Bipolar Me

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Releasing Old Ghosts

January 2, 2022

I don’t know what the proper term is (exorcise? banish? reject?), probably because I don’t believe in ghosts. What I do believe in are memories – persons and situations that haunt you, follow you, and inhabit your dreams.

I’ve had my share, especially of the dreams sort.

When I first got out of a truly destructive relationship, I was undiagnosed with bipolar disorder, medicated with valium (prescribed for temporomandibular joint syndrome) and self-medicated with wine. I was not in good shape.

For a long while, anything associated with that harrowing relationship, I shunned. Rex had like blue spruce trees. I avoided them. He had collected cobalt blue glassware. I could barely stand to look at them. He gave me heart-shaped boxes as gifts. I threw away every one I had, even the ones that were actually pretty and useful. He shamed me for my cooking. I gave it up. I gave up things I enjoyed, things that had been part of me. And I didn’t allow myself to explore things that Rex once loved.

He haunted me. I would have dreams in which I was going to meet him, where I was in a place I knew he might show up. I dreamed I was in his house, with cheerful parties going on around me as I panicked. I would have flashbacks to cruel things he had said, such as an obscene song he had written “in my honor.” Times when he said I had “betrayed his honor” for something as simple as cooking the wrong dish for a gathering. Plenty of others.

Now, it seems, the dreams have faded. I have reclaimed parts of my life I used to enjoy. I have banished things that were only his obsessions. The flashbacks are nearly gone.

What has helped me banish these destructive ghosts?

Time, of course, though you’d be surprised how many years it took. And it was gradual. He didn’t vanish from my brain like a puff of smoke. At times I still remembered music in particular – festivals and concerts we had been to together, the obscene song. (As I write this, they come bubbling up again.)

People. A few even from the time that the relationship was going on, who have helped me realize that I should not have been there, that I should not have gone through what I did, that I should have left sooner. I treasure these people. They saw me at my worst, knew me as I was recovering, and are still my friends today.

Other people – friends I had from long before Rex – have steadfastly remained in or reappeared in my life. I may have been bipolar and undiagnosed when I knew them, but these people stood by me, put up with my mood swings and odd behaviors. They have been part of my support system. And new friends, who have no association with those times, but who have had similar feelings and experiences.

Psychiatrists and therapists – also important parts of my support system for all these years. Ones who diagnosed my illness and medicated me properly so that I could deal with the issues that remained. Ones who helped me realize that I had some good memories from those times, that I could rebuild myself by retaining anything that I liked, that I had tools and techniques that I could develop and use to help me do that. I had done bargello needlework for Rex. I switched to cross-stitch. He called the kind of music I liked shit. I delved even further into it, reveled in it. Having developed a love of cats when I lived with him, I’ve never been without one again.

Love. One of the people I met during the next-to-last weekend of my time with Rex is now my husband. He has been with me through the dreams, the flashbacks, and the memories and has been the mainstay of my support system. And there are other people I love, and who have loved me back.

It seems strange that I was with Rex only a little over a year and it has taken me decades to work to this point where the memories have faded, the ghosts no longer haunt me, when it all seems like simply a bad time that has receded into, if not oblivion, at least only a clog that has slowly been removed from my psychological plumbing.

Now I know the right word. It’s time to flush those ghosts that plug up our mental and emotional systems.

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Reminders for New Year’s (and Beyond)

December 26, 2021

I’m not big on New Year’s resolutions. I can barely plan my day, let alone the whole year. And I’m also not big on making commitments I know I can’t or won’t keep.

Instead, I remind myself of certain behaviors I think I (maybe) can accomplish and refer to the list as often as needed. Here are a few suggestions that may be appropriate reminders for you as well.

You don’t have to drink alcohol at New Year’s Eve parties. Or ever, really. No one should try to pressure you into doing this, but if they do, simply saying, “No thanks,” should be enough. If the person is really pushy, you may have to ask, “Do you have soda or fruit juice?” You are not required to explain why you don’t want to drink alcohol, and you may want to forego attending parties that do not have such non-alcoholic alternatives in the future. You don’t have to attend parties at all, and “No, I can’t make it” is a perfectly reasonable response to an invitation. Or “Maybe next year.”

You don’t have to make New Year’s resolutions per se. You can have New Year’s intentions, small goals you don’t have to announce to the world at large and that you don’t have to beat yourself up over if you don’t fulfill them. Instead of resolving to jog every day, intend to get out of doors once a week, even if it’s only to walk to the mailbox and back. Baby steps, after all.

I hate to use the word “should,” but you should keep track of your medications, reorder them if they’re getting low, and see your prescribing physician if the scripts are about to run out. That’s just common sense that’s necessary for your mental health, not a resolution. These days, you may even be able to arrange to have meds delivered.

Try to engage in a hobby once in a while. Say, once a month. It honestly doesn’t matter what the hobby is. Read a book, or even a short story or magazine article. Knit or crochet. Repot a plant. Water a plant. Do a crossword puzzle. Bake your favorite cookies, then eat them all yourself if you want to.

Keep comfort objects nearby. These can be anything that soothes you. A music playlist. A stuffed animal. A scented candle. A cozy blanket or sweater. A favorite warm beverage like cocoa or green tea. Don’t be embarrassed about using them to ground yourself. Most neurotypical people won’t even notice if you’re wearing a favorite sweater or have a scented candle lit.

You can connect with people online. This counts as interacting with people. Say happy birthday. Forward a funny meme. You don’t have to make it specific to your condition, but there are plenty of people on Facebook, for example, who have bipolar disorder or PTSD or an autoimmune disorder. You don’t even have to interact with them. You can join a group, then just sit back and see what others post there.

Avoid triggers, if you can. That judgmental aunt. Your creepy cousin. Your boastful neighbor. Again, you have the right to say no and not explain why. (It’s the not explaining that’s the hardest.) Don’t watch movies that you find upsetting, whether it’s Die Hard or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (which many people don’t like because of the implicit bullying).

Write about how you feel, if you want to. It could be a mood journal, a regular journal, a letter that you will never mail, a poem. Don’t feel that you have to show it to anyone. Tear it up afterward, if you want to.

You don’t have to face the new year as a whole. If you must have resolutions, resolve to get through the next week or even the next day.

Make an appointment with your therapist. Many therapists are offering tele-visits these days, so it’s easier than ever just to touch base or to work through a problem, a trigger, or feeling overwhelmed.

In other words, do whatever you can to get you through the next day, week, month, or season. The year will take care of itself, whether you make resolutions or not.

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Sharing About Bipolar

December 19, 2021

Sometimes I despair. I have realized that part of the meaning in my life is to share with other people the realities of bipolar disorder. At times, I think I have failed. I know I shouldn’t let the fact that others, such as Gabe Howard, Pete Earley, and Laura Pogliano, to name but a few, do it better than I do discourage me. This is not a contest. Everything any of us does to spread the word about bipolar and other mental disorders is a positive thing.

Here are some things I have tried.

Books. I wrote two books based on my blog posts. Neither of them sold very many copies. The first one was published by what I’d call a seat-of-the-pants indie company, and the other one half by them and half by myself, so quasi-self-published. I had a book reading/signing at the local Barnes & Noble. Two people came. We did have an interesting question-and-answer session, even drawing in a couple more people from the cafe where we set up.

I promoted my books, but not very well. There were a couple of podcasts. On one, for first-time authors, it was evident that the host had never read my book, though I sent him one. He asked me questions like, “Are there any other creative people in your family?” My interview on Bipolar Girl went better, but I had no way to gauge the response. I got a write-up in the local paper, but it was clear they wanted me to buy an ad, which I was unable to afford and my publishing company was unwilling to fund. The publishing company did send out form letters to various outlets, but I completely misjudged who should receive them. There were no reviews.

Tattoos. The idea behind the Semicolon Project was that people concerned with suicide awareness and prevention would get tattoos of semicolons. (The idea was that a semicolon is a place in a sentence where a writer could have put a period and stopped, but chose to go on.) When people asked about the peculiar punctuation tattoo, one was supposed to open a dialogue with them about suicide, suicide helplines, and the like. I got the semicolon tattoo and also a bipolar tattoo (a colon, half a parentheses, and another colon to make both a smiley and frowny face). Like this : ) : Gabe Howard has used this symbol on his merchandise, such as t-shirts, mugs, and stickers, and I hope he has achieved a great response. But no one has asked about either of my tattoos, so I have never had to explain them.

Blog. This blog is the most successful of my methods of reaching out to others to get across my message about bipolar disorder and mental health. It reaches a few dozen readers every week, unlike the thousands of viewers that many sites get. I cross-post my blogs to other sites like The Mighty, Medium, and Thought Catalog, when appropriate. I had somewhat of a better following on Medium, but then their Invisible Illness section decided they wanted posts with more research than I was able to provide, and from writers with higher academic degrees than I have.

The Mighty has been the most consistent in featuring my posts and the most successful in garnering responses. They also sent me a The Mighty t-shirt and hoodie, which, again, no one asks about.

I don’t mean to whine (though I suppose I am), but I sincerely wish I could reach more people. There are many in this world who need to hear the messages about mental health in general and bipolar disorder in particular. Of course, I’m not a celebrity, so I’m not likely to be featured in news stories or TV ads. But, since I am out of other ideas, I will keep on with this blog and any way I can think of to spread the message.

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Schizophrenia: Nature and Nurture

December 12, 2021

Think about the devastation that a case of schizophrenia can cause a family. Then multiply that times six.

If you want a book that explores such a situation, look no further than Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker. It’s the true story of a middle-class family with 12 children, six of whom became schizophrenic. The children included ten boys and two girls; neither of the girls developed schizophrenia, so that’s a full 60% of the boys who did.

The story begins in the 1950s, when at least there were hospital beds as well as halfway houses for psychiatric patients. The matriarch, Mimi Glavin, however, preferred to care for her boys at home as much as she could. This was, of course, disruptive to the rest of the family. And the patterns were perhaps obscured by the fact that four of the boys and the two girls never developed the disorder. One of the girls was sent to live with a rich friend, and the other managed to be admitted to a boarding school. These were irregular family arrangements, intended to get the girls out of harm’s way, though they certainly harbored resentment at what they saw as abandonment.

The 50s and 60s were the era of what the mental health community called the “schizophrenigenic” mother. Back then, schizophrenia was thought to be caused by the mother, who was either too cold and distant or too controlling. Take your pick. It was the mother’s fault. It was also the era when Thorazine was the best (or only) treatment that could be given for the disorder.

The boys, many of whom were talented athletically or musically, presented with schizophrenia, as you would expect, during their late teen or early adult years. Chief among the delusions affecting Donald, the oldest son, were religious ones. The younger ones also heard voices. One committed a murder-suicide, and another sexually abused his younger sisters. Violence among the brothers was common. Overlooked in all this was that Don Galvin, the father, had suffered a mysterious hospitalization while on duty in the service, which was classified as depression.

Psychiatrists and other researchers were at that time conducting twin studies to examine whether twins were equally likely to develop schizophrenia or not. The Galvin family was a treasure trove.

Still, the family couldn’t resolve the nature-nurture debate. Were the six boys affected by defective genes? Or was their illness because they had all been raised in the same household? DNA study was in its infancy. Most of the family agreed to interviews and blood studies, though they proved not to be much help.

Of course, the children, when they began to have children themselves, were afraid that the family affliction would be passed down to them. One of the young women put her child in therapy at a young age, hoping to spot incipient signs of psychosis. This choice did possibly more harm than good, as the young boy never developed any symptoms and resented the unnecessary therapy.

The heroines of this story were, of course, Mimi – who cared for all her children as best she could, and her husband after he had a stroke in later life – and Lindsay, the youngest child. The care for her schizophrenic brothers was her purview – monitoring their health, their medications, their hospitalizations, and their money, as well as caring for her mother, who became incapacitated in old age. The mentally healthy brothers and the older sister largely detached from the family and went about living their own lives.

Why read this book? It delves into how schizophrenia can affect not just a person, but a whole (and large) family. It illuminates the struggles the family had to deal with in caring for the brothers who had mental illness. It records how treatments for and research about schizophrenia over the years worked and didn’t. And it’s a well-written book on top of that. I could easily have read it in a couple of days, but I stretched it out over weeks to savor and contemplate.

The book rings with authenticity, as interviews with all of the family and records of their therapy and hospitalizations were made available to the writer. It resonates with pain, frustration, pity, courage, illness, relapses, and desperation. It is truly the best chronicle of schizophrenia I have read. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

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My Happy Holiday Hypomania

December 5, 2021

This holiday season is likely to be an up and down thing with me. (Imagine that!) I started out with a definite fit of hypomania that has lasted for several weeks, but I fully expect to hit a patch of depression, which is common for me around the holidays.

That manicky feeling was exacerbated by preparations for Thanksgiving, which largely centered on finding a local restaurant that was going to be open and deciding among the choices. We did find a place that was open and merrily over-ate, with drinks and dinners and desserts galore. (There are only the two of us, with no family in town. I cooked ratatouille for Thanksgiving last year, but was too jittery to plan anything of the kind for this year.)

In the past, over-cooking has been one of my slightly manicky reactions to the holidays. Over-baking, really. I remember baking multiple loaves of banana bread and raisin spice cake as Christmas gifts for all our friends one year, even those who lived out of town. (Mailing baked goods is probably best left to the professionals.) Manicky cooking behavior can be seen as normal, or even celebrated, during the holidays. We all know someone who gives out not just leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner, but whole home-baked pies.

The shopping that surrounds Hannukah and Christmas and the partying that goes with Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve make it easier for one to indulge in hypomanic or manic behavior without sending up as many red flags as they might at any other time of the year. Usually, holiday depression gets all the attention, and there is certainly more than enough of that to go around. But this year my anxieties – which is how my hypomania usually manifests – have tipped over into a spending spree.

Shopping online made it an easy thing to fall into. Having PayPal and, this year, credit cards, made it even easier. I did try to shop around and limit myself to sale items, but by Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I had packages being delivered nearly every day – sometimes more than one. I like to think that I was able to keep the total down, but it really was excessive compared to my normal purchasing patterns. I primarily bought ebooks and pajamas, which says a lot about my lifestyle. I also ordered two expensive gifts for my husband, one of which is stashed in the back of my closet and the other not scheduled to arrive until January. Today I ordered a small gift ($25) for him and then two tie-dyed t-shirts. I stopped myself before I ordered more underwear for myself. I still might get Dan more underwear.

My husband noticed the packages that have arrived, of course, and mentioned hypomania to me just as I was about to order more pajamas. “You already have a lot of pajamas,” he said. “You asked me to tell you if I thought you were getting carried away.” That’s true. He does help me track my moods when I don’t realize I’m veering one way or the other, and I have asked him to try to help me keep it in check. I didn’t order that last pair of pajamas, though it was a great sale price.

We’re lucky that this year we had an unexpected windfall, so all my holiday purchasing hasn’t pushed us into financial problems. But as I settle in for the winter in my cozy pajamas, reading my books, I know I’ll have to keep in mind that rush I’ve been feeling ordering online and try to recognize that it’s a function of my bipolar disorder and not just normal holiday cheer.

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Down in the Mouth

November 28, 2021

Tomorrow I’m going under the knife (forceps, pliers, whatever) to get teeth removed. I’ve written before about my severe dental phobia, but this time there is no other solution. My teeth are bad; my gums are bad. Hell, even my breath is bad.

For this procedure, I will have IV sedation, which is a great relief. Nitrous oxide has never had any effect on me. I have had IV sedation for a dental procedure once before, so I know it works for me.

Due to COVID restrictions, my husband (my emotional support animal) is not even allowed to come into the building or the waiting room. For other, less drastic procedures, he has even been allowed in the treatment room with me, to pat my foot and offer me encouragement. This time he has to wait in the car until the nurse brings me out. That means he stays in the car for up to two hours while I am worked on. I’m glad he has an e-reader and that it’s recently been updated and charged, but still I would prefer a pat on the foot to knowing he’s several doors and a parking space away.

Oddly, I was not nearly this fearful when I had two operations (microlaminectomies) on my back a number of years ago. Perhaps that was because the pinched nerve caused me untold physical pain. That was pain I could understand. All I have with my teeth is emotional pain. For now. I’m sure physical pain will come later, after I regain consciousness.

My memories of dentists and former dental procedures are not good. There have been both physical and psychic pain, shaming, guilt, assorted bodily reactions, and a creeping physical numbness that had nothing to do with Novocain. I have been through procedures both with and without IV sedation. I’ve had my wisdom teeth removed, and another tooth removed and replaced with a partial bridge. I had a tooth that broke and I had a tooth bonded in place, designed to get me through a month or two until I could do a reading from my book. Through careful eating, I made it last five years.

Now, though, there is no getting out of it. I was unable to get these expensive procedures in the past because of a lack of money. Now I don’t have that excuse. Money has been set aside and no other emergency has arisen that requires using it for something else. Needless to say, my insurance doesn’t cover this, and especially not the traveling anesthesiologist. Once I had to abandon fixing my teeth because our transportation gave out, but that’s not a problem this time.

Do I want to get out of it? Yes and no. Dentistry is one of my major phobias (which has no doubt contributed to how bad my teeth are). This has been true since I was a child, and has only grown more extreme. It would be understating the matter to say dental procedures are a major trigger for my anxiety and panic attacks.

I’m also unnerved by how the procedures will resonate through my life for an unknown time. That dental bridge was a significant factor in my self-esteem. If I forgot it, I had to turn around and go home. More tooth extractions will no doubt feed into my isolation. And then there’s the indignity of eating applesauce, soft-boiled eggs, and chicken broth until my poor, abused gums heal. As little as I leave my house now, I will be even less willing to do so for quite some time.

So, wish me luck. Both my husband and I are taking a few days off work, on the theory that the sedation and analgesics may leave me woozy. At least I will be able to keep up with my blogging, since that doesn’t require going outside.

I’ll get through this. But I’m afraid it will leave my emotions as disordered as my mouth.

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No, I’m Not Taking Bipolar Passively

November 21, 2021

It may look like I’m taking my disorder passively. I stay in bed a lot. I seldom leave my house. It’s true I don’t exercise or go out with friends or hike in the woods or volunteer at a charity or arrange spa days for myself or sleep under a weighted blanket. Those may be good, proactive things that people can do in terms of elevating mood and practicing self-care. But I don’t do any of those.

I do all the “required” things, like visiting my psychiatrist regularly and taking all my meds faithfully. But when it comes to more active practices, I fall far short of the “ideal.”

It may look like I’m passive, but in reality, fighting bipolar disorder is a constant struggle for me. It just mostly happens inside my head.

First, there’s tracking my moods. This takes an active awareness of my behaviors and what they may be telling me about my moods. If I find myself spending more money than usual, I may realize I’m drifting into hypomania. If I can’t laugh at jokes anymore, I may be headed towards depression. If I receive an unexpected bill and start to feel overwhelmed, I may be in line for an anxiety attack.

Even activities that seem ultimately passive or ordinary may require positive activity for me. Answering a phone call may take a lot of effort, even if I know it’s a friend calling. Going to the grocery, as mundane an activity as possible, can take a lot of effort on my part – getting out of bed, getting showered and dressed, going out of the house, choosing from the many options at the grocery, carrying my purchases indoors. These are actions that may not seem related to my mental health, but are. And I must struggle internally with doing them. It takes up psychic energy, not just physical.

And what about seeing my psychiatrist and taking my meds? These, though they may seem minimal, are not passive actions either. As with grocery shopping, I must convince myself – even force myself – to keep track of my appointments and show up at them bathed and clothed. I must monitor how much of my meds I have left and pick up refills. (Or order home delivery for meds and groceries, if possible.)

When even the smallest efforts seem to take too much, well, effort, trying to accomplish them is at heart a mental battle – to think of what needs doing, convince myself I need to do it, plan for it, prepare myself to do it, attempt to do it, and, if I fail, try again later.

Lying in bed may seem the ultimate in passivity, but there can be a constant, very real struggle going on. On one hand, there’s trying to get to sleep and stay asleep. On the other hand is the struggle to get out of bed and do something – anything. Even if my struggles aren’t successful, that doesn’t mean that I am passive. They can be exhausting (though not enough to sleep). They can require tremendous mental effort, which is sometimes more difficult than the active kind for a person with a mental disorder.

So, no, I am not taking bipolar passively. I am fighting to get through it, to conquer it, to keep it at bay, to not let it win. Giving up would be the ultimate passivity, and I’m not going to allow myself to do that. I will continue struggling with my disorder as best I can, determined to do all I can to meet it actively, with intention, and with repeated efforts if necessary. And not beating myself up when I find myself being reactive rather than proactive. It’s important for me to remember that I’m doing the best I can with what I have. And that I dare not be truly passive when it comes to my mental disorder, lest it take over again.

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The Time I Was (Sort of) Hospitalized

November 14, 2021

When I was a teenager, being hospitalized for mental illness was a big joke. The local facility was located on a street called Wayne Ave. Wayne Ave., despite whatever else was located there (a pizza restaurant, I think), was shorthand for “crazy.” (This was no doubt an annoyance to people who actually lived on Wayne Ave., of which there were many. Now the former mental facility is a Hospice.) I knew by then that I was mentally unbalanced, but it never occurred to me that I would end up in Wayne Ave. It was an address used only to tease other kids, which was uncomfortable enough.

By the time I got to college, I was aware that I was in trouble, mentally. I had turned down the offer to see the school district psychologist in high school, delusionally afraid that it would show up in my permanent record and prevent me from getting into a good (or any) university.

I did, however, get into a very good university. (No idea if they took my lack of mental health treatment into consideration.) But by this time I was really suffering mentally and emotionally. I tried at least one therapy group, but was able to breeze through it without making any notable progress, thanks to my ability to “act normal” for an hour at a time.

Still, I figured it was just a matter of time until my mental disorders manifested themselves sufficiently to be generally noticed. Maybe even noticed enough to be diagnosed. And I was waxing delusional. I felt sure that at some point in my life I would be hospitalized for my illness. I just wanted to make it through college and work at a paying job for at least two years, if I could, in hopes of getting Social Security. (I said I was delusional.)

Along the way, though, I was (sort of) hospitalized for mental illness. I say “sort of,” because I went to the university clinic, a small facility with about a dozen beds, most of them used for students with flu and the like. (There was a sort of witticism going around campus: It’s a short trip from Willard Straight (the student union building) to Willard State (the nearest psychiatric facility). Again, going to a psychiatric facility was considered a joke.)

I was nearing the end of a disastrous relationship, self-injuring, self-medicating, and vaguely suicidal. I checked in to the campus clinic. I don’t remember much of it, my brain obviously not working too well at the time. I had to tell them I wasn’t really suicidal, or else they would have called my parents, which I definitely didn’t want.

I do remember a nurse who would look in on me as I lay in bed crying. I don’t remember what if any treatment they prescribed. In my memory, mostly they just let me cry.

One very peculiar thing happened, though. The man of the disastrous relationship “checked me out” for an evening (much as you would check out a library book) to go to a dinner with someone in editing or publishing that he thought might help me get that coveted job after college. I don’t remember the dinner being a hit, and of course no job ever came from it. Then I was checked back into the clinic for a few more days of crying. I don’t remember how long I stayed or why I was finally released. It was altogether a peculiar experience, and the gaps in my memory have swallowed most of it.

I don’t think it actually helped me at all, other than to confirm to me that I was indeed ill, with some kind of mental disorder, and to reinforce my delusions. It also, I think, hastened the dissolution of that relationship, which proved to be a good thing in the long run. Was it all a ploy by the boyfriend to establish that I was the “sick one” for the purposes of couples counseling, which I had convinced him to try at one point? I’ll never know.

But since that time, I have never been hospitalized for my bipolar disorder. I have been properly diagnosed and treated. I now take psychotropic meds faithfully and see a therapist. I have been working for decades (except during a major depressive episode, when I learned how hard indeed it is to get Social Security for a psychiatric disability).

I suspect my hospitalization was far from typical. After all, it was dozens of years ago and not in a dedicated mental hospital or ward. I can’t say whether it helped me or not. But it’s an experience I never want to repeat – and, at last, something I never expect to endure again.

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What Is Bipolar Disorder Like?

November 7, 2021

There are a number of metaphors that try to express what it’s like to have bipolar disorder, and none of them is accurate. Thanks to television commercials for bipolar medications, we have even more metaphors, none of which express the reality of the disorder. Maybe, at heart, it is futile to try to come up with a metaphor. The map is never the territory. But let’s examine some of the most common and see where they succeed and where they fail.

Depression

The Black Dog

Winston Churchill was notoriously given to episodes of depression, and he referred to them as “The Black Dog.” It would come and go, but when it was with him, he descended into the depths. (Of course, this did not prevent him from becoming Prime Minister of England and making significant policy decisions and speeches during World War II.)

Dementors

J.K. Rowling has said that the soul-sucking monsters that appeared in the Harry Potter books were metaphors for depression, being able to remove not only joy and happiness from a person’s soul, but the memories of those emotions, and the possibility of ever feeling them again. (Incidentally, once out of the Dementors’ grasp, chocolate is said to help the person recover.)

Masks

This one is popular in TV commercials. A woman (almost always a woman) holds a smiley-face mask in front of her face to cover up her sad expression. Then, after she takes psychotropic medication, she puts the mask in her purse or pocket and suddenly reveals her own smiling face. Or a stock photo shows one person with a brown paper bag over his or her head with a sad face drawn on with marker. This bothers me because it implies that medication takes effect almost immediately, but I suppose there’s no way to show the six-week lag in TV ads.

Fog

The underlying metaphor here is being lost and being unable to find your way out. Everything around you is gray (and most likely rainy) and indistinguishable. It’s difficult to impossible to find your way through. This is actually a fairly accurate metaphor for severe depression or a major depressive episode. The sense of futility, of immobilization or being lost, of being unable to see a way out, is common to people with depression.

Anxiety

Skin

One of the most common sensations reported by people with anxiety is being about to jump out of their skin, or feeling itchy or twitchy all over. The itchiness or twitchiness may manifest in actual physical symptoms, in which case they’re a perception, not a metaphor anymore.

Electricity

The feeling of shocks running through the body or the brain is another way we describe anxiety. It can feel like jolts of current that only add to the twitchiness or agitation.

Indecision

Sometimes the paralyzing side of anxiety is represented by having too many choices or being unable to decipher a map. Instead of being agitated, the person is stymied and motionless. Make no mistake, this is a symptom of anxiety as much as it is one of depression.

Mania

House of cards

This metaphor comes to us thanks to a TV commercial. A person suffering from mania confronts a pyramid made of playing cards, climbs it, and keeps climbing until there are only a few cards left, with the idea that they will ultimately tumble. There’s no indication, though, that the person with mania built the pyramid of cards themselves, and the medication kicks in before the stack ever falls.

Soaring

The feeling of flying is often associated with mania. Soaring far above the mundane and the insignificant, the person with mania feels a sense of grandeur and empowerment, the ability to do anything – and to sustain it. Of course, sustaining the feeling never quite happens. Persons flying high with mania never see the inevitable crash that is coming.

Bipolar Disorder

Playground equipment

The seesaw. The teeter-totter. Even the swings. These metaphors certainly catch the up-and-down, back-and-forth motion of bipolar cycles. There are just two things wrong with these metaphors: They portray movements of equal length. And they’re fun. Bipolar moods do not come on a schedule or last a predictable amount of time. And there’s nothing fun about bipolar disorder.

Rollercoaster

A rollercoaster is perhaps the most common metaphor for bipolar disorder. It improves on the playground equipment analogy some. A rollercoaster, like bipolar, can be scary, especially the first time you experience it. It does involve up and down motions of unequal length. But the rollercoaster has the process backward. The climb up is slow, not an exhilarating whoosh. The swift ride to the bottom is the exciting part, which of course it isn’t. And, of course, once you’ve been through the whole route once, you have to get off and pay to get on again.

We use these metaphors because it’s almost impossible to convey what bipolar disorder is like to someone who’s never experienced it. And they can never convey the reality. Among those of us who have experienced the disorder, we use them as shorthand to describe the feelings we share, at least to some degree, with one another and with others, in hopes that they’ll “get it,” even just a bit.

But language has its limits, especially when it comes to describing what’s going on with our brains and emotions. Sometimes metaphors are as close as we can get.

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