How my bipolar diagnosis has enabled greater self-understanding
I’ve always been up and down
When I was a child — perhaps six or seven — I made a list of opposites. It was something I was inexplicably fascinated and excited by. I continued adding to my list (‘hot’ and ‘cold’; ‘light’ and ‘dark’; ‘black’ and ‘white’) until I was told to stop. In a way, that list set the tone for the rest of my life. I’ve always been an ‘up and down’ sort of person. At the age of ten, I used to dance on my bed listening to music on my iPod in the dark, feeling euphoric. At a similar age, I also remember sitting in front of the mirror in my bedroom listening to a poignant song and watching myself cry.
I’ve always been highly sensitive. My emotions oscillate and I’m very attuned to my senses. I have always had a wild imagination and a lot of creative energy. I ride on the highs and it’s like I’m dancing in the sky to my own soundtrack; I strive to avoid the lows and that tends to manifest as anxiety.
Back in May, I experienced a high like no other — extreme mania, which landed me in hospital for two weeks — and was unable to avoid the low that inevitably followed. I was plunged into a horrific depression which rendered me unable to enjoy anything and sapped away at my personality. Time inched by each day until I could escape by going to sleep. I would wake up and the day would stretch out ahead of me like a flat, hazy desert, dull and empty. I felt like a shell of the woman I used to be. It was as though someone had taken the remote control and pressed pause on my life. I watched time pass, waiting and waiting for the fog to lift. Glimmers of happiness occasionally peeked through the thick fronds of fatigue and anhedonia, but they were sparse and gave me little hope.
Having received a string of job rejections, I was unemployed. I split with my partner of three years, and the heartbreak was debilitating. My life felt so bleak. I couldn’t picture a future for myself. I craved the life of travel and adventure and novel-writing and freelance online work that I shared with my partner before I became manic. The most painful part was that in the months prior to my manic episode, I was loving my life. I missed what I had so much.
I was visiting the UK (I lived abroad at the time) when my mania reared its bizarre head. I was dancing in the sky to my own soundtrack, buzzing with energy and flitting around the country seeing friends and family. I was on a meditation retreat in Wales with my best friend when my high reached its peak. Energy, euphoria and a barrage of ideas about spirituality and the nature of reality coursed through me. I was delusional, believing that I was enlightened and could help to enlighten the rest of humanity.
I enjoyed being manic. I was this über confident, excitable, funny version of myself and all I wanted to do was talk to people. At the hospital, I stayed awake at night to chat to the nurses, feeling wide awake despite being utterly sleep-deprived. I felt that I had so much to learn from different cultures and ethnicities, and the NHS is an absolute melting pot. I was incredibly curious and excited by the thoughts and ideas rushing through my mind at a hundred miles an hour. I had Google documents open on my laptop where I would frantically write down everything that I felt was important.
I received a diagnosis for bipolar type 1 a couple of months ago, and at first I didn’t pay much attention to it. I was so deep in my depressed hole that it didn’t seem possible that things would ever get better. Two weeks ago, I tried to take my own life. I subsequently lost my job as a teaching assistant in a secondary school after I took some time off and they deemed me to mentally fragile to continue working there.
I hit rock bottom. But it’s true that once you reach that point, the only way is up. I’m in a much better place, writing this article, at home with my family and applying for jobs. I have been reading up on bipolar and it all makes so much sense. I’ve been struggling to stay afloat in my own sea of emotions and battling with an addictive personality my whole life. Reassuringly, the condition is manageable through medication and healthy, sensible lifestyle choices. My future feels bright and I am ready to embark on the next chapter.