly appreciate the horror of this, I’ve described it there in a few sentences but I experience it for hours at a time, on and off for days to months. As I said, this can go on for years. I just go through the motions and do nothing but work, eat and sleep. I stay away from socialising or any situation that could possibly go wrong - in case I screw something up there and have another thing to replay in my head. And I’m still getting weird shit in the mail.

I am lucky enough to have an amazing tight family unit that loves me and either understand or just try to understand what I am going through. They offer their support every time. I will have picked up all the pieces and be starting to get better when it will happen again.

The thing that cuts me the deepest in these episodes is how I am upsetting those close to me. I just can’t handle that. I feel so selfish. Round in circles. Pick up pieces, guilt and shame, start again, get better and round again. It would be OK if this had happened once, or maybe a few times, but this has been going on the 35 years now. Seeing what I am doing to my family absolutely kills me.

RAGE:

Disclaimer – I have never physically hurt or wanted to hurt anyone other than myself. Apart from Jamie McPhee when we were 11 – he called me “jellybean” (a brilliant play on Billie-Jean) so I casually punched him square in the forehead as we filed out of class. Anyway I’m not the psychotic murdery sort of bipolar and I’m not entirely sure if bipolar even causes that or if it’s something to do with the person. What I do know is that I experience “dysphoric mania” which is like a really charged up, agitated feeling where I am irritated by nearly everything. I basically act like an entitled child and slam doors and shout at everyone for daring to exist in my vicinity. My family know I will blow up, insult everyone, take myself off for a few hours and usually come back and apologise. Luckily I don’t experience this too much – these days I’m more aware of when I’m feeling like this and know to isolate myself with a book.

OTHER SYMPTOMS:

And that’s just the main things. Bipolar has a few other little tricks up its sleeve that you might not know about. Here’s some other things I’ve experienced:

- CONCENTRATION: I find it very hard to concentrate. I remember coming down with a low time once. I had been going to uni every day feeling fine and generally excited, as I had on this course. Then one day I just couldn’t concentrate. The tutors words were coming out and I was desperately trying to take them in. Words on the board even seemed to be in an unrecognisable language. If people asked me questions I’d have to ask them to repeat their question and even then I couldn’t really get it (at my worst). This is very embarrassing.

- MEMORY: My memory is terrible. I have forgotten entire year long relationships before. “Strangers” have added me on Facebook and when I’ve asked who they are they’re offended because we had been workplace friends for a year etc. My psychiatrist says this is because during an episode, particularly mania, the brain is too busy doing other things to record memory. I know who my friends are and a rough skim over of what we’ve done together but generally if you did deeper you’ll realise I don’t remember a lot of the things we did together. I also forget my training and education, which is just great for my career. I deal with that by taking excessive notes and setting plenty of reminders.

- SHAKING: I was once admitted to hospital after not being able to sleep for days and uncontrollably shaking my legs and sweating for the last day or so. Naturally the hospital decided I was just a druggo trying to get a hit so they kept me in a corner of a hospital for a day, sent a psychiatrist in to ask me some invasive questions then sent me home still shaking and unable to sleep. The scariest thing for me was realising that the professionals actually really don’t care. I have had similar experiences since and not one of them has been good or even OK.

- AUDIO/VISUAL HALLUCINATIONS: I mostly experience sound (not voices talking to me). It seems to be little bits of sound that I’ve heard before mixed in with what I’m actually hearing at the time. I’m used to it so I mostly just ignore it, the only problem is sometimes I ignore what I’m actually hearing too. I also experience visual hallucinations. Not huge and obvious ones but just generally seeing things in a darker light. I once saw a child walking down the road with a hooded figure who looked creepy - grabbing them roughly and forcing them down the road, I was close to jumping out of the car to save this kid when the hooded figure turned out to be his Mum. I’ve seen people step in front of the car as we’re driving and absolutely screamed only too look back and see they were still safely on the side of the road. It seems to be just anything to terrify me when I’m in a dark mood.

MEDICATION

Ah yes. Like anybody would think, I thought once I had my diagnosis I would now get the drugs I needed and all of this silly messiness would be over. Not true at all. The truth is that there is no cure for bipolar and all psychiatrists can do is try you out on medication after medication until they find one that works (pro-tip, the psychiatrists don’t know how to help you either). Obviously it depends on your biology so this could carry on for some time if not forever. Lithium has helped curb my mania at least but nothing has stopped the depression. With every medication change (yes, we are still guinea pigging away at 35) I am sent on a rollercoaster of emotions. I also had one that made me chain-smoke for 6 months or so and, more recently, one that helped me give up altogether with no struggle (that’s the best one yet). Another was your typical zombie drug – it did cure all my symptoms, because I couldn’t get out of bed for 3 months, yay! And I was gobbling food like they were brains so I was a fat zombie. However unlike many people with bipolar, I have always taken my medication.

OTHER THINGS I’VE TRIED:

Meditation, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, psychologists, counsellors, social workers, giving up drinking and more recently smoking (yay!), breathing exercises, eating healthy, exercising, self-help books etc.

WHATS HELPED?

Animals, family, social workers. You guys. Bipolar forums and other people with bipolar/depression/anxiety.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

- Write to me and say hi every now and then

- Sometimes I just need a cosy spot and a blanket and 3 days of doing very little to calm my head

- Don’t be upset when I read your message and don’t write back to you. I try to get there eventually, and I appreciate all the kind messages, I just struggle to respond sometimes

- Accept that I’ll drop out of contact for periods

- If you know my family, support them too

- Don’t get upset when I cancel meeting up. My senses get overloaded in town and I really have to be in a good space to choose to spend time there. I often agree when I’m feeling good then get really anxious when it gets closer to the time (they don’t call me Billie McCancelCancel for nothing!). I’d much rather you came over and we took the dogs for a walk with a flask of coffee.

Really you have all been so wonderful. Nobody said they “know how I feel” and you all just offered your time to chat if I needed it. That’s all I need. Thank you so much.

I’d love to sign off saying things are better and I’ll keep my chin up etc. But they’re not really that great. With each episode my brain gets worse. It sounds like I could get Alzheimers and I’m seriously not surprised with the way my brain acts lately. Its not all bad, I still laugh a lot and can be absolutely fine for periods. However I have attempted suicide 3 times – the most recent being a few weeks ago. It’s an ongoing thing. If you managed to make it this far then thanks for reading, I hope you understand better now.

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