The Year I Lost Myself

Daily writing prompt

What’s a chapter of your life you’d title "The Hard Years" — and what got you through it?

I’ve probably talked about this before, but not in detail. The time during and around the diagnosis of my bipolar is probably what I would call “The Hard Years”.

I think it was about 17 years ago — I am not good with time, especially during that time. It was not a typical spring semester — I had just learned that my department (Family and Consumer Sciences) was being disbanded, and my future position uncertain. I had tenure, but the university didn’t have to keep me. Most people in my department were losing their jobs. The whole situation was ugly because of how it was done outside of proper procedures for a reduction in force.

Meanwhile, I was not sleeping. At all. Days in a row of two hours’ sleep a night, going from project to project. I felt strung out and enervated. Yet I couldn’t stop myself.

My department chair told me I needed to see a psychiatrist for my sleep. I think she knew what was going on, even if I didn’t. I explained to the psychiatrist what was going on, and he informed me that I didn’t have a sleep disorder, but a mood disorder. He drew the sine wave of my moods onto a piece of paper, the highs and the lows, and described what I was facing.

He tried to stabilize me, and whatever he was doing didn’t work. I lived in the twilight zone of my lack of sleep and my fading mood. We tried sleep medicines on me, and I discovered that Ambien caused me to cook in my sleep, while the others (from tramadol to benzodiazepenes to Haldol) did not work. During this time my best friend died while I was on Spring Break, and it hardly registered to me. (I still don’t feel like I mourned her to this day.)

Eventually, I broke. I didn’t realize how sick I was until the evening when I got the twitches. I woke my husband from a nap and told him we needed to go to the emergency room because I wanted to kill myself. I didn’t feel typically suicidal — I didn’t really want to kill myself; I just wanted the jitters to stop. I just wanted the sleeplessness to stop. I remember lying on the table in the room they had sequestered me in, talking nonstop about my high blood pressure and the fact that I could not sit still.

The staff did a great job of handling me. They did not make me feel crazy at all. They didn’t talk down to me; they let me know that they were going to keep me for a couple of days to stabilize my medication. I felt surprisingly taken care of, even when I had to surrender my shoes for grippy socks (anyone who has been hospitalized for mental health issues knows what ‘grippy sock vacation’ means).

Inpatient care meant sitting through programming about how to deal with moods, art therapy, and discharge plans. The people I was in with had a variety of issues, although they all seemed pretty ordinary to me. The thing about inpatient treatment is that the patient no longer has much agency. You can’t bring your computer or phone. You can’t do work. You go to group even if you don’t want to. It feels like a shock to the system.

I spent a lot of time pacing the halls because of my jitters; I later figured out that I had akathisia from the meds. Akathisia feels like having restless legs in one’s whole body, and one has to move to try to get rid of it. It doesn’t go away except with time and the removal of the medication. Luckily that was only a day or two.

The emotional fallout of being in inpatient for psychiatry was a blow. I felt like I was no longer an ordinary person. I was mentally ill. The bipolar was no longer minor; it was a disorder. I struggle with this to this day, the feeling that I have been branded as other, even though I have not been to the hospital since. I have had a couple episodes since; a few mini-depressions, a minor hypomanic episode, but they have not put me back into the hospital.

I thought I was going to go back to work after my three days in the hospital. Human resources at the university disabused me of that notion; they made it clear that I would miss the rest of the semester and would not take on interns over the summer. That was another moment of reckoning that what I was facing was not minor. They were not kind about it.

In the middle of all this, my husband and I bought a new house. I did not help much with the packing or moving because the medications I was on were knocking me out. I was a zombie for much of the summer until we figured out that the Seroquel was not agreeing with me. My new psychiatrist put me on a new medication and that made me feel more normal.

That was my ‘hard year’. It has shaped who I am; has given me a sense of insecurity that has lasted to this day. I feel I could go back there at any time, if the stressors are bad enough. I feel as though I’ve never left, because the label ‘bipolar’ still applies. I question my past decisions, because I was unmedicated when I made them. I am still steps away from the ‘hard years’.

My Biggest Challenge

Daily writing prompt

What are your biggest challenges?

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My biggest challenge is my bipolar disorder. Right now, I’m on an even keel and have been for a long while. No rages, no glitches in judgment, no loss of conscientiousness, no desire to sleep all day, no weepiness. None of this despite a change in medication. But I feel like I’m overdue. Maybe it’s just superstition.

Hypomania scares me more than depression; I have gone to work despite deep depressions in the past. I can work through hypomania, but I’m more likely to do something I find embarrassing. One time I CC’ed an email when I should have BCC’ed, which sounds minor, but I broadcasted the mailing list for an anonymous survey. And I did it again to apologize; the apology itself bordered on emotional meltdown. The reverberations went all the way up to the Board of Regents and I had to go through a disciplinary action (some training and a “Don’t Do This Again”.)

My bipolar could be so much worse. As a Type 2, I don’t have the level of mania that truly disrupts life, but I have all the depression. That’s bad enough. The hypomania is bad enough. It’s the biggest challenge in my life.

Writing Close to Home

In my romances, I sometimes write about ordinary people who perceive that something about them will get in the way of a happily ever after (or at least a happily for now). Secrets, personal failings, longings, parental disapproval. The couple overcome these and find room for love.

This latest book I wrote (it’s in the editing stage), Kringle through the Snow, has one character whose flaw is that she has bipolar 2, which is something I manage in my own life. She is scared that another hypomanic or depressive state is just around the corner and nobody else should be exposed to it.

This is one of the hazards of being bipolar — the stigma. Someone with complications like bipolar is certainly more daunting than people without, and some potential partners want uncomplicated situations. Some are just scared. It is possible to have bipolar disorder and go years before another attack because of diligent management; how is this different than having diabetes or another chronic disease?

I write to ask these questions. In my writing, I want people to confront their preconceived notions, because I think we are our own worst enemies. I think love, when it’s truly there, finds a way.

So Far So Good

I have Bipolar 2. Some people call it Bipolar Light, but to be truthful, the lows are just as devastating as they are in Bipolar 1. The highs are less extreme but can still be damaging as high moods lead to irritibility, impulsivity, and dysfunction.

The idea behind treatment is to even out the moods — cut the highs and the lows. Some of the medication I take targets lows, some highs, some both. Most people with bipolar take a fine-tuned cocktail of meds to optimally target their mood swings.

About two weeks ago, the doctor had to take me off the mainstay (lithium, the gold standard) because of damage to my kidneys. They’re weaning me off it, and I honestly don’t know how stable I will remain. They’ve upped another of my meds to see if it takes care of the problem. I know that if I start having trouble with my moods, I’ll be able to call my doctor and see if my meds need more tinkering.

This is scary to me, because active bipolar makes it harder to function. Depression is horrible; hypomania is fun until I’m not getting any sleep and overwhelmed with projects.

So far, so good.

The Big Lie

I am just coming out of a depression. I don’t remember going into it, instead easing into it as if it were just a change of season.

I reminded myself that I was not feeling depressed. There was no self-flagellation, no remorse, no desolation. That was the big lie — that my reclusive behavior, my flat affect, and my resignation to being (in my eyes) a failure wasn’t depression.

Telling my colleagues that I was fine if they asked me if anything was wrong (and they asked me at least three times) was another lie. I am known in my workplace as being bipolar, and thus I feel I have to be on my best behavior lest they think I was going to the hospital again. I told my colleagues again and again that I was doing great, and maybe I even believed it because the temporary bubble of positive attention (that I felt I didn’t deserve) buoyed me. But then I fell back into the grey of my life this last winter.

It’s only now that my mood has risen with the Spring that I discovered how low I had fallen. I have depressive tendencies in Winter, but I didn’t expect to have fallen to the place I was this winter. The scale said I’d gained weight; I didn’t pay attention to my looks. I did very little. Too many times, I accepted negative self-talk as the truth about myself.

What could I have done differently? First, I could have caught the mood change sooner. I need to find some signs of the doldrums before they become depression. Second, I could have been more honest with myself and others, and maybe I would have accepted a medication change. Third, I could have been better to myself, but only after the first two were in place.

Bipolar Disorder is a weird disease, seeking balance in a body that wants to go to extremes. In fact, I am watching now to make sure I don’t tip in the other direction toward hypomania with its endless elation and debilitating restlessness. This is my life, and it’s not that bad. Maybe the biggest lie is the stigma I surround myself with that isolates me.

Mine to Remember

That which is mine to remember, I cling to on grey days like this…

Venturing into the attic as my father worked to restore it. The entire neighborhood late for school because my cat is having kittens. A gully washer sending rain cascading down the steps across the street. The hospital with its old wood panels and cordovan leather. The evening when I played in the street with my neighbor and my sister. Fishing in the park with my father, the first time I threaded a worm on a hook. When I finally got a boyfriend.

Going off to college unprepared and coming home again. Going back and staying there even through summers and Thanksgiving breaks. Growing microbes in Petri dishes and cooking pound cake in the food lab. Classes I skipped to sit on the Quad and watch people.

Walking to my graduate classes barefoot and scandalizing my professor. Skinny dipping at the St. Joseph’s Sportsman’s Club on a skinny September night. Watching Star Trek with my friends. Losing Thanksgiving Break to a class project. Walking across the stage to get my PhD.

Exploring my new home across the country, walking everywhere. Being betrayed by a husband and breaking up. Spending a week in an inpatient facility that saved my life. Falling in hopeless, chaste love with a rock band. Moments I felt like the sky was falling down, but I persevered. Driving to the Adirondacks to camp by myself and feeling freedom.

Moving back to the Midwest to be with someone I thought was the one — he wasn’t. Buying a house as an act of solidarity with single professional women. Learning how important laughter was to a relationship. Driving for miles and miles before getting to the next town. Watching coffee shops pop in and out of existence. Finding the right man and marrying on St. Patrick’s Day. Watching my mother die nine months after our wedding.

Appearing in a dunk tank for charity. Traveling to visit interns across Missouri and across state lines. Getting diagnosed with bipolar disorder and spending a few days at the hospital. Recuperating. Being moved into a bigger house. Spending a pleasant day with my father while he was in hospice.

And now I sit in the greying afternoon, having reviewed almost sixty years of life. All these memories are mine. I cling onto them as the things that define me.

On Taking Psychotropic Medications

I missed one of my medications for two weeks. I don’t know I did it, except it fell off of repeat refill, and I didn’t notice it was gone. It was my anti-depressant; I take a cocktail of meds to manage my bipolar disorder. Which means that without them, I progressively got depressed and anxious, curling up in a tiny ball, saying the grownup equivalent of “Nobody loves me” because the whirlwind in my abdomen felt that way. I still functioned at work, because I have a solid sense of duty that keeps me from calling off.

I just figured out on Saturday what happened, and by Sunday I got the prescription refilled. I am recovering.

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It sobers me that one half of a teaspoon of chemicals daily keeps me from non-functionality, or at least less functionality. I admit the meds are miraculous, even with their side effects, which include benign tremor, dehydration, and maybe a bit of incoordination¹. These meds keep me from despondency, from helplessness, from inertia, from self-flagellation, from a variety of self-deprecating and ultimately self-destructing exercises in my life. On the flip side, they also keep me from frightening elation, a feeling of invincibility, magical thinking², and a touch of grandiosity.

I function well because of chemicals. Not even perfect chemicals — none of these efficiently target the difficulties in the brain, but work together to keep something (usually excitatory actions of the brain) from happening and make other things (retention of neurotransmitters and inhibitory processes) more likely to happen. My brain chemicals are tripping my body to be hyper, to be miserable, to be depressed, to be despondent when there are no stimuli backing up the feelings. The medicine keeps that from happening.

Very few people tell me to “go natural” and quit treating my bipolar. I think it’s because bipolar scares them and they don’t want to see me without my meds. I suspect they think I will become psychotic if I go off the meds. Probably not. But I appreciate their faith in my meds.

Again, it’s sobering that I function because of medications. but I’d rather function than not.

It’s hard to tell which is my natural incoordination and which is the medication, to be truthful.
Magical thinking is believing in irrational connections between A and B, where A is “step on the cracks” and B is “break your mother’s back.” I contrast this to most practitioners of magic, who believe that stepping on the cracks may affect your relationship with your mother but not break her back, and besides that, they don’t do actions with evil undertones.

How to Talk About Not Being Okay

How do we talk about not being okay?

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Being vulnerable is that scary, that human. It’s scary to risk rejection because we have been a sloppy mess in front of someone. It’s scary for society to witness the breakdown.

The alternative, however, is that we stuff our feelings until we explode. Or we manipulate others so we don’t have to feel. Or we try to control everything until we cannot function anymore. None of these are good ways to deal with feeling like a mess, but ironically, those methods can seem more functional in the short run. They give an illusion of power — power over oneself, power over other people, power over situations.

I have very raw moments in my life. Although it’s kept well under control, I have a mental disorder. I have breakthrough times in February and October. During those times, I have sleep disturbances that keep me exhausted, severe anxiety, and a general feeling of being overwhelmed. I have to talk about it because it’s an overwhelming bad feeling and, at the time I have it, I feel like it’s always been there and will always be.

I’ve come up with some rules for myself on how to talk about not being okay:

Choose wisely who you will talk to and how much to disclose.
- Mere acquaintances might rate an “I’m under the weather right now.”
- Coworkers might rate very simple situational statements, like “My father died.”
- Good friends, if they can handle things, might rate a description of what’s going on with some frankness, like “I have seasonal affective disorder right now and I’m doing pretty poorly.” This list is to protect you from the people who might reject you or the message.
- The best thing, though, is to approach people who are supportive toward you.
Don’t use your friends as therapists.
- Don’t rehearse negative scenarios on them and expect them to argue endlessly against you.
- Also, don’t unleash your worst behavior on them. Treat them like friends and honor their feelings.
Apologize if you have behaved badly, just as you would when you’re not overwhelmed.
Do not expect your friends to keep dangerous secrets, like suicidal or homicidal ideations, for you.

If you are dealing with depression, anxiety, bipolar, schizophrenia, or other mental health issues, your best support system is not a substitute for therapy, whether that be psychotropic prescriptions, talk therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, or others. Reach out to your health care providers or get yourself some providers on your side.

I hope this has been helpful. I feel like I’ve clarified some things for me, and I hope that I’ve helped others think about this, because all of us have heavy times.

The Dreary Months

We’re officially past Christmas and New Year’s, and I’m officially done with the first draft of my next October release, and the skies are relentlessly gray. For someone with bipolar (II) disorder who uses the holiday season to hide from the darkening days, I am officially in the dreary months, or those months where I’m at risk for depression.

I’m tired all the time right now, and I’m weepy. I feel bogged down by a pretty normal workload. The answer to the question “What am I looking forward to?” is “A nap”, but there seems to be no time for that. I might nap on Wednesday. I have meetings all afternoon this week. On Friday I have an appointment in large letters: “NATHAN”. I do not remember who Nathan is or why I’m meeting with him. Since it’s in all caps, it must be important.

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What I need to do is get some strategies in place to help boost my mood:

A sun lamp. I don’t know if these really work, but they give me a sense of control
Naps when I can, even if this means while sitting under the sun lamp drinking coffee.
Things to celebrate. (I need help making this list)
Cat therapy
Possibly a phone call to the doctor

More coffee and booze are not on this list, as these will make my mood worse.

I’ll keep you posted.

Being bipolar means saying “Well, I got through that” a lot. An awful lot.

Remember that I am relatively stable right now and have been for a few years. No giddy, voluble mania; no draining depression. I almost wonder sometimes if I never really had bipolar at all, I’ve been comfortable for so long. Life gives us an amnesia when it comes to strong emotions; otherwise no woman would have a second child. So I know that my bipolar isn’t a figment of my imagination, even if I forget how traumatic it’s been.

My bipolar sits below the surface, waiting for its chance. It likes to boil up when I haven’t had enough sleep; I guard against that with a regular sleep schedule and supplemental medication for bad nights. It bursts out of quiescence when I face a lot of stress, and it roars into my life during crisis. Not always; that’s the tricky part. It’s not even predictable in crisis.

So I find myself saying “Well, I got through that” a lot lately. As in, “Well, I got through my dad’s death” and “Well, I got through all that grading” and “Well, I got through finals week” and even “Well, I got through carrying that heavy Nespresso machine down a flight of stairs without dying”. I feel relief that I haven’t gone on a three-day rant or begun tripping over my words in racing thoughts.

Sometimes I’m so relieved I feel like crying, and then I worry that a depression threatens to emerge. I shrug and promise myself that I will get on top of any threatening moods. I know the drill: Get enough sleep, talk to my psychiatrist, journal. Well, I got through that rocky patch.