World Bipolar Day

Today, March 30th, is World Bipolar Day.

Just for transparency’s sake, I’m writing this post while feeling the most depressed I’ve been since December. I’m frustrated and tired, because despite doing everything “right” I’m back here, feeling like shit and barely being able to take care of myself. After a couple months of a pretty decent mood, earlier this month I experienced my first mixed episode, which had me seriously considering a trip to the hospital, even though I’d sworn I would never step foot in that building again. I was starting to think maybe life can be consistently Okay, meds are doing their job well, and my bad days can be just that, but apparently that's too much to ask for. So I’m afraid I don’t have the most positive outlook on bipolar-related things right now. Okay, you've been warned.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (or “manic-depressive psychosis” as one of my records still calls it for whatever reason) in 2022, after a particularly bad, and my only, manic episode. It lasted a couple months in varying intensity and I didn’t realise that that’s what it was for a while. The "burden of my disease" is depression, but I also experience hypomania and psychosis. Fun! That wasn’t my first experience with psychiatry, though. As I’ve mentioned here before, I was in and out of therapy since I was a young teen and went to multiple different psychiatrists over the years. My favourite thing to do ever since I was put on antidepressants was to quit taking them around a month in. I did it because I’d get such a surge of energy and joy that I was truly convinced I didn’t actually need them, and that I had never needed them in the first place, because I’d never actually been depressed. Which wasn’t true. And I would quickly remember that when I inevitably crashed into another depressive episode a couple months later. Which probably should’ve been a sign, but in the doctors’ defence, I never admitted to that. And so, I cycled through many antidepressants – sertraline, fluoxetine, venlafaxine, bupropion, you name it. When I eventually got diagnosed as bipolar, I didn’t really believe it, and eventually stopped taking my meds as well. But guess what, it all came back, and after another doctor said it, I finally accepted my fate. Except, then I stopped taking my meds again. My first try to get my shit together in May of last year was unsuccessful – I was prescribed fluoxetine, which immediately sent me to the moon and I stopped taking it after a week. But in December, I finally decided that enough is enough, and I visited yet another psychiatrist (I've lost count) and I’ve taking my lamotrigine like a good patient ever since.

And that was very recently! I can’t really talk down on younger me, because I was a grown ass adult still going through episode after episode because I refused to acknowledge my disorder, and that meds actually do help me. Now, I’m far from saying you need to take medication for any disorders you have, fuck, I don’t think you even need to acknowledge or define yourself by those diagnoses at all. But it helps me to do so and try to accept it for what it is, including the fact that it might always be this way, or it may not, and I try to be okay with that uncertainty. Medication seems to be helping me as well.

The truth is, this disorder makes me act stupid. It makes me act irrational, against my best interest, it makes me hurt myself, neglect my most basic needs, makes me spend money and fall behind at university and abandon my dreams and goals. It makes me irritable and paranoid and distrustful of loved ones. It makes me feel pathetic and annoying when all I can say about my day is that I wanted to die and couldn’t get out of bed. It makes me hurt people I love, either directly or through neglecting our relationships. I broke up with people during episodes, both hypomanic and depressive, including with my current boyfriend when we dated for the first time. It’s made me completely detached from reality before. It regularly makes me want to die. It makes me doubt my own decisions and judgements all the time, even when I'm stable. And it might be an explanation for these things, but at the end of the day I have to take accountability for my actions and that makes me hate myself, it makes it hard to forgive myself, it makes me angry and frustrated. It makes me think about the life I could've had if I didn’t ruin things because my brain decides to throw a tantrum every few months for no clear reason.

I struggle with the common bipolar issue of feeling like I can only be creative when hypomanic, or unmedicated. When I’m hypomanic, I can churn out song after song, write posts here, write stories (okay, fine, it’s ao3 fanfiction), make things. And what’s more inspiring than being fucking miserable? I’m still not convinced I’m wrong on this, if I'm being honest. But bear with me, I’m trying to convince myself otherwise. Especially since the things I make when hypomanic aren’t really my best work – they’re rushed, I switch between ten different projects at all times, and never finish any one of them. But at least I make something.

Despite all these things, some of the people closest to me (cough my family cough) still refuse to acknowledge that this is what’s “wrong with me”. Because it’s not bad enough, because why would that happen, you had a good childhood, and besides, it doesn’t run in the family, because you seem to be doing better, because that’s a serious disorder and you’re just a little depressed, you’re not like that. I know they mean well, but sometimes all I need is someone to say that they see me, they see how hard it is, and they’ll fight with me, not against me; when I say “I might be this way forever,” it would be more helpful for me to hear “I’m sorry, I’ll be here anyway,” rather than “no, you can’t know that, maybe you won’t” in an argumentative tone. Because maybe I won’t, but I need to know you’ll still support me if I will be. And it’s enough that doctors switch their attitude when I tell them what meds I’m on (shoutout to the guy that wouldn’t fill out my driving license paperwork without an additional assessment, because “you could kill yourself or someone else and then I’d be the one questioned about why you were allowed to drive.”) I've had people, who I thought I could trust, get scared and tell me that I can't be trusted not to hurt someone or myself, and that I'd be better off locked in the hospital or put on drugs I don't want to take due to my bad experiences with them, because they believe in their ideas about the scary mental illnesses and mad people more, than they trust someone they've known for years. And it sucks! It all sucks so bad to get no support from people close to you, because of their ideas. It sucks to balance between between being deemed not sick enough by some, and too sick and crazy by others.

But time for a bit of #gratitude (look, I learned something in therapy). I’m beyond grateful for my lovely friends and boyfriend who get it; who sat with me through nights when I was suicidal, who sat with me when I believed nothing, including them, was real, who forgive me time and time again (though I’m grateful for those, who I no longer talk to and who don’t forgive me, too.) I have no idea how I deserved them.  Thank you for all the meals and messages and calls and laughs and making me believe I have a future. I think we all do, and I think it might be pretty good despite it all.