What is something you wish you could tell your 20-year-old self?

When I was 20, I was diagnosed with a mood disorder, cyclothymia. This is ‘bipolar lite’, or rapid cycling minor to moderate mood swings. Think of the mood swings as being faster and lighter than Bipolar II, which is not as manic as Bipolar I.

The meds were not as good back then as they are now. We’re talking 40 years ago. The doc put me on lithium and a tricyclic antidepressant. There were no SSRI or SNRIs back then, and tricyclics didn’t work for everyone. They didn’t work for me. So the lithium was regulating the highs and nothing was working for the lows. I stayed depressed all the time.

I finally decided that I didn’t need medication and took myself off it, going back to a yo-yo mood and years of poor sleep.

It took thirty years before I was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder. The symptoms had gotten bad enough that I could not sleep in my hypomanic days, and depressions were deep. With some trial and error, however, the new medications available helped me find a new normal where sleepless nights are seldom and I don’t cry for days at a time.

I wish I had taken the people at student health seriously, because I could have saved myself years of what I thought was simple insomnia. I wish I could tell 20-year-old me to stay on the meds and maybe try another antidepressant. I probably would have made better decisions with the right medication.

On the other hand, would I be who I am today if I had stayed on the medication? Would I have been creative? (I think so, but on the other hand I would not have had hopeless crushes, which fueled a lot of creativity for me). Would my life have been as interesting? I will never know.