Do you have to be in the right head space to do nothing?
What is the difference between the nights you can’t sleep and your head spins and lying awake feeling calm? Can you turn it on and off?
Is boredom enough to make you want to tear off your own face? Can you just ‘be’?
Do anxiety and agitation make you feel like you’re having a heart attack?
What do you do about it? How do you get the chill factor? Ideas and suggestions please x
Lithium, seroquel, venlafaxine, prednisolone, pentassa, simvastatin, metformin, centrizine, zopiclone, chlorpromazine, omeprazole and glickizide.
The first three cause metabolic syndrome including type two diabetes.
Stress and anxiety, all part of being bipolar, cause ulcerative colitis. The steroids kill the immune system, cause weight gain and high blood sugar.
Staying sane is priority one.
Being healthy physically is complicated.
Extra meds at new times of day. Extra checking of mood, of bloods.
Extra side effects.
My careful self management plan has been extended to incorporate all these extras.
I am longing to drop my meds and fly for a while.
The creativity and mind expansion of hypermania calls to me. I feel so fucking slow!
I’m plodding, methodically, through a daily list of personal and professional tasks that include plenty of rest (for the colitis), prioritising urgent and important work tasks, planning, scheduling, minimising stimulation.
My rewards include feeling emotionally balanced, some improvement in physical health and being ‘on top’ of things.
Yey!
Not.
What’s wrong with me? Everything is as it should be.
I’m bored! Bored bored bored!
Not well enough (or high enough) to venture out socially. Not Ill enough or low enough to be happy as a hermit.
Hypermania whispers seductively… “I’m just here; just a few days without pills away. You can always start back on them if it gets too much”.
And I want to so much. To feel the buzz of life, to feel the sunshine on my face, to be quicker, brighter, funnier, more creative, more attractive. To be the centre of attention and make people laugh.
What a feeling. It’s like weighing less and floating easily from situation to situation. No problems in hypermania. Only elegant, clever solutions.
It’s me. The real me. The best me I can ever be. The me I want to be.
Lithium, seroquel (especially these two) and the other drugs I take keep me at half mast. Like a lobotomy, zombified, treacle minded, struggling to think, act and function as if wading through dense fog and swamp. Thoughts are slower. I’m lessened by these drugs. They castrate my creativity. I function poorly in comparison with my true self. It frustrates me.
Being bipolar!
Great plan for life :-D one I try to emulate x
(via openyoureyessunshine)
This is where I am.
Literally. I’m not into existentialism. Well sometimes, maybe. But here I am.
I’m in my shed. Superficially you might think I’m doing nothing; but I’m thinking.
I’m not (for once) feeling sorry for myself or navel gazing. I’m just feeling relatively calm and thinking about work.
Thinking about work is underrated. Mostly, I’m too busy to think. This also means I’m too busy to plan. Without planning, work quickly becomes unmanageable. Much like life if you’re bipolar and don’t plan.
So why is time to think not a fundamental part of work? Can I claim overtime for chilling in my shed and ‘thinking’? I bet my board would love that!
I think I might start a campaign. Forget work/life balance. Work/thought balance. It’s the new unexplored country. Let’s get creative and spend some time relaxed and contemplative. Who knows what we might achieve?
This is a photo, one of only four that exist, of my son Matthew when he first came out of the incubator in hospital. He was eight weeks premature and poorly.
He died 22 years ago when he was still just a baby.
His coffin was tiny and rested on our knees in the back of the funeral car. I wanted the world to stop. A universal time out to let me sort through and deal with what reality had brought to my door.
For ten years I would wake in the night to the sound of his cry. I would dream I could save him if I completed impossible tasks. I would dream that he died on purpose because he didn’t think i wanted him.
I turned 19 five days before his death. I was in an abusive marriage and I already had a small child. I was caring for my mum and life was crushing me.
I’m almost certain I had post natal depression. It’s no wonder.
I got pregnant again almost immediately. My marriage became impossible. We fought constantly. My baby was harmed in the womb and lost. Delivering a dead baby is torture.
Eventually, after a miscarriage, I had my third son. Before he was a year old we had fled, my boys and I, to a refuge. I was 21. I had been married for five years and been pregnant once for every year of that marriage. A refuge is a hard place to be.
It was at 21 that I was first sectioned. A genetic predisposition for bipolar triggered, no doubt, by the difficulties of real life.
But even though my life has had more than its share of pain. This isn’t supposed to be a sad story.
Out of every trauma comes growth. Out of every pain comes learning. It’s not rhetoric but truth.
Self knowledge had been hard won. I’ve made mistakes and hurt people I love. I’ve had points so low that death seemed like the only option and flown so high that I’ve lost perspective.
I look at the photo of Matthew and wonder who he would have been today. But I don’t regret. Regret is a waste of energy. If Matthew had lived I wouldn’t have Joshua. I could never wish away one child to have back the other. I also wouldn’t have been able to draw on my experiences to support others whose children died.
If I hadn’t lived in a refuge and had support from strong women who changed my life, I may not be where and who I am today.
If bipolar disorder hadn’t manifested in me I may never have grown as a self aware being, found the strength to come out, made the friends I love and value and had the joy’s that I have had.
I look at this photo and remember my son, tiny though he was, a unique human being and precious to me. I feel privileged to have known him and loved him. I feel hope for something after this life, although I am not religious and do not believe in god.
His short time here changed me. In ways I cannot describe, loss and pain are the parents of strength and courage. For years I measured any difficulty against his loss. I would ask myself ‘will I still care about this in a year? In five? In twenty?
I knew that if I could live with the loss of my child, I could live through anything.
That’s what I learned.
So I honour the memory of my son Matthew on the anniversary of his death with gratitude and love.
I miss you every day. I love you every day. I can never be completely whole without you.
Thank you for your company, short though it was. Thank you for your lessons, hard though they are.
Always yours, mummy x x x
When I was a kid I would sometimes
Secretly call myself Andrew
Would tug at the crotch of my pants the way
Only pubescent boys do
Ran around pounding on my bare chest like tarzan
It’s not that I thought I’d grow up to be a man
I just never thought I’d grow up to be a…
Beautiful words
Source: openyoureyessunshine
Here I am again. Having been busily beavering away all afternoon organising my kindle (clearly important) and backing up my iPhone (obviously urgent) before becoming aware at 7pm that I have busied myself out of completing any of my intended tasks.
Even now, having realised the trickery of my own brain, I have prioritised blogging about avoidance as a way of procrastinating further.
Why do I do this?
I have delivered numerous training sessions on planning and time management. I introduce people to theories and tools that will change their lives ;-)
I am busy. I carry a hefty, challenging case load at work and a lot of responsibility. We all know I do very little at home and am pampered and taken care of like a cat of royal descent.
I am currently studying for a diploma in management and a coaching qualification as well.
And as regular readers know, I’ve been ill recently (waily waily)
So today, my day off work, I have played around uselessly.
Why?
Why, why, why?
It’s not because tidying my work space was a priority. It certainly isn’t because I can’t work well until I have reorganised my underwear drawer. Nowhere here will you find evidence of intelligent, reasoned use of planning tools that suggest that organising my kindle will create some progress in my academic pursuits.
I think it’s avoidance because that’s just how I roll.
I need to be close to a deadline (tomorrow 3pm) for the magic to happen. I can’t plod and methodically do my work over planned and reasonable timescales. It’s not that I don’t do anything at all. It’s just difficult to call what I do work.
I read everything I need to read (for work, study, bid writing etc) and then I stew on it. I make occasional notes in my journal or on my phone/PC. I dream about it, worry at it, think about it at night when I can’t sleep. Slowly, something amorphous forms in my head and I start to get a shape of where I need to go and how whatever it is needs to look. But I can’t realise it. Not without the pressure of the deadline.
I can probably even talk about ‘it’ sensibly and convincingly because by this stage it exists in my head (mostly). But I can’t make it happen until the last minute.
There must be some chemical explanation. Maybe adrenalin or endorphins or stress hormones that click in and make my creative and productive juices flow.
Maybe its just a form of self harm that demands I torture myself constantly and live under pressure.
It could be some deep psychological need for self destruction. It is certainly linked to mania, where I take on too much and eventually collapse under the pressure.
Whatever it is, it is time to get my head out of the sand tonight. At 3pm tomorrow I have a session with my tutor who is expecting an assignment on strategic planning.
Said assignment exists in my head as a thing of perfection.
Lets see if my freshly organised and backed up technology helps to turn into something real.
I’m currently enjoying a day off. Not just off work but off everything. A duvet day. Self indulgent lounging in bed with books and music occasionally interspersed with a text message or a quick check of Facebook and twitter.
I could be doing coursework, writing funding bids, ironing, cleaning or any one of many useful activities.
But no.
I am investing in myself in another way. It isn’t lazy. It is perfectly reasonable. I need a recharge. Like a battery that has run down, I need to be re energised. It’s not sunny, although the sun would work. I have my light box on instead.
I refuse to feel guilty about it, although I can feel guilt niggling at the back of my brain. But that’s family stuff from a family that thinks if you stop, you are lazy and bad. They’re also all crazier than me (in my opinion) so their opinions don’t count :-)
Picture the scene; I’m lay in bed in my PJ’s with a hot water bottle on my belly. I’m listening to a playlist of Paloma Faith, Gotye, Adele, Sia etc. I’m reading fantasy novels. I’m eating peanut butter and drinking iced Ribena. In my mind I’m on a desert island.
I can hear muted family noises in the background but it’s nothing I have to deal with so it doesn’t bother me.
Work? Problems? What problems?
Another few hours of this and I will be ready for anything. Ready to take on the universe :-)
Anyone want to join me?
Triggers, warning signs and delusions…
Have you ever made a bad decision and wanted to kick yourself afterwards? I have made many mad decisions that varied on a scale of bad from vaguely stupid to incredibly dangerous and every shade of poor in between.
From kicking the Mayor of Bolton to buying a 6ft mermaid to moving house numerous times, I have made some really interesting choices.
Of course I’m only human so I can’t blame all of my poor choices on being bi polar. However with the benefit of hindsight I can usually identify enough qualifying factors to recognise a mad decision from a simply bad decision.
The problem is recognising them before ‘doing’ whatever it is that my bipolar brain thinks is a good plan.
I’m 41 so I’ve had time to identify some clear patterns. I know most of my triggers so I avoid making big (or any) decisions when I’m tired, drunk, on pain meds, very happy, very sad, involved in any life stressors, in a new relationship, have money, have no money… Yes, pretty much all the time. I analyse every decision from what I choose to wear to where I choose to go and what I choose to do. I think, analyse, review, consider every factor I can identify, think, review, rethink (check with someone if it’s a biggie) then decide.
Some decisions, as I have noted, are recognisable from past patterns. These include: moving house, ending/starting new relationships, taking on too much work, spending money, getting animals, hibernating away from people, buying rocking horses (I just replaced Pablo) and being obsessed with things, although this last one is a decision, trigger, warning and partly just my personality.
The trouble with bipolar and patterns is that you can’t recognise patterns in advance. You need a good few episodes and the benefit of hindsight.
Hindsight tells me not to move house again even though I have itchy feet. We are in a nice, relatively secure rented house. The moving urge has seen me live in eight houses as a child and change school eleven times. That was not my fault but it set the pattern.
I have lived in eleven houses as an adult and been homeless (living in homeless accommodation) four times since I was sixteen. It has brought chaos and disorder to my children and me. Moving house unnecessarily is bad. I will not move house.
My life has been chaotic and difficult. Bipolar creates chaos and is the enemy of ordered routine. My bipolar personality cannot cope with boredom and cannot cope without challenge and stress. The trick is to get the balance right and I can only manage this if I understand myself.
Understanding myself didn’t come easy. But here’s how to make a start:
1) create a timeline of your life from birth to now. Include major life events, key memories and extreme ups and downs
2) for each event on the timeline write down how you remember feeling, what you remember hearing/seeing what was happening and what you were thinking and any decisions you made/regret.
This will be your starting point.
3) try to identify any patterns: for every obvious extreme of mood/poor decision, were you studying, working a lot, under stress, experiencing/recently experienced any big life event? Make a list of these stressors. Mine include travel, tiredness, boredom, over stimulation, studying, working too hard, illness, sunshine v winter dullness = up v down in mood, new relationships (including friendships), new hobbies, bereavement, loss of any sort, dehydration, upset, PMT. the list can be long and it doesn’t mean avoiding everything.
4) for each trigger list the warning signs and issues e.g. Travel: I worry about long journeys, get tired and travel sick and then am exhausted, get migraine, can’t cope. As a result I feel like a failure, get down on myself and get depressed which can spiral out of control. The solutions include deciding if the journey is important/necessary/desirable, planning ahead so that I can rest in advance, planning breaks to sleep if possible or extending my journey to include additional rest at the start/finish. Ensuring I have pain and travel sickness meds and being prepared for things to not go as planned. If I have to travel for work I always stay an additional night at the beginning and end so that I am ok for whatever meeting/conference is in the middle.
Of course you can’t plan for some things. Bereavement is a huge trigger. But you can learn how it affects you. I am very good in a crisis. I can cope with the death loved one as long as there is practical stuff and other peoples grief to deal with. I fall apart months later when everything is calm. I can’t plan for this but expecting it means I’m watching for warning signs, can put support in place for myself and can get through it. The last time this happened I spent a week in hospital which felt like an epic fail at the time but since the shortest period I’ve otherwise been hospitalised is almost six months, I figure it’s a good outcome.
The only way to function with bipolar (in my opinion) is to know yourself. There’s a great book called mood mapping by Dr Liz Miller that I recommend to anyone wanting to figure themselves out.
Know yourself, manage your bipolar, live a good life. We are stuck with our genes and our illness but it doesn’t have to destroy us.
Oh, and if you ever have the blessed fortune to meet a higher power (like my wife) grab them and keep them. She is my rock, she is the calm in the storm and the solid foundation for my crazy. Without her I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. But with her I can and I do and I am.
It’s a bumpy ride when you’re bi polar. Ups, downs, mixed episodes. Meds, moods and self management. Who to ‘come out’ to, who to keep it from.
In my family ‘the curse’ is a dark and dirty secret. Unacknowledged in spite of four generations affected by it. I was 30 before I even knew it was a family issue. My patents and grandmother colluding with me to deny my original diagnosis (when I was 21) and letting me get on with suicide attempts and hospitalisation until finally in 2000/01 my dad felt it was time to share this rather crucial family secret. That’s over a decade of torturous suffering for me, my children and my true family of friends.
I reached out to relatives. They told me to take my lithium and get in with it.
But I am a curious person. And I’m interested in everything. So after years of rejecting the reality of my diagnosis I finally embraced it. I became almost evangelical in my desire to share information about this illness. I told everyone.
Not my best idea.
Stigma exists. It is real and it is pervasive. Try telling people you’re bi polar and you get three reactions:
1, they’re ‘fine with it’ but start using phrases like ‘calm down’ or ‘take it easy’ NB ‘calm down’ is possibly the least useful phrase in the universe. Delete it from your vocabulary. It’s called gaslighting… Google it!
2, they’re ‘fine with it’ and they actually are. Rare, but not impossible. These people are golden. Don’t let them go.
3, they panic (shit themselves) and withdraw. Let them go, they aren’t worth your time.
Outing yourself as a crazy sorts the wheat from the chaff but it also leaves you vulnerable. People have a pop culture understanding of bi polar and many aren’t afraid to use it.
‘are you manic?’, ‘paranoid?’, ‘over stressed?’. If you have an issue, concern or disagreement it can be easily written off as the mewlings of a maniac. How can you defend yourself when you actually are crazy sometimes?
Over the years I have learnt to be more discerning.
I am completely out to family and friends. I’m more careful about work. I wait to decide if someone can be trusted to appreciate the honour of me sharing this personal information. I’m not always right.
Stigma exists. It exists invisibly just beneath the surface of many otherwise sensible people. Ignorance exists. Even amongst intelligent evolved beings. I am disappointed on a depressingly regular basis. And then sometimes, I am inspired by the open acceptance, love and understanding shown by some.
I keep the golden ones close. I trust them to tell me the truth and to never generalise, panic or pop psych me. I know I can call on them crazy or sane and they just see me. Not an illness, not a crazy person. Just me.
The others, the ones with their own mental illness called stigma, that separates them from reality, understanding or awareness. Them I steer clear of… You never know, it might be catching!
