Although I was only formally diagnosed as bipolar II earlier this year, I've "been bipolar" far longer than that. Looking back, I was probably about 20 when I started exhibiting most of the usual symptoms of bipolar disorder; I simply didn't know what they were or what they signified. I never thought anything of them other than 'well, yeah, sometimes I get a bit out of hand and feel like I'm losing my mind and sometimes I don't remember doing things I probably shouldn't do.' But bipolar disorder is still so stigmatised in society that it never crossed my mind that there was anything wrong with me other than my depression.
It wasn't until the end of last year that I began to suspect something else was going on. The veritable buffet of anti-depressants helped a bit, but I never felt like I was on an even keel. I spent most of my time in varying stages of numbness and emotionlessness, largely unable to even bring myself to be able to care. I knew the medications weren't doing what they should, but doing anything to change that was well more effort than I was willing to put forth. But a few long, long conversations with an old friend left me suspicious of my own illness. I made the massive mistake of going to the DSM-IV and reading into bipolar disorder, which one should never, never, never, ever do. Like seriously.
So I phoned in for an appointment with the indefatigable Dr. Latimer, the world's best GP who had diagnosed my original CSF leakage years before. I explained to him how sometimes I felt that I was going completely insane, frantic, angry, aggressive, careless in addition to the depression, and how I swung between the two extremes. I know it isn't helpful to go into an appointment with your own personal diagnoses in your head (WebMD syndrome is a real thing!), but I grokked that there was something else happening that a) I didn't know what it was and b) wasn't being treated properly. Dr. Latimer listened carefully, and then said that he thought that I probably was bipolar, and we needed to start treating that as well as the depression. He added a mood stabiliser to my daily routine, and told me to come back in a month.
Within a month, I knew that the medication was working. I felt more balanced, more even. My depressive cycles tend to be really long - often upwards of five months - with short, one- or two-week manic cycles, and not much time in between. Now that I know this, I have a much better innate sense of when I'm about to skid. I found a new psychologist and therapist down here as soon as we moved. My new psychologist checked my medication history and upped the dosage of the mood stabiliser over the course of two months.
And it's a wonder how much the correct dosages of the correct medications help. I don't think I ever have or ever will feel anything resembling 'normal' - I'll never function normally or act normally in social situations, I'll always have to manage being ill, and I've accepted that over a long period of time. Now it's something I own and almost am proud of; yes, I do have a mental illness, but I'm doing as well as anyone can, considering all the other shit I deal with. I'll always struggle, but I have to laugh. I call my medications my crazy pills. I make jokes at my own expense. Because the worse I feel about myself and what's wrong with me - because there isn't anything "wrong" with me, I'm simply wired differently from most people - the worse the mental illness is and the stronger and deeper it takes hold.
I was doing surprisingly well with therapy and my new medications. Until this occipital neuralgia reared its ugly head again. Then suddenly I'm faced with the loss of most of my coping mechanisms for both depression and mania. I can't go for a run when I'm stressed. It hurts my neck and my eyes to read for more than about half an hour at a time. I can't drive with the tremors and blackouts, so I can't get to therapy. I can't even take the dog for a walk because I can't move my head. As this started, I was dead convinced I was about to skid face-first into the Marianas Trench of depression; all the warning signs pointed to it. But with the right meds, I skipped over it. I had a few weeks when I felt generally "urrrrrrrghhhhh" but it was nothing compared to my usual depressive cycle. Now the mania is setting in, and it's worse than it's ever been. I'm used to always running fairly high on the anxiety scale and having my body be in 'flight' mode a significant percentage of the time. But now it's all the time. I have terrible jitters in addition to the tremors. Spending all the time in bed takes away from anything enjoyable that I might do otherwise, so I get extremely fidgety. Then I get angry about being stuck in bed and fidgety, and that's its own downward spiral. My mind races at a million miles an hour, so fast that many times I can't even process or understand what I'm thinking and what's happening in my head. I'm getting careless about myself; I know I shouldn't get out of bed, but I can't stay in bed so I get up and then fall down and bang into things and make my head hurt even more. With the medications, I know I shouldn't drink much, but again, I don't care and I do it anyway because it lets me forget for an hour or two at a time.
I've never really thought that I was a danger to myself. I'm passively suicidal, but not actively so - I'm far too much of a wuss to ever kill myself, but it would be great to go to sleep and never wake up again. But the longer this mania lasts as I get sicker, I can't be sure that I'll be able to keep it all together. Don't worry - I'm still a pansy. It's just getting harder and harder with every passing day to keep the mania under control.
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