#biopolar

On August 1, I started a new thing. 

No, not a new hobby or a new business idea.

It’s a little white pill.

I haven’t taken any regular medication my whole life. Not even birth control. My celiac is managed with a gluten-free diet, so there’s no need for anything there. And aside from the occasional aspirin for pain, and cough medicine during cold season, I’m pretty healthy. 

But new things in my life mean I need a little more help.

Over the past few years, I have noticed a regular and increasing pattern. I go through periods of extreme productivity, getting lots of work done for my business and my clients. I pick up new activities and start new art projects when I’m like this. I’m on top of the world and it feels AWESOME! 

Then...kind of suddenly...my mood will change. I get tired easily. I’m grumpy. It’s all I can do to sit on the couch, laptop in hand, desperately trying to accomplish my weekly tasks. Laundry and dirty dishes pile up. Work piles up. And my emotions go wild, swinging from perfectly normal to outbursts of uncontrollable rage or fits of tears.

I’ve been diagnosed with depression twice before. Both of those periods lasted months, long long months. I went to therapy and developed a lot of habits and tools to help when depression strikes again. And I’ve been using those tools but...they’ve not been working as well as they should. In my late mood dips, I just cope, waiting until things feel better.

The reams of notes throughout my journals confirm this. The pattern is regular. Repeating. And it’s been getting worse and more severe.

About a week ago, a psychiatrist confirmed what my PCP suspected the first of August when she prescribed this little white pill. My issues stem from Type Two, Rapid Cycle Bipolar. 

Type Two Bipolar is a milder form of what you normally think of when somebody says “bipolar”. I don’t swing into highs where I spend gobs of money and party. But I still feel incredibly invincible when I’m on my “high”. I tackle so much and get so much done! But the drop is intense, miserable, and dark. It’s a night and day difference.

Classic bipolar cycles once or twice a year, flip-flopping between these two extremes. Anything that cycles more than three times a year is considered “rapid cycling.” By my observations and notes, I’m going from high to low every six weeks or so. 

Talk about your roller coaster. It’s exhausting.

Hence this new, little white pill. It’s medication to help stabilize my mood, helping me land between these two extremes into something more sustainable and even. That’s the goal anyway. It’s going to take a bit before it starts working. And even then it will require monitoring to ensure it’s still effective.

So why do I bring this up? I believe we don’t talk about mental health as much as we should. People with mental illness and disorders like mine are dismissed, as if the idea was all in their heads. Well...it is in the head. But it’s not made up. It’s real. It affects life. Undealt with, it can destroy relationships, friends, family, communities. At the very worst, it can be deadly, particularly to the one with the issue. And this shouldn’t be.

I bring this up because it’s OKAY to have a mental illness or disorder. It’s not unusual or rare. Mental health professionals estimate that one in five Americans have a mental health issue or disorder. That’s more frequent than my celiac disease.

What’s not okay is the stigma that keeps people in the dark and in pain. This only keeps those with a mental disorder from the help and support we need to thrive. And it hurts us because such stigma says our problems and challenges are not real, not worth solving, and not worth comforting.

The only way we overcome this is being honest about the issues we face, coming around each other and saying, “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re not alone in this.”

So to anybody else with bipolar or any other mood disorder or illness: You are not alone. There are others like you. It’s okay to have a mental illness. There is help. There are ways to cope. You don’t have to fight alone. This life is worth living, even with it’s challenges and you can experience this in community.

Maybe is just me.