Having had the desire to share my own bipolar story for a while I think today is as good a day as any to finally put pen to paper, or in correction, put fingers to keyboard. In doing so I hope sharing my experience will educated people who like me, prior to having experienced bipolar symptoms, had no idea what bipolar disorder was. In writing today I also hope to further reduce the stigma that surrounds bipolar disorder within our society. Hopefully this blog will introduce the topic of bipolar disorder into some peoples conversation, for today at least. Through conversation we can educate and through education we can equip ourselves with the powerful tool of understanding. In understanding how bipolar symptoms present themselves you may be able to help yourself, should you become bipolar, or help friends or family members who may currently be experiencing symptoms of bipolar disorder.
In 2003, I went through a period that was, up until that point, like nothing I had ever experienced before. I’ve been told, in hindsight when describing the initial symptoms I experienced, that my first depressed period was triggered by a panic attack which then resulted in me falling into a major low that lasted for nearly three months.
To say the way I felt was out of character would be an understatement. I had no interest or desire to do anything. I did not want to socialise, in fact I made plenty of excuses to avoid social occasions whenever I could. I lost my appetite, I was hardly sleeping, I was constantly worrying and filled with anxiety with my thoughts travelling to alarmingly dark places. My outlook on everything, and for the future, was pessimistic and bleak. Inside, and I hope I don’t come across as sounding too melodramatic when I say this, but it felt as though I had no soul. I had no drive, no passion. It felt as if someone had ripped out what made me human and I was left as just a hallow vessel trying to plod along. It was hell. Being a 23 year old male, telling someone “I wasn’t feeling right in the head” didn’t really seem like an option at first. But as my internal melancholy continued to smother me I eventually took the first step in trying to get help and I rang the Aware Support Line. I found that even though I was not magically cured by that first phone call, talking about my problems and how I was feeling did make me feel a little better, momentarily at least. After this call I slowly started to tell friends, or try to, that I wasn’t feeling myself.
Friendly encouragement, family support and sheer stubbornness on my part got me through that first tunnel of darkness to slowly, but surely, see the light at the other side. A move back to my hometown and a career change instilled a renewed confidence in me. I put the ‘dark period’ behind me and was moving on with life.
But about three months after coming out of my low and with the arrival of summer my mood started to go from good to extremely good. I felt as though every day was the best day. You know those days when you wake up hearing your favourite song on the radio. Then you travel to work and every traffic light is green. You get to work and you find out you’ve been given a pay rise, you know that day when you think, life REALLY is good. Well I was feeling like that every day. My mood was constantly up, I was extremely positive, I was making plans for the future, I was spending money, I was out every night of the week. Also I was hardly sleeping, maybe just a couple of hours a night, yet I still had bundles of energy the next day. I don’t really know where it became a problem because as this was the first time I was experiencing this elate mood I personally did not see it as strange or problematic. My friends, of course, were worried and questioned my “fake happiness” and wondered if I was “on the verge of a nervous breakdown”. My family attributed my erratic behaviour, my sleepless nights and my rapid speech to suspected drug taking. I really did not see a problem cos to me I was just truly happy. Personally, I felt I may have subconsciously been trying to live life full throttle to make up for the three months of living I lost out on while depressed. I was feeling great, there was NO problem.
Eventually my high came crashing to a end and on the other side I was in debt, unemployed and evicted from my residence. To say I was confused would be an understatement. I was left scratching my head, my logically thinking sane head, as to what the hell had just happened. Reflecting on my actions over the previous two to three months I could now see why my behaviour was so worrying to everyone close around me. What had just happened?
Confused and unsure I was walking through a bookshop one day. As I was strolling past the health section I saw a book on depression. There was no doubt in my mind that I had suffered from depression earlier in the year so I picked it up and had a quick read. Contained within the book was a quick fifteen question test to quickly decipher if you had ever experienced depressive symptoms. I was able to tick all the boxes. I turned to the next page and there was a section on mania. It was in this moment I realised mania was a separate condition. I had heard the term manic depression before but I thought that to be manically depressed meant to be extremely depressed or critically depressed. The book too contained a fifteen point test to check if you had suffered the dizzying effects of mania. Again I could tick all the boxes, I passed this mini exam with flying colours. I was shell-shocked. I had no idea what I had experienced just a few months ago was actually a condition. But a little part of me was relieved cos at least now I could understand why my behaviour had been so questionable. I had been manic.
With the encouragement of friends I nervously, and slightly hesitantly, went to see a GP to tell her of my turbulent few months and of my self-diagnosis. Unfortunately for me, and I think slightly unprofessional on her part, she instantly dismissed my self bipolar diagnosis and had an attitude of “how dare you flippantly throw around such a diagnosis, don’t you know this is a serious condition and people with bipolar live day to day trying to battle it”. Of course my neither depressed nor manic state at that point in time meant “I clearly could not be bipolar” in her eyes. I left the GP’s office feeling frustrated but also a little relaxed. She was a professional so maybe she was right, maybe my party drug use during this period was to account for my mood swings. At least I had been proactive in seeing her, job done.
2004 – 2010
Moods are normal, GREAT, maybe that GP was right after all?
2011
After arriving in New Zealand, and activating my one year working holiday visa, I was accepted to work on The Remarkables ski field. Working there was my first time trying snow sports and I loved every minute. The adrenalin fuelled by snowboarding, the excitement of trying something new, the euphoria of living in a beautiful part of the world and the party lifestyle that goes hand in hand with living in Queenstown could all have contributed to me becoming hypomanic again by the end of that winter. Of course I didn’t see it at the time, there had been a seven year lull between episodes so I didn’t see the warning signs but looking back now behaviour such as fighting with housemates, being irritable with work colleagues, reduced need for sleep, increased social activity should have screamed alarm bells to me, but they didn’t, I was oblivious.
That hypomanic episode was defused in developing into a manic episode, I suspect, after a snowboarding accident meant I was on painkillers and confined to bed rest for a few days. Lots of sleep and the inability to be able to run around tamed my inner awakening manic beast.
Two months after my accident, a fractured vertebra, my back brace was removed and I was to start physiotherapy. It was then that my mood took a turn in the other direction. In my first physio session I was asked to do a simple stretch. I instantly became unsure and nervous and was panicked. Instantly my whole thought process became negative. I left and went straight home to bed. I was extremely anxious. I hardly slept that night, thoughts were negative. I was worrying about the future and no matter what I just couldn’t think positive. I was in a slump. I lost my appetite for a few days and just stayed in bed for the majority of the time. I knew the state I was entering and it frightened me, “not again” I thought, “this can’t be happening again”.
Luckily for me my first cousin was visiting a few days later and could clearly see I was not in a good place. She encouraged me to go see a doctor which I eventually agreed to do.
I was beginning to think that my self-diagnosis as bipolar seven years previous was correct. Thankfully I met with a GP who listened to my concerns and sent me for a full psychiatric assessment at the local mental health clinic. It was about a month after my initial meeting with that GP that I got to meet with an occupational therapist. Kevin was positive and charming. We met two days before Christmas for my initial assessment, and about one hour before Kevin was to start his Christmas vacation. This is the reason I think he may not have listened to my concerns properly. Maybe he had some Christmas shopping to finish and so was rushing to get away? Kevin attributed my low mood to possibly “being lonely”, “not having too many friends” or “being homesick with the arrival of Christmas”. I knew he was mistaken as my misery, I felt, could not be so easily categorised. He gave me a hand out which contained some exercises on rating my depression daily from 1-5. Another hand out had advice on how breathing could tame my anxiety. These pieces of paper did nothing to help me.
After Christmas break we met again in early January. By now I was still feeling very low. The more down I became the more I felt Kevin wasn’t listening to me, or maybe I was just really bad at conveying to him just how bad I felt. He just kept saying “think positive, take a deep breath”. Well that just did not work. It’s not like I was purposely trying to feel depressed. I’d go to bed every night after yet another shit day and think to myself “okay, tomorrow will be different, I will wake up and start afresh, try be positive”. But Kevin’s advice did not work and being honest I felt like I was slipping more and more. When you’re trying to hide your mood from the world you become good at lying, well for a few minutes anyways until the anxiety kicks back in and you can’t hold a fake smile any longer. My once a week visits with Kevin were not doing me any good. I had to muster too much energy to get out of bed on my day off from work to shower, shave and to travel the 15 minutes by bus. Also I felt the 12dollar bus fare could be better spent on something that would make me feel better than Kevin’s words, a bottle of wine perhaps would give me more solace. After lying consecutively two weeks in a row to Kevin by saying “yes I feel better, yes I’ve been socialising more, yes I’ve been sleeping good, yes work is less stressful” I was deemed as ‘fine’ and released from the Mental Health Clinic.
* When you become a patient of the mental health clinic you sign yourself into their care, it’s then their decision when to release you from their care and deem you fit to return to society.
About two months later I was back seeing Kevin, this time I was manic so now Kevin and his team of experts confirmed my original beliefs and decided that yes indeed I was bipolar. Being assigned a psychiatrist I was put on a drug called Seroquel. Seroquel is an antipsychotic that helps treat acute mania by working on the brain to slow down ones thoughts. When the manic mind is racing getting the brain rested is key to helping it get back to functioning normally. My mania subsided, I was sleeping again, I was able to function slightly better at work.
About four weeks after starting on Seroquel I was back home in Ireland on holidays. I stopped taking my medication. Being honest I wasn’t given any indication on how long to take them for and no one mentioned anything about follow up care when I returned to New Zealand. So I stopped. I stopped because I knew that prior to my departure from NZ I was still manic, the Seroquel was just masking it, so to speak. But once I got back to Ireland my mania was gone so why keep taking the medication? Not sure if it was the change in environment or the jet lag which helped me down off my high but I knew I was no longer manic.
About six months after returning to NZ from my trip home I was feeling good. It was around this time I started smoking again. Initially I was worried, as I always smoke when I’m manic, but I told myself I was fine that I would kick the habit again after a pack or two. Not long after smoking again, I found myself on a shopping spree spending well above a weeks wage within a couple of hours on designer brands. It was not like me to do so, but I was not manic and I justified every dollar of my expenditure to myself. Yes unusual for me to spend so much but I NEEDED all these items!? It was not long after my shopping spree that I found myself in the kitchen one night making tea because I was unable to sleep. To pass sometime I decided to clean the fridge however I abruptly stopped not long after I begun. I had a flashback to two previous manic episodes where I had been up at all hours of the morning cleaning fridges cos I could not sleep. It was a bad omen. I was alarmed but quickly returned to bed and managed to get some sleep. ‘Phew’, I thought the next morning, I’m not manic but niggling underneath was the suspicion than I could be on the verge of becoming manic once again.
St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, like in many parts of the world, are a big affair in Queenstown. No street parade however a parade of people flock to the many local watering holes. The town is painted green for the day by the slew of backpackers from all around the globe, not just Ireland, that live here. Of course I partook in the festivities and many a whiskey was consumed. Feeling fragile and hungover the next day, marijuana was purchased to ease the pain. Two drags of a joint propelled me into manic mode instantly with racing thoughts possessing my mind. I thought the warning signs had been there for a week or two, that I could have been on the verge of another manic episode. I was and marijuana sent me flying over the edge with insanity being the great big pool I splashed right into.
After not sleeping that night, cleaning the house, redecorating the house, weeding the whole garden, I made an appointment to see my GP next day and to advise about going back on Seroquel. I was gonna nip this in the bud straight away.
But the medication did not work the first day and I went another night without sleep. On the doctors advice the medication was increased a little but yet another sleepless night followed. I’m not sure at what point I went from thinking I was in control of my mania to being controlled by it, but after about a week I was completely dominated by manic madness.
When manic I like to be constantly stimulated. I want to see new sights and be visually aroused as my immediate surroundings become a little static. So I like to travel. This coupled with increased worry and concern from friends means jumping on a plane, taking off, and getting away from it all becomes very desirable. One night, that was yet again sleepless, I decided to go to the airport. I wasn’t even wearing a jumper and had no luggage but I boarded a flight for Auckland. The next night I was on a flight bound for Melbourne.
After about three days in Melbourne my health was causing my brother and some close friends a lot of worry. It was decided that I needed hospital treatment, and so I was sectioned to The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne.
My admission to hospital was not assisted by men wearing white coats and as a result I feel a little cheated that I cannot attribute this cliched image to my own experience. No, two doctors wearing plain clothes, accompanied by two uniformed police were the original team that entered the apartment I was stationed in on the afternoon I was ‘taken’. After agreeing with the doctors I was manic and admitting I knew I needed help they dismissed the police men and I was driven to hospital by the two doctors, with my brother and a friend on either side of me in the back seat. In my naivety I just thought I was going to a regular ward of a regular hospital but upon entrance to the Psychiatric Ward of The Alfred things were a lot more different than I imagined they would be. The High Dependancy Unit was like a mini prison with bars on all the windows and electronic activated doors in and out. I didn’t know it was gonna be like this and NO SMOKING!!?? but my manic self NEEDS cigarettes. I did NOT sign up for this but then again I wasn’t the one signing myself in. Even though I was fully compliant in going to the hospital, I very quickly changed my attitude in agreeing to get help once I got there.
My memory of my first two weeks of hospital are a little blurry to say the least, maybe that’s a good thing. Not taking my meds properly in the first two days by ’tonguing’ them and hiding them in my room coupled with escaping from hospital on the third day meant that after being captured and readmitted I was given a high dose of sedatives, in liquid form. I was also started on a course of mood stablising drug Lithium. All the drugs make those first two weeks seem like only two days in length. I remember visitations from my brother and friends but I can’t recall every detail and some visits from friends I don’t remember at all. I remember waking up each morning though with a racing mind, thinking ‘I’m still manic’. But one morning I woke up and those racing thoughts had stopped. Not wanting to proclaim my return to ‘normality’ I refrained from telling the nurses. I felt if I claimed I was cured then they may not believe me. That evening my doctor informed me I would be moved to the lower dependency ward the day after. Smoking permitted outside, two TV lounges, internet access and an art room. I was delighted. I really think it highlights how expert the team of nurses and doctors were at The Alfred, as without me saying anything they could tell I was no longer manic. Probably my demeanour and lack of erratic behaviour, or statements, meant they knew I was on the mend.
The lower dependency ward was a much more colourful and warmer place. My brother and friends could easily visit the ward and we could sit and relax amongst other patients. I became quite friendly with a lot of patients, a lot of interesting stories floating around a psychiatric ward as you can probably imagine, but the patients I gravitated towards the most were the four other male bipolar patients. Their stories had so many similarities to mine that I felt I could really relate to them. No doctor or nurse I had spoken with, who treated me, was bipolar. Sure they had passed exams and treated lots of patients to make them a qualified professional but for me I was really interested in hearing the stories of others who had real insight into what it was like to actually be bipolar. For me, these are the people I got the most strength from. It comforted me to know I wasn’t alone in this bipolar world after all.
After a total of three weeks at The Alfred I was released from their care. Armed with my Lithium I was ready to take on the real world again, well gradually. Follow up care for two weeks consisted of different nurses, or doctors, visiting me every night before bedtime to supervise me taking my medication. This is especially beneficial and important for patients who have just had their first manic episode, as the desire to not take prescribed pills and become ‘up’ again is much greater. For me, I had no problem taking my medication. As much I have loved some of my experiences while manic I know now, after four manic episodes, that there can be a lot of pieces to pick up after a prolonged period of mania, a lot of apologies to make after irritable outburst and a lot of debts to pay off. So I have religiously taken my medication for the last two years which thankfully has meant I’ve not experienced any major UP’s or DOWN’s. Let it be known, I have not been magically cured. I am, and always will be, bipolar however medication now keeps me on a level playing field with the rest of society and hopefully from day to day, season to season, year to year it will remain that way.
Actor, comedian, writer Spike Milligan described being bipolar as “a gift and a curse at the same time. You get the pain much worse than anybody else but you see a sunrise much more beautiful than anyone else”. Despite being flung by depression into a dark and dreary box, on more than one occasion, mania has propelled me to colourful plateaus where any goal seems attainable – there are no boundaries, everything IS possible. So it’s with a smile I remember the many vivid sunrises I’ve seen, sunrises so bright they, thankfully, made any previous pain experienced almost pale away in insignificance.
I’m going to refrain from giving direct advice to anyone who may currently be manic as I know from my own experiences there is no way that anyone experiencing mania right now would have the attention span to read this whole article, probably not even the first two paragraphs.
If you are reading this however and suspect that a family member or a loved one is in the grips of a manic episode my advice is to monitor the situation. If they are experiencing their first manic episode they will not listen to you if you tell them they need help. They are feeling so on top of the world right now that they will become irritable and argumentative if you tell them what they are experiencing could be signs of an illness. Try to gain their trust by not revealing your concerns. If they trust you they will let you into their manic world, tell you their manic plans and maybe even try invite you along for the ride. Then at least you will be close enough to monitor their state and call for professional help should they become a danger to themselves or others or should you suspect that their manic state is entering a full psychotic episode. When they come crashing out of that high they will need your support even more as post-mania reality is a reality of uncertainty and confusion. Picking up the pieces is done by swallowing some pride and admitting that maybe everyone was right in voicing their concerns in the first place. Have compassion.
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said “that which does not kill us makes us stronger”. Unfortunately 15-20% of bipolar sufferers do NOT get stronger. Sadly, suicide can be a bi product of being bipolar. With education we must make people aware that, dark thoughts and suicidal desires are symptoms of depression and when it gets to this stage one needs HELP, not a razor or a length of rope. Luckily for me a supportive and sympathetic friendship group, coupled with the knowing that acting upon any such dark thoughts would destroy my family, made me solider on through my first dark war despite not knowing how long the battle would last or if I would be the one flying the flag of victory at the end. My second depressive episode, despite being fought in the southern hemisphere far from home, meant that despite being riddled with dark thoughts yet again, I was able to reassure myself by saying “I got through this before so I’ll get through this again”. I’ve been descried as stubborn in the past so maybe this is not such a bad character trait to have after all.
If you’re reading this and you think you may have experienced a manic or depressed episode in the past then please get some help. It is only us that know our own mind so if you truly feel something is not right then go see a GP. Do not leave the GP’s office without getting a referral to a psychiatrist. Don’t let a GP tell you that you have nothing to worry about and leave thinking you’ve done enough. Do not make the mistake I made in 2004. But also do your research and get a referral to a good psychiatrist. When I was treated in The Alfred in Melbourne all the doctors I met were baffled by the fact I had previously been diagnosed bipolar but was not started on a mood stabilising drug. Getting the right care will hopefully change your life in the short term and help save it in the long term.
For anyone wanting to learn more about bipolar disorder I highly recommend watching The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive, the award winning BBC documentary by Stephen Fry. It’s a great starting point. Stephen explores is own bipolarity and meets others, young and old, famous and unknown, suffering with bipolar in various forms.
Help information
If you need help please talk to friends, family, a GP, therapist or one of the free confidential helpline services. For a full list of national mental health services see yourmentalhealth.ie.
- Samaritans on their free confidential 24/7 helpline on 116-123, by emailing jo@samaritans.ie
- Pieta House National Suicide Helpline 1800 247 247 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement) or text HELP to 51444 (standard message rates apply)
- Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
If living in Ireland you can find accredited therapists in your area here:
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