We’ve all read the blogs that feel like bullshit. Individuals who have never lived with Bipolar Disorder give the same tired clichés, stigma spreads, and taboo topics stay taboo. While some are very resourceful, they can limit the amount of open and honest discussion. I want to encourage you all to voice your truth, so here’s mine.
On New Year’s Day in 2013, my mania sprung up on me like a caged bird. It began by not-so-elegantly throwing a pumpkin pie in my face, and ended with my rendition of the worm. I swam in a sea of floor tiles and called it “celebrating”. I talked so fast my sentences were jammed together, and sleep was not in my wheelhouse. Five years into the madness, and my exciting behavior has progressed to random out-of-state drives and 4 am cleaning sessions. I’m Bipolar, and this is my story.
I was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 following my freshman year of University. I had no idea the abundance of therapy sessions, psychiatric visits, uncontrollable crying, and daily affirmations that would follow. I started doing research immediately. I scrolled through countless articles of self-help tips and medical advice, but no one seemed to be discussing the symptoms I was actually trying to manage. I was incredibly irritable, raging for no reason. My relationships with other people were unstable, my mind started crashing like the classic math problem about trains no one knows the answer to. There were times apathy would hold onto me so strongly, the only thing I could do was wait the day out. I still find myself just waiting the day out.
In a midst of managing a disorder no one else around me had, I lost myself in between the lines. The depression overshadowed everything I enjoyed doing, and my driven nature got swept up by the pressure to make the day count because living it was unbearable. I needed a reason for getting out of bed. I took up smoking to offset the anxiety, a habit I have always disliked, and found myself at the bottom of a bottle in more ways than one. I had attempted suicide so many times throughout the years, it felt like God was playing a joke on me by allowing me to live. I tried medicines with worsening reactions, self and cognitive therapy, meditation, and everything in between. It wasn’t enough. This self-destructive path that would leave me isolated, terrified, and with nothing to lose. That’s a dangerous place to be.
My life took a drastic turn when my moderate stressors became severe, and my body reacted accordingly. Life speeds up the most when you need to slow down, and I could not slow down. I found myself tearing at the seams, even though I was taking all the steps. I was sitting in doctors offices while they labeled my physical ailments a result of stress, and the frustration made everything worse. I thought stress had to make sense. Two years later, and I’m still in survival mode.
I’d like to call this a success story someday. I am alive and that is enough. I’ve played every part of my personality that exists, and recovery holds merit like never before. I’ve adopted some coping mechanisms and learned a great deal along the way that will be covered in other posts. I can’t encompass five years of spent energy into one article, but I know I am only one of many who have experienced the frustration I have with being Bipolar. I’ve picked myself up off the bathroom floor, and found a strength I didn’t know I had.
To my readers, you are alive and you are enough. You have all the hope in the universe to guide you through the unimaginable. My story is still being written, and so is yours. Let’s ride this roller coaster together.
Manic Depressive Messages 