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Tag: living with bipolar disorder

  • I’d Rather Be Bipolar

    I’d Rather Be Bipolar

    Mental disorders are common on my mother’s side of the family—schizophrenia, panic, anxiety, and substance use disorders. No one on my father’s side was officially diagnosed, but there was certainly alcoholism and likely depression. I’ve got the DNA to support my bipolar disorder diagnosis.

    In my own family, we deal with anxiety and depression, as well as a host of other conditions: ADHD, OCD, and PTSD. Some are surely genetic; others stem from childhood trauma.

    Knowing what I do, I’d rather be bipolar.

    Schizophrenia brings voices, delusions, and hallucinations into your life.

    Bipolar disorder can also bring delusions and episodes of invincibility—but I’ve never been convinced I was being followed by demons whispering abusive, demeaning comments to me.

    I’ve panicked—real panic—not the kind you feel when you think you left your phone in the Meijer parking lot. But I’ve never been unable to attend school because I forgot the rings I planned to wear that day.

    I’ve seen a student assign colors to subjects, requiring a perfectly matched set of folders, notebooks, and highlighters for each—thanks to OCD. Of course, one subject can’t possibly borrow supplies from another.

    I’ve seen ADHD make reading nearly impossible.

    I’ve also been deeply depressed. In fact, I was initially diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. That’s a common misdiagnosis for those of us with bipolar disorder. After all, mania and hypomania can feel good. Who would want that to end? But it does. Depression always follows—and that’s when we seek help. If you can ride it out, the depression eventually lifts. Regular depression often doesn’t.

    So yes, I’d rather be bipolar.

    Recently, I commented on a YouTube short about how to respond to people who make sarcastic remarks. Frankly, I thought the expert advice was off target—suggestions like, “Would you like to repeat that?” or “How would you like me to respond to that?” Talk about snark!

    I replied that I have bipolar disorder and often make snide remarks myself. Another commenter responded by saying she felt sorry for me, that bipolar disorder is terrible.

    I’m sure she meant well.

    But there are worse things in life than being bipolar.

    What’s your experience with mental health labels or misdiagnoses? Whether you’re living it, supporting someone, or simply curious—I’d love to know how mental health challenges affect you. Leave a comment below or share this with someone who might need it. And if this post resonated with you, consider subscribing for more personal reflections on mental health and society.

  • A Wild Ride Through a Bipolar Mind

    A Wild Ride Through a Bipolar Mind

    I’m lying in bed, having just woken from a nap. It’s afternoon, and I have a modestly expansive view of the outdoors through the sliding glass door to the balcony. That sounds grand but trust me—it owes more to the trailer park than Gosford Park.

    The sky is early-spring blue, and a typical Midwestern breeze blows—stronger than you’d like, but warm enough that you’ll take it. Fluffy white clouds drift by, placid and classic.

    I look equally placid. My brain, however, is not. I am bipolar; my brain knows only two speeds—light and sleep. Now, it’s spinning almost out of control, leaping from one thought to the next.

    Instead of pondering the shapes of the clouds—though one looked distinctly like a fat, ugly swan—I was thinking about adoption. Specifically, about how it’s often presented as a simple solution for building a family when all else fails.

    I’ve often heard, “Don’t worry. You can adopt,” as if adopting is like applying to college. “Don’t worry. If you don’t get into Harvard, you can always go to the College of DuPage.” I’ve adopted. It’s more like, “Don’t worry. If you don’t get into Harvard, you can just go to Yale.”

    My mind hopped from adoption to the increase in infants born in the United States due to abortion bans. That led directly to Donald Trump’s treatment of Volodymyr Zelensky. This makes sense if you make the mental leaps typical of a bipolar mind. Less so if you’re neurotypical.

    Back to Trump, Vance, and Zelensky. It was disgusting to watch the Dracula of U.S. presidents and his sidekick, J.D. Renfield, belittle the leader of another country—an ally. I wanted to be a fly on the wall when Putin reveals what he really thinks of Trump.

    From Trump, I jumped to free speech. Probably not too surprising a leap. Paranoia then entered the picture, and I feared that writing bad things about the Vindictive Commander-in-Chief would get me arrested and tossed in jail with the liberal elite.

    Telling myself that wasn’t very likely—as I’m not very elite—I dove deeper into free speech. “Fuck the Draft” zipped to an anti-gun shirt my son once wore to school. Though his teachers appreciated the sentiment, he was “dress-coded” nonetheless. The shirt showed a child surrounded by crayons and a gun. “Nine out of ten children prefer crayons to guns,” it said. Those children are probably the spawn of the liberal elite.

    I pulled myself out of my head and back to the present as a woman passed by, pushing a stroller. I checked the time and wondered what state I had left the kitchen in. I told myself I should have gotten up a while ago.

    Then I did. I had to pee.

  • This is what it’s like

    I often feel  people who know me don’t really understand what it’s like to have bipolar disorder. Sometimes I don’t even understand, but I’m starting to work that out.

    Here is a post from another blogger with bipolar disorder that very accurately describes one aspect of living with bipolar disorder. I hope you’ll read it, especially if you are close to me or are close to someone who is bipolar.

    http://manicmuses.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/the-energy-post/

  • Just another (not) Manic Monday

    Baby-Horse-Running-Wallpaper-240x180I want my mania back.

    Now, if you’re normal, you probably can’t understand why someone with Bipolar Disorder would even contemplate wanting a ride to the top of the roller coaster, particularly when what’s waiting on the other side of the climb is a drop into depression.

    Even if you’re Bipolar, you might not understand remembering mania wistfully. Getting deeply in debt, driving drunk or high, having sex with strangers…why would anyone want to live that way? Certainly, I’m in no hurry to return to my wicked, pre-medicated ways, but the life of lethargy I’ve been living lately has seriously outworn its welcome.

    A little mania and my house wouldn’t look like, well, like someone was too depressed to straighten. The cleaning ladies are scheduled to come tomorrow, but even that isn’t uplifting. Without straightening, it won’t even look like they came except for the telltale trails of a vacuum cleaner. Add in the fact that we can’t afford the mostly ineffectual crew but don’t have the heart to fire the now 70-year old woman who has been cleaning our home since my son was two and who just lost her retirement savings in a series of ill-advised real estate transactions, and my morose mood is more understandable.

    A little mania and I wouldn’t be feeling like a parental failure because my son—who carries my genetic code—barely scraped together the four Cs and an A on his recent report card while my daughter—adopted from China—came home with all As . . .ok, one B+. Sure, my son also had an A in PE, but PE doesn’t count. I know, I know . . .a class focused on activity suits his ADHD brain, PE is an important class in a society full of couch potatoes , an A is an A. Yada, yada, yada. And I know that lots of kids get Cs, even lots of kids we know and lots of kids we know who got into colleges they wanted to go to. Cs aren’t Fs, but that’s the problem. To me, Cs are just Fs with a silent F. Unkind and unfair, I know, and further evidence that I richly deserve the depression I’m in.

    A little mania and my creative well wouldn’t have run dry. I’d have posted witty commentary on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, how I came to love the running skirt, watching my husband writhe in pain. Well, maybe that last one wouldn’t have been witty. I might even have finally figured out how to get my son’s obscene sense of humor featured in a blog with a PG13 rating.

    Just a little mania, that’s all I’m looking for here. Of course, there’s no such thing as a little mania. Oh, at first I think there could be, that I can keep the momentum from building out of control. But it always escalates so that what started as a trot through the park turns into a wild gallop and a crashing fall.

    So, I took my meds. I let the house be cluttered beyond recognition. I sat my ass down at the computer and I wrote, even though writing was the last thing I thought I could do, and pulled these 600 plus words out of some secret place even I didn’t know existed. Pretty soon, I’ll put on my running gear—it might even be warm enough for a skirt today—then get my ass off the chair and onto the trail. I’ll ignore that the unseasonably warm weather is most likely caused by global climate change which will lead to the early demise of our planet. At least, I’ll try.

    I’m sure all of that will help. But I’ll still miss my mania.

  • Happy Birthday, Dear Mom

    Happy Birthday, Dear Mom

    Yesterday was World Mental Health Day. No, not a day when everyone on earth spends the day trying to act calm, stable and happy, but a day devoted to encouraging people to discuss mental health issues. This year’s topic was depression. Not to belittle the global crisis of depression, but I guess all the other mental disorders got to take a break.

    Most of you know that I am bipolar and may wonder why I didn’t write about what it’s like to be bipolar on World Mental Health Day. According to the National Alliance for Mental Illness, I’ve got all week. Mental Health Awareness Week in the United States runs from October 7th through the 13th. I am American and I’m writing this on the 11th, so I figure I’m covered. Even if I’m not, National Mental Health Month is in May. Of course, a mental health month puts a lot of pressure on us; I’m not sure I can keep my mania and depression from popping up for an entire month even with meds.

    I didn’t write about mental health—mine or anyone else’s—because yesterday was my mother’s birthday. When she was alive, I hosted a beef-centered dinner at my house. I did this because I loved my mother, but also because I spent years listening to her complain that no one ever did anything for her birthday and she was not going to plan her own party. And she loved beef.

    Yesterday, we had fried chicken for dinner. That is not as contrary as it sounds. My mother was from the South and, while she made really good fried chicken herself, she also loved Popeye’s. My kids don’t really like beef—I think my daughter may become a vegetarian soon—but they like Popeye’s.  So, fried chicken for dinner.

    I think my mother would have approved, but there were many things in my life that she didn’t really like a whole lot.

    My hair? Not curly enough. Never mind that it is stick straight, fine as frog fur and most likely inherited from her. When my hair was permed, my mother loved it.

    My housekeeping? Notice “housekeeping” and “Ha!” both start with an H. But when Mom was scheduled to visit, I became a dervish, scrubbing counters with hot water, vacuuming lampshades, polishing bathroom fixtures, arranging flowers. A friend once pointed out that it wasn’t like Queen Elizabeth was going to pop in to use my powder room. If only, I thought, if only!

    My mouth? Far too many F-bombs came out of it to please my Mom. Actually, any F-bomb was unacceptable. According to her, I swear like a longshoreman. I doubt she ever met one; I’m not convinced she even knew what they did but she was convinced that I talked like one.

    My mother didn’t swear . . .much. I think I heard her use the S-word twice. The most memorable instance was during a sewing session when she repeatedly tried to do a tricky seam. Finally, she got it right only to realize she’d sewed the thing to the shirt she was wearing.

    There were things my mother approved of, though.

    My intelligence, for one. When Geraldine Ferraro ran with Walter Mondale, my grandmother was appalled. How, in her mind, could a woman be tolerated one heartbeat away from the presidency? My mother was incensed. “I think a woman would be a wonderful president. Janice would be a wonderful president!” I might be, but there are far too many skeletons in my closet. Hell, my skeletons are out on the front lawn doing the Macarena.

    My cooking. My mother loved the beef-centered dishes I made, but she loved the Williamsburg Orange cake I made every year even more. She liked my snacks, too. When my sister and I still lived at home, we’d watch late night movies with Mom, everything from Frankenstein to It Happened One Night. During some commercial break, I’d want a snack. I’d offer one to my mother on my way to the kitchen. “No, thank you” was invariably her response. On my return, she’d take a look at my snack and say, “Oh, that looks good!” an unspoken yet undeniable request for said snack.

    My spirit. I’m honest—blunt, some would say—and pretty funny. If something strikes me as humorous, I’ll say it even if it’s highly inappropriate. My mother loved this about me. She loved it so much that she worried the meds I needed to stay alive would dampen it. They never did.

    My mother died a slow, painful, ugly death of COPD. But while her disease chipped away at her freedom and health, she adapted and kept going. When breathing became difficult at night, she used an oxygen concentrator while she slept. When climbing the stairs at her home became difficult, she got a stair lift. When she couldn’t walk around the mall, she got oxygen in a bottle and a wheeled cart to drag it around behind her. When even that became difficult, she learned how to surf the ‘Net to visit her favorite stores.

    My mother even found a reason to like Depends. Getting to the bathroom from the couch before you’ve got to go is something you likely take for granted. But when you can’t breathe, there’s no guarantee you’ll get there in time. “These Depends are great!” my mother told me. “I never have to worry if I’ll get to the potty in time.”

    We joked that Mom was the Energizer Bunny; she kept going and going. Even in the end, she didn’t give up. It was left to us to turn off the machines keeping her alive.

    I don’t need a particular day to make me aware of mental health issues; I live with them everyday. So, while yesterday may have been a mental health day for the rest of the world, I spent it with memories of my mom.

  • Now, THIS is crazy!

    Image from Zazzle.com

    It’s Father’s Day. I’m sitting with my Dad on the patio.

    “How are you, Dad?” I ask.

    “Not very good,” he says, looking down at his hands. I’ve never seen him this sad.

    “Your mother rejected me,” he says and tells me, through tears, that my mother left him.

    I start to cry, not knowing which is worse, telling my father that my mother died nearly four years ago or letting him believe she’s still alive and left him.

    “Dad,” I say, as gently as I can, “Mom’s dead. She died almost four years ago. She would never leave you.” He looks up, confused. He’s confused nearly all the time now.

    “You took such good care of her, do you remember that?” He’s trying. “She had emphysema and you took such good care of her. She was just too sick. We had to let her go, Dad.” I wonder if he remembers making the decision ending life support. He believes me. He believes and he’s sad, but he’s calmer.

    I visit my dad every week these days, but I never know where it’ll be. Last week, it was Denver. He was waiting at his hotel, while my mother and grandmother shopped for houses. They’d come to Denver for a convention, something they did a lot. Traveling to conventions, that is, not traveling to Denver. He seemed anxious about buying yet another house, but he’d never really been able to say “No” to my mother. I told him I knew the feeling.

    Another visit saw us in Hong Kong, having dinner with a group of executives my dad clearly didn’t like because they’d kidnapped me. Yet another visit saw us in Rochester at a bicycle factory. There was our visit in an undisclosed location in Romania, where my dad told me he was forced to sit on a minaret to escape the men trying to capture him in Saudi Arabia. Recently, my sister married the Shah of Iraq, so we have an Arabian theme going lately.

    My dad’s delusions are nothing compared to the other residents. There’s the woman who gathers all of the baby dolls and stuffed animals and arrays them on a table. She dresses them all and sets them down to sleep then complains about how she has so many babies to care for. There’s the 105-year old woman who was once a singer. She still tries to sing but it comes out as screeching wails. There’s the woman who sits quietly and, when she catches your eye doesn’t say “Hello,” but “I’m afraid.” “Afraid of what?” I asked. “Of dying,” she replied.

    It’s hard not to make the leap to The Snake Pit or One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest or whatever look-inside-the-loony-bin movie was popular in your particular generation. This, after all, is what crazy people are and do.

    But I know better. My father and his housemates aren’t nuts. They have a terrible disease that literally eats at their brains, destroying the web that connects a lifetime of accumulated memory and leaving them with a stew of thought they continually try to make sense of.

    No. They are not crazy; I am. At least, that’s what my society says. I have bipolar disorder; I am bipolar. I never know which description to use, so I use both. But no matter how I reveal my condition, I get a universal reaction, spoken or no. “That chick is crazy.” Someone even told me, “Wow. You’d never know to look at you!”

    I suppose that’s a compliment; the self-harming, judgmental thoughts, over-spending and insomnia don’t show on my face. Of course, the medication helps. More likely, it’s an indication of how crazy Americans are about mental illness.

    I happen to come from a family of crazies. Alcoholism, schizophrenia, drug abuse were things I learned about early. None of the crazies looked crazy. Well, ok, the schizophrenic lived in another state, so I didn’t see him very often and can’t really say he never looked crazy. Still, “you’d never know to look” at any of them that they lived with demons.

    So, I don’t usually tell people I’m bipolar, though I’ve been doing it more often lately. Maybe it was the “you don’t look” it comment; maybe it’s my own growing acceptance. I’ve been more active in the blogosphere lately and the anonymity it affords makes it easier for crazies to hang out and connect with each other.

    In America, you can pretty much tell who’s a flag-waving conservative by, well, the flags waving on their houses. I decided, some time ago, to take back the flag. This is my country, too, I thought, and hung the flag on our porch.

    So, I’m taking back crazy. I’m a mom, a writer and a teacher. I have two great kids and the obligatory pets that go along with living in one of America’s most famous suburbs. I’m happily married.

    This is what crazy looks like, people.