Huge post. Don’t expect anyone to get through it. Just need to say this. Anyone wanting an insight into bipolar or living with it might get something out of all this, but otherwise you'll prolly' just get bored.
For those who don’t know, I got diagnosed with type one, rapid cycling bipolar. Actually it was no surprise: I got told I had it in my teens, but i was too drunk or pilled up...messed up to care.
But this time I ain’t got anything to hide behind.
...So, I’ve finally accepted it, and come to recognise patterns in my moods, triggers etc -doctor’s advice seen as I won’t take meds.
Things have been real stressful lately, and I’ve loved it, but stress is a major trigger for me and I’ve loved it
because it’s triggered me.
It’s like speed without the negatives: You need less sleep, less food, you think so fast and everything’s do-able. You’re happy, almost euphoric.
Sounds good?
Well, Monday I spent £20 on satsumas...I live alone. That’s a lot of satsumas. (O.O)
Last time I went from hypermania to mania (recognised in hindsight) I bought over 5kg of raisins. If I start buying food in bulk then, I know now, I’m getting beyond what’s safe.
Thing is, without meds, all I can do is ride it out, but, when things get real fast you start wanting to get off, and you can’t.
So...you get high...and I know I shouldn’t, but knowing that and what’s logical or sensible gets harder to remember .
Eating, sleeping, everything starts feeling like a distraction rather than a necessary function.
Gear alleviates the anxiety like a cold cloth on a hot head, and getting to the hotter end of hypermania makes it increasingly hard to remember why you shouldn’t do ‘the bad things’, or even why they’re bad.
I’ve only had one manic episode since getting clean originally, and it ended in handcuffs, tears and relapse.
I’m trying to keep grounded...and that’s the point of this post.
If I don’t say all this ****, well, keeping it in don’t help, I’ve learned that. And though I’m rambling, I’m at least aware of it. I’m posting this to try earth out some of the tension; this is me trying to be sensible.
I can’t really say this stuff anywhere else. I can deal with the stigma of being a ‘junky’...but bipolar’s different:
1# I didn’t cause it. It wasn’t a choice like using gear or drinking, yet I still have to take responsibility for it. I guess that is part of the reason I don’t think of addiction as a ‘disease’.
2# I’d happily admit when on heroin that my happiness was due to the surprisingly good score I just got, but admitting to hyper mania is different. Most mental illnesses are associated with feeling down or being delusional, while bipolar encompasses both those things, happiness is also a symptom.
Who wants to think they’re only happy ‘cause they’ve a brain disorder, does that mean they should actually be miserable? It really can make being happy, ironically, quite miserable, and thus you spend half your life in a perpetual state of heightened ambivalence.
3# If you are open about being bipolar, anything you do needs to be defended. All achievements, beyond ‘coping with bipolar’ are the result of being bipolar, not hard work. And if you screw up you’re either accused of using bipolar as an excuse or, worse, people pity you. Being an addict, I accepted. I knew the things I did because I was an addict. I could at least draw a line between me and the addiction, to some extent. Ultimately addiction affords you more choices. While addiction and bipolar both your identity in that they work as referents: people know you as ‘junkie’ or ‘manic depressive’, bipolar steals your identity without ever being able to ‘get clean’ and show people what you’re capable of without it...its life long. You’ll never know exactly what part of you is bipolar and what you’d have left if you weren’t bipolar. You’ll always be a junkie, whether you use or not, but you don't get a choice to ‘quit’ bipolarity.
4# Unlike an addiction which means ‘getting clean’ to be healthy, to be ‘normal’, the only way anyone knows how to make ‘bipolar people’ ‘normal’ is to medicate them, sometimes at the detriment of their physical health.
And finally...
5# Because it is now ‘cool’ to call yourself bipolar, people either assume you’re lying about it (wanting the label, not the teeshirt), that you’re using it flippantly to describe yourself as ‘wacky’ or actually think you are ‘cool’ for suffering from manic depression. Most the people who haven’t been keeping up with what is ‘trendy’ think you’re contagious or plain dangerous.
Oh, and did I mention...another symptom of bipolar, specifically hypermania or mania is excessive speech: rambling.
