Living Bipolar (11 page)

I was 18 at the time and one night my boyfriend and I went to see Bruce Springsteen in New York City. I had been up for three days. We were at a friend’s house and my boyfriend and I got into a physical fight over my drug use. My boyfriend said if I got off the drugs our relationship would be a lot better and he wouldn’t be so abusive. And this motivated me to going into going to an institution for the second time. I had a breakdown and I called my mom for help, where I disclosed to her that I had a problem with the prescription drugs.

The institution I went to for the second time was an incredible hospital. I learned a lot and it was phenomenal. I was put on the proper medication and I left the hospital very stable. I was there for about 45 days and I lived in the dual diagnosis house. At the time I didn't think I had a problem being Bipolar, rather I thought if I got off the drugs I would be fine. It was difficult but it was a lot better experience than what I experienced the first time. My first experience in the hospital was horrible, but this place was like a resort. At this point I was anorexic and I was a cutter and I really didn't have any control over myself.

After I left I was clean and sober for about six months and I was still with my boyfriend. My boyfriend was Bipolar too but he was unmedicated. I was really happy and everything had been going really well, but I had not been able to write and this was a really big deal for me. Writing was such a big part of who I was. I thought I was going to be the next Sylvia Plath and I really believed this. I believed that I was a literary genius at my 18-year-old naïve self. Then, one night I got really upset and my boyfriend freaked out on me and he tried to kill me. He broke my nose and my cheekbone and knocked out some teeth.

After this the doctors put me on opiates and that's when I realized I didn't have to feel anymore. That's when my love of opiates began at the age of 19. A month or two later I was up for a week straight and I started seeing things. I was convinced my house was haunted and I was seeing ghosts and I would talk to them. This is really the only psychotic break I've ever had, and it wasn’t really from a lack of sleep, because it started three days before insomnia took over and it just got worse and worse and worse. When I get manic I don't eat, I don’t sleep, and I forget about all those necessities for life. I started seeing ghosts and talking to them, and then I decided to call my psychiatrist and she institutionalized me for the third time.

Gender

The overall incidence of Bipolar disorder is approximately gender neutral. However, epidemiological studies indicate that Bipolar II disorder, a condition in which depressive episodes predominate, may be somewhat more common in women.

-Keck and Suppes 2005: 2-3

This time they focused more on the Bipolar and less on the drugs. I did a lot of therapy and I started to do dialectical behavior therapy. Dialectical behavior is more of a non-medicated approach. After I got out of the institution this time though, I felt really hopeless.
I thought okay the drugs I can get rid of but the Bipolar illness I can’t.
So what's the point!!! I was put in a partial hospitalization program for two months and I was using the whole time. I was refusing to take my medication, and the people there told me I was going to die if I didn’t take the medication. And my attitude to this was very negative.

Even to this day I romanticize my Bipolar illness.
I think insanity is beautiful.
All of my heroes have some type of mental illness or addiction. I knew at a young age I wanted to do drugs and I knew at a young age I wanted to be crazy. I wanted to be an artist, and I wanted to be different, and because of the Bipolar illness I was different. When I'm in a manic state you can't tell me anything. I used to justify that I'm okay, because I was looking up to people who had mental problems and I thought they were brilliant.
But the fact is the people I looked up to were just insane
. I was like, “Oh Sylvia Plath put her head in the oven and killed herself, that's so beautiful! And
I didn't want to be different; I wanted to be something special.
Therefore, I convinced myself that I was something very special.

Famous people who have a mental illness led me to believing that there is a reason for me being Bipolar.
I needed a reason to have this illness and that was the main thing
. That's why I paint and that's why I write. Because I have a mental illness, I believe I'm going to be better at it as a result. That's a common misconception with people who have a mental illness, that because their crazy with a mental illness that they are a genius. And truthfully we do think different from ordinary people. There is something beautiful about being Bipolar, but I take it to great extremes. Romanticizing the Bipolar illness drives my friend’s nuts today. But I do it regardless. Sometimes I love being Bipolar, because I think differently from other normal people. That's what I love -- that my mind is not the same as everyone else.

My mind is different because of the extremes in mood that I experience.
I experience pain, and I experience happiness to such a level that most people will never experience in their entire life
.
When I get manic I feel it -- I feel this physical sensation
. It's like all this energy is in my chest and that it's ready to just burst like a supernova.
I can do anything, and I can be anyone, and I think I'm the most beautiful, the most brilliant girl in the room and everyone is looking at me and it's this amazing feeling, it's like high
. It is a high. You do eventually get that low in the crash which is similar to if you're coming off drugs. But during the time when you're high you just don't see it though, and the world is just an amazing, beautiful place full of possibilities that you can take advantage of.

Lately, I've been going through a manic state and for instance last night I went out to a club. People were taking my picture last night and I decided I was going to be the next “It Girl.” I believed I can be the next “It Girl,” and as a result, I can break into any scene and that I can do whatever I want, and I'm going to take the world by storm. I believe I'm meant to be better than everyone else.

When I’m manic I use people and I believe everyone on this earth is put there to serve me. I’m manipulative, I’m mean, and I think I'm better than you, and really it's a great feeling.
It's like this evil, great feeling, that you are better than.
In contrast, when I'm depressed I feel as though I’m the shittiest, ugliest, most horrible person in the world. My diagnosis is hypomanic; therefore, I get depressed more and really don’t experience much psychosis. With my illness I'm a lot more energetic than I am depressed.

Hypomania

Mood in hypomania is usually ebullient, self-confident, and exalted, but with an irritable underpinning. Most clinical investigators emphasize the elevated, volatile, and fluctuating nature of hypomanic mood. Campbell (1953 describes, on the one hand, the euphoric aspect of mood:

Associated with the euphoria there is a genuine feeling of well-being, mentally and physically, a feeling of happiness and exhilaration which transports the individual into a new world of unlimited ideas and possibilities… When a 19-year-old manic was advised that he was indeed ill, he replied, “if I’m ill, this is the most wonderful illness I ever had.” (pp. 151-153)

Kraeplein (1921) described the euphoric aspect of hypomanic mood but also emphasized the quick changes, irritability, and rage that are integral to it:

Mood is predominantly exalted and cheerful, influenced by the feeling of heightened capacity for work. The patient is in imperturbable good temper, sure of success, “courageous,” feels happy and merry, not rarely overflowing so…

On the other hand there often exists a great emotional irritability. The patient is dissatisfied, intolerant, fault-finding…he becomes pretentious, positive, regardless, impertinent and ever rough, when he comes up against opposition to his wishes and inclinations; trifling external occasions may bring about extremely violent outburst of rage. (p. 56).

-(Goodwin and Jamison 1990:22-23)

When I'm depressed it's like
a black hole
. There's nothing that can get me out of it.
I just want to die, I want to sleep all day, I don't want to deal with anything, I think everyone's out to get me, I'm paranoid, I'm useless, and there's no point to living
. When I’m depressed I'm needy, and I need someone to love me because I hate myself so much. During these times I need love to overcome these tough feelings. I'll do anything to get out of it, and I think that's why I began cutting.

I'm supersensitive and I take everything the wrong way. I can be very self-absorbed. For example,
when I’m manic I think everyone loves me, and when I'm depressed I think everyone hates me and everything everyone does is to hurt me, and all everyone’s ever done in my life is hurt me.

Its two very different worlds that I cohabitate in, I'm bicoastal only in my brain.

What led up to me going into treatment the fourth, and final time, was I got addicted to heroin. When I was doing heroin I really didn’t have any Bipolar symptoms. I thought I had found my cure for the Bipolar illness because I simply did not have to feel anything. When I used to be on speed I wanted to do everything, but with heroine I didn't want to do anything. I just stayed in my house and I was afraid to leave. I say I wasn't feeling anything but really it was just a three-year depression I went through. I never allowed myself to get manic and if I did it was very rare. Then someone very close to me, my grandfather, passed away and I retreated into my old world. I just wanted to drop out.
Instead of wanting to do everything I didn't want to be a part of anything anymore.

Heroine simply brought me to my knees and I realized that I had to change because I wasn't living anymore. Drugs weren’t enjoyable anymore, and I stopped doing all the crazy and fun things I used to do when I first started doing drugs. I just existed and that's basically it. Eventually, I was arrested and forced into treatment. I was arrested for heroin. I was so desperate and apathetic that I shot up in front of an off-duty cop. This was just the stupidest thing to do
but I just didn't care anymore
. And when I was arrested I said “Thank God,” because I realized that it was going to be another week or so until I did die. I was at the end of the road and I figured I would just die crazy on drugs. I hit a spiritual and emotional bottom more than any depression ever brought me.

After the incident with the cop I went to a scary state run detox and I was freaking out there. Coming off the drugs my brain was messed up, and I was screaming and crying, all the time, having panic attacks and throwing up. Without the drugs I mentally could not deal with the world. I had stopped taking medications when I started doing heroine, but at the state run hospital I was put on a new medication that really stabilized me. They put me on Cymbalta. And I'm still on Cymbalta to this day. This is a miracle pill for me. I take 60 mg of it daily.

I've been on almost every medication and nothing has ever worked before like Cymbalta has. I know being stable on medication is a big reason why I’m sober today. I went to a 30 day rehab and I had this incredible therapist who had around 12 years clean and sober. He specialized in trauma and Bipolar and he really pushed me because he saw something in me. He decided it would be a good idea for to relocate to Florida for my recovery. He said I would die if I stayed in Connecticut. And I believe he was right.

I don’t have insurance and I get my medication anyway possible. My mom is a nurse and she gets free samples, and I also get medication from my friends. I don't even know how I’ve been able to live and get medications not having insurance. I just know I’ve scrapped by for the past a year and a half.

Getting clean and sober there have been numerous ups and downs.
The closest I've ever come to relapsing is when I'm not taking my medication
. One time when I got off medication I went through a deep depression and I was so close to relapsing. I know sobriety and taking medication goes hand-in-hand.
If I don't get my Bipolar illness straightened out, I will relapse, and if I do drugs, my Bipolar illness is going to get out of control.

Stopping Medication on Your Own

The main reason that stopping your medication is inadvisable is that it is associated with a high risk of reoccurrence with episodes. It also greatly increases the risk of suicide. In fact, not taking medications as prescribed is the greatest single factor contributing to when an how often bipolar have reoccurrences.

-Miklowitz 2002: 132

No matter what medication you're on, life is still going to show up
. Medication does not make me happy all the time and I think this is a big misconception among people. I think the medication just evens me out to where I'm not as depressed and the medication just brings me up a little
. I can still cry, I can still get upset, and I can still get manic
. My antidepressants, however, don't do anything for my mania. When I get pushed into mania I eventually collapse into a depression and it becomes a vicious cycle. Any little thing in life can just set me off.

The most important thing for me aside from taking medication is
being aware
.
Awareness for me is the most important thing, because the second I don't know that I’m manic or that I don't say I’m manic out loud that's when I get out of control.
If I don't tell you I'm depressed that's when I hide things. It's like when I'm using drugs, if I hide the way I'm feeling I can convince myself that what I’m thinking is normal, and this is right, and this is the correct way to think. I have to constantly be aware of being Bipolar, and realize that at any time, I can lose control. Therefore, awareness is very important for me.

I create a lot of wreckage in my wake when I’m manic. I use people, I'm selfish, and I’m not considerate of other people's feelings. It can be me, me, me, me, and me.
I have to be really careful not to hurt other people when I’m manic. I say things that are wrong, I do things that are wrong. So making sure I don't have too much wreckage in my mania is very important to me. I have to keep myself a little bit grounded.