Having bipolar disorder is pretty awful. That sounds like a given, maybe, but it wasn't to me. Being bipolar just sounded like being depressed or being anxious - isn't being bipolar just about being depressed AND anxious? I had been depressed a lot in my life. My childhood was shitty, depression just comes with that. And who isn't anxious, from time to time? So being bipolar is just jumping around from depression and anxiety - I can handle that.
Also, like OCD, I feel that our culture has started to use the term “bipolar” with such flippancy that it has diluted its true meaning. We often think of it more as a person who is quick to anger or strong emotions. I feel I’ve heard the term with such frequency that it stopped being some scary illness people can get and just another term to toss around when venting about someone that gets on our nerves.
Except being bipolar is so much more. Being bipolar means your frontal lobe goes through hyper- and hypoactive periods (according to my psychiatrist). That affects so much more than just being anxious or just being depressed. Sure, I got anxious and I got depressed but I also had irrational fits of anger that have caused me to do some very unpleasant, shameful things. It’s easy to say I should have known better, but when those fits hit my ability to maintain control is impaired. I literally can’t help it. Which is not how I want to be around my future children; it doesn’t matter how sorry I am after, I can’t take back hitting them or screaming at them. I need this to be fixed before kids come along because I need to not be that kind of mother.
I used to work at a psych hospital and it was my job to go to patients in the emergency department that were being admitted to the hospital and get medication histories. I used to scorn the repeat patients (most of whom were addicted to drugs) and I couldn’t understand why they didn’t just take their medication and get better. But now, going through the treatments myself I can see how incredibly difficult it is to handle being treated. I can see why people might give up rather than try a seemingly-endless barrage of medications that not only don’t work but make you feel actively terrible. I can see why these people would turn to street drugs to numb their pain. It’s easier. Not better, not healthier, but easier.
And I could see myself taking that road. The release that all those drugs offer sounds heavenly. Sure, you’ll get addicted and be unable to function in your daily life and end up losing your job and your home and everything else - but that happens later. What happens right now is the blissful release. I can see being so desperate that I sacrificed my future to be happy in the present.
I’m fortunate enough, however, to have a very strong support system. I have a job that offers good insurance and pays me well enough that I can see a psychiatrist and a therapist once a week. I have friends and family and the world’s most amazing partner to turn to when things get bleak and the side effects of my medications are overwhelming.
That is so much more than others have and even with those advantages I still can see the appeal to mind-numbing drugs. I can’t imagine being unable to afford frequent visits to the psychiatrist for constant medication tweaking or see my therapist to have a professional tell me everything is going to be okay.
I can't imagine being without the friends or family I can call or text any time of the day or night and know that someone will answer. Whenever I speak to a friend or family member the first words out of their mouths are "How are you feeling?" And they're sincerely interested. They aren't just paying lip service to seem like a good person - they genuinely care about my well being and all the minutia of what I'm going through. They won't just nod and try to change the subject, they listen attentively and offer words of support and encouragement and advice.
I could certainly never do this without Ryan. Ryan, who is patient with my wildly changing moods and my inability to help out around the house. Ryan, who is on the front lines of dealing with whatever new side effects I am suffering through this week. He was the first to know that my akathisia was coming back even with the Cogentin and he made sure I talked to my psychiatrist right away rather than waiting it out. He reminds me to seek the help I need and that's so incredibly important, even if it seems so obvious.
So, I don’t judge anymore when I see the homeless that litter the streets of Chicago, because 1 in 3 of those people are mentally ill*. Being mentally ill affects your whole life - if you can’t afford to treat it, or can’t bear to live through the seemingly endless process of finding medications that work but don’t make you worse off than the disease, then you can’t function. You can’t keep a job to pay the bills and keep a roof over your head. I worry constantly about my own ability to keep my job and keep my roof over my head and I have every advantage available.
I don’t know that healthy people can ever really understand what it means to be mentally ill but hopefully reading my blog can give you some idea. And if you are mentally ill, hopefully it will offer comfort in solidarity.
*http://www.usmayors.org/pressreleases/uploads/2014/1211-report-hh.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment