I have Bipolar Disorder, Type II to be precise. I'm supposed to be taking Lithium Carbonate (450mg) daily and I have a Fluoxetine prescription as well - not to be taken daily but there for particularly bad depressive episodes. I also sporadically have prescriptions for sleeping tablets when the insomnia I've suffered from for the last 12 years gets unmanagable and tranquilisers so strong you could literally knock out a horse with them for the minor breakdowns I experience due to rapid cycling.
Literally my only memory of feeling "normal" is from the first month of the Lithium prescription. After that I stopped taking it as it was affecting my problem-solving capability, which is Death when you solve problems for a living. Now I only take it when I've undergone a week or more of rapid cycling.
About that "feeling normal" thing. It's weird as hell. Feeling stable is the creepiest thing I've ever experienced. Strangely, I did NOT like it. Not even a tiny bit. It felt like a nervous breakdown in reverse.
The following is not a scientific breakdown of the types of episodes that come with Bipolar Disorder, it's an emotional one.
Clang associations:
Usually associated with a manic state, these can strike at any time. Basically it's rhyming words. A good example from my own life is driving past a girl who parked badly and suddenly starting to talk about hunting. How did I get there? Well, my mom calls people (men and women) "bimbo" so it's a bit of a habit of mine too. And "bimbo" sounds like "Bambi" who is a deer and I was hungry ok?
Play word association with someone in a manic state sometime. You'll never be more confused in your life. When you're manic, your mind moves at ridiculous speeds, so someone saying "shoe" will make you think "moo", "cow", "meow" and by the time it gets to your mouth it will be "persian".
Manic episodes:
FUN! They feel great. Amazing! You can conquer the world, you're stronger, smarter and more attractive than everyone around you. It's a lot like being drunk except you won't get arrested if you drive and you don't feel nearly as confused. It sounds exactly the way I've heard a cocaine-high described.
It sounds great, doesn't it? Come back and read this again after you've looked at what a Depressive Episode feels like. I personally LOVE manic episodes. They're awesome. But they're also very, very dangerous. That feeling of invincibility will get you run over by a bus. Or have you jump off a roof because "I can do anything! Even fly!"
Grumpy-manic episodes:
Everything is The Most Irritating Thing In The Whole World. Everyone is The Most Irritating Person That Ever Lived. This is a good source for that lovely unreasonable behaviour that is so cliched from women on their periods. Add in a menstrual cycle and you can get the most random and arbitrary irritations. I've crapped out The Man more than once for "Do you have to chew so loudly? You're going to wake up the neighbours!" as well as "Are you ill or something? Is your nose blocked? Or are you breathing like that just to annoy me? Because it's working.". He just looks at me until I get fed up and go away, then waits patiently for me to apologise. He's very patient.
Depressive episodes:
Imagine you get the news that your Significant Other, your favourite pet, both your parents and your best friend have all died. Add a healthy helping of "I got fired" and a sprinkling of eviction notice. Now double it. Welcome to a depressive episode.
Some days, for no reason at all, I will wake up feeling like this. It can last for months. My personal record is 18months. It's paralysing. I mean that literally. Some days I will be utterly unable to move or think for hours on end. Imagine being so miserable that all you can think about is killing yourself but literally not having the energy to do it. You could have a loaded gun 2 feet away from you and be physically incapable of picking it up, no matter how desparately you want to. The good days are the ones where you're able to cry.
Psychotic episodes:
Yes. Not pleasant. Can be as mild as vague auditory hallucinations (my own experiences have mostly been hearing people talk as though they're just outside the room I'm in) and as severe as trying (or, heaven help you, succeeding) to kill someone. Fortunately, these are rare for me. And I have friends I'm comfortable enough with to ask for help before I do anything stupid.
Amnesia:
You know when you go out and get so drunk that you lose a part of the night? That. But without the drinking. It's usually coupled with manic episodes, but personal experience shows that during a depressive episode experiences from manic episodes are blank or fuzzy and experiences from depressive episodes are crystal clear and during a manic episode experiences from depressive episodes are blank and fuzzy while experiences from other manic episodes are crystal clear.
Rapid cycling:
Swinging from manic to depressive to grumpy-manic and back again. In the space of about 5 minutes. These can last for weeks. Even an hour of rapid cycling is unpleasant in the extreme. Two weeks of it could break anyone.
Hypersexuality:
Also known as nymphomania. I'm convinced that at least half the guys I've dated have only put up with my crap because of this.
Ground state:
Miserable. I wake up nearly every day of my life disappointed that I didn't die in my sleep. The light at the end of the tunnel is always a train. Every day is an exercise in misery and hurt. Everything that can go wrong, will. Everyone who's nice to you is only nice to you because they want something. Every time you ask someone to help you, you wind up losing a friend.
Those last two aren't always true - hell with the friends I have it's never true - but it certainly feels like it is. My big mistake here is going to people who I don't know very well but turned to me for help before and that I've helped. I've learnt this lesson now. Now I turn to people I know I can trust.
Social interactions:
These are... problematic. A certain amount of crazy is accepted if you preface every social interaction with "Hi my name is [name] and I have bipolar disorder." From the people who don't go "Er... Hi.... Um... Oh look someone over there is calling me BYE" anyway. Even so, only a certain amount of crazy is permissable. And let me tell you, that never extends to randomly bursting into tears on people. Manic is acceptable to a point (taking your clothes off and dancing on the table only acceptable if you're hot), saying weird things is acceptable to a point, crying is never acceptable and neither is randomly turning around to the guy next to you and telling him he's the loudest chewer in the world and can he please SHUT UP ALREADY JEEZ.
Ok so you learn these basic rules and how to work around them, eg never going anywhere where there are people you don't know when you're having a depressive episode, making sure you have someone with you who can physically prevent you from doing something stupid if you're manic, avoiding all contact with everyone when you're grumpy-manic and above all learning how to contain the painful emotions ripping around inside you whenever anyone else is around.
Unfortunately, this makes me very nervous when I'm in a new or unfamiliar situation. Which makes me awkward. Which means that I offend people because I'm trying so hard not to. This in turn makes me assume that everyone hates me, which leads to me panicking that I've offended someone because I ping them on msn and they don't answer for 20 minutes. I'm 98% sure I've lost at least one friendship because of me repeating "I'm sorry - what did I do wrong so I know not to do it again? Please don't ignore me." ad nauseum.
I find it unbelievably difficult to trust anyone because of how people react to my moods. Even when they say they understand, they don't. And very few people will be willing to deal with the mood swings inherent to Bipolar Disorder for long periods. This means that, in general, you have to keep the facade up around your friends until you're comfortable enough to let the crazy start seeping out. Even then, it has to be small bits at a time. You can't just wait 6 months, then make them babysit you when you're manic and have a giant crying fit on them in one afternoon.
Then, of course, there's my own unusual upbringing to take into account. I've been brought up with such old fashioned manners that I consider most of my parents' contemporaries to be rude. I tend to retreat into big words and immaculate grammar when I'm angry (the angrier I am, the bigger the words - hint: 4+syllables means you're in seriously hot water), which lends me a "snooty" air. I love learning things so people who have knowledge in an area I don't tend to come away from a conversation with me feeling like they're leaving an interrogation. Most of the people in my life are the same so people who make uninformed or ignorant statements tend to feel like they're in a lecture. For a nice added touch, a friend of mine from high school trained me to interrupt him and correct his grammar while he was talking because he wasn't a native English speaker and didn't want to sound stupid. I'm aware this is extremely rude but we spent so much time together over the years that I don't even do it consciously. I tend towards bluntness, which makes me abrasive. It turns out that most people don't actually want a friend who will say "Yes, that dress makes you look like an elephant. A clown elephant. Can I fix your make-up for you? Please?" no matter how much they say they do...
Quite possibly the worst part is the tendency to abusive relationships. Why? Because I hate myself so much that no nice person could possibly deserve such a horrible fate as to have me inflicted on them as a friend or lover. I've had numerous "friends" who I've helped time after time who've abandoned me the minute I've asked for their help. My husband woke me up with a knife and raped me when I eventually got up the courage to tell him to get out by the end of the week.
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train, it's an angel.
As bleak as the picture I paint may seem, I have good friends. I don't know how I managed to stumble on them but I can't even begin to describe to you how important they are to me. It has always been my policy with this blog never to use real or in-game names for anyone, but here I feel that it's necessary.
Dave, Jack, Connor, Penny, Malik and Alex. I owe you guys my life and what little there is of my sanity. I don't think any of you realise just how important you are to me and how much strength and hope you've given me. The number of times you've made my world a better place to live in just by answering an sms, calling and saying hi just because you felt like it, dropping a message on my facebook wall and any number of random, everyday things that people don't even really think about isn't one I think any of you would believe.
And, of course, The Man. Jason. I don't even know where to begin. You know how to bring me down gently from a manic episode. You've brought my ground state up higher than it's ever been before. Sometimes I even wake up smiling because you're next to me. You always have the right words and tone to make me realise when I'm being unreasonable. You recognise when that's not enough to snap me out of a grumpy-manic episode instantly and take the kids and entertain them until the words register properly. You go out of your way to make me happy when I'm miserable. The best part? You know when to do all these things without me having to ask, sometimes before even I notice that I'm leaning slightly towards an episode. You're an amazing father and extremely patient both with me and my children. There aren't words in any language to say how much I love you and how much you mean to me. Thank you.
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