Bipolar disorder has an ugly side.
Not the deadening depression that causes us to have a suicide rate 20 times that of the rest of the population. I’m still alive.
Not the stereotypical spendthrift manic episode. I am constantly careful to never spend more in a month than I can pay in full when the credit card bill arrives.
The ugly side is the side that meds don’t help. It’s the fluttering and skipping in my heart that tells me I’m having an excess of anxiety. Three cardiologists have told me my heart is healthy.
Since the age of four, my life has been consumed with intense emotions. I’ve only relaxed once when I went on a women’s retreat in 1976. It felt strange. Comfortable. Nice. I’d like to have that happen again, but I know it won’t.
Today my heart flutters and skips while pumping blood. This happens from time to time. Usually, one clonazepam solves the problem. Twelve years ago, I was put on the lowest dose and told to take one pill three times a day. I take the pills when I need them and ignore the bottle when I am able to calm down. I’m still on the lowest dose.
Today, one clonazepam didn’t solve the problem. Two didn’t solve the problem. Three are starting to unravel my anxiety. I’m listening to music that’s supposed to have inaudible sounds to trigger specific brain waves. I made myself a cup of tea – one of my calming habits from more than 50 years ago. I’m starting to have fewer flutters and skips. I am nowhere near to being relaxed. I know relax is something that won’t happen again. I don’t know how to make it happen. I don’t know how to calm myself.
Most of the time, being bipolar doesn’t bother me. It gives me a view of life others don’t have. It gives me understanding others don’t have. It gives me knowledge of what psych meds will and won’t do. It gives me intimate understanding of med hell, med adjustment, and med withdrawal. All of it sucks. All of it is part of being bipolar.
People try. One coworker told me he was sorry I had to be bipolar. I know he was being compassionate and I appreciate that. I told him I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t bipolar. I don’t know what normal is. I don’t know how normal feels. I’d like to know. I’d like, just for a little bit, to be normal. To see the world others see. To feel the world others feel. To not have to constantly monitor my reactions to events and try to figure out if my reaction is normal, or part of being bipolar.
People ask me what bipolar disorder is. It’s a mood disorder. That label doesn’t explain anything. My moods have a mind of their own. The manic and depressive swings rarely have anything to do with what is going on in my life. I hate the manic and depressive swings.
I’ve read that bipolar disorder gets worse as one gets older. Maybe that’s happening to me. During the 35 years in which I could have been, should have been, and wasn’t diagnosed, I put myself through college earning two degrees. One in journalism and one in biology. The biology degree was hard because I wasn’t allowed to take any science or math classes in high school. I put myself through law school. I ran my own solo law practice. I moved 2000 miles across the country and lived on my own for a year.
I’m a criminal defense attorney. I’ve fought my guts out doing trials for clients. In desperation, I put together a program where people with minor drug charges could go into counseling and upon successful completion of the counseling their charges would be dropped. I figured out a way to have an appropriate consequence for non-citizen clients so they could avoid a deportation triggering conviction. I survived working in a toxic office and quit before the toxicity killed me. Two weeks after I quit, I could sleep without pills and the lower back pain stopped. Six months after I quit, I no longer needed blood pressure meds.
I survived growing up in a house run by a violent, drunken narcissist and a violent drunk who bragged about being in Germany during the occupation after WWII. He told, time and again, how he drove a jeep down “Jew Alley” where goods and produce were sold, knocking over stands and sending people scattering. The drunk thought that was a great accomplishment and how funny it was to see Jews scattering. Jews who survived the Holocaust only to be tormented and terrorized by a drunken asshole.
I still look at my life and am disgusted because I haven’t achieved anything.
I’m very well medicated. I look at my life and see only the extremes of bipolar disorder. I still feel the extremes of bipolar disorder. The horrible, out of control manic episodes and the crushing depressive episodes were I worry I’ll become suicidal. I worry about suicide and dread becoming yet another bipolar person who succeeded in dying. I’m terrified that’s how my life will end.
Don’t you dare feel sorry for me. I neither want nor need your pity. I don’t want your understanding. What I want, is something you can’t give. I want to know what it feels like to be normal. I want to react to events and not have to analyze my reaction to attempt to determine if the reaction is genuine or a function of bipolar disorder. I want to realize, as I start to move away from center, that I need to adjust myself back to center. Instead, I have insomnia for three weeks before I figure out I’m manic. Instead, I find myself thinking that being dead wouldn’t be so bad before I figure out I’m depressed. I want to know how to calm the anxiety without having to take a handful of meds. I want to never again, have the weight of flashbacks. I want to never again have to talk to memories, tell memories they are about something that happened once but isn’t happening now. I want to never have to tell memories I did the best I could at the time the event happened.
Most of all, I don’t want you to feel sorry for me.
Deb's Art 