BI Polar Bear
20 years ago I was diagnosed as Bi-polar. During the ups and
downs I formulated a series of therapies to help manage my condition and lessen
its impact on those around me. 16 years ago I came off the full time meds. Other than one
major episode 4 years ago, and series of lower level blips, I have been mostly Meds free, and stable enough to live a
productive and fun life. Let me tell you how I did it and within my story there
may be methods and tips which might help you too.
The inspiration.
During my first big melt down I was watching a documentary
about a guy in Russia who had a car accident and a steel bar came through his
windscreen and severed half his brain. He
lost all of his mobility and most of his speech. Over the next couple of years
with help, he taught the opposite side of his brain to deal with all the
functions lost as a result of the accident. I figured that if he can do that when such a
large amount of brain was damaged, I can overcome the chemical imbalance in my
brain which was failing to cope with my emotional extremes and teach another
area of my brain to take on the strain.
My version of events.
Here is the story behind my condition an then I will
describe the processes I formulated to help keep it under control. I write it
in the knowledge that everyone’s experience and prognosis is individual to them
but there are certain commonalities which we can all identify with. I just hope my story helps you, if only to
make you feel less alone in your personal struggle.
Bi Polar or Manic depression is often, but not always
inherited. (There are medical journals that can better describe the condition
so look them up for more information.) My Dad was definitely Bi Polar. In his
day it was referred to as having ‘bad nerves.’ He was very intuitive and after
years of dealing with it he was pretty good at spotting its onset. When he knew
he was poorly he would book himself into the local psychiatric hospital and for
4-6 weeks they would dose him up and chemically squash him mentally. He would then come home and be fine, often for a few years a time.
I was 29 (in 1997), I had what appeared to be the perfect
life. I was married with our own home. We had 3 children and I had a regular
interesting job, a good social life and was very clean living and orderly. I was also a minister in the local church and
regularly gave the sermons.
By the time my first
big manic episode had done its worst, less than 2 years later I was living in a
bedsit, on the way to divorce and a regular at dance music festivals and night
clubs smoking drinking and living very large.
Once I was diagnosed, I immediately accepted the treatment,
mainly Lithium and Haloperidol and occasional Beta Blockers. The medical teams were brilliant but told me
that I would have to accept that, for the rest of my life, I would experience
regular hospital stays, and would never be able to live without the medication.
Quite early on I began to question my
psychiatric doctors and I asked for a medium to long term plan which would see
me eventually not needing the medication or the hospitals. (The meds have side effects which can be very unpleasant.) Right away they dismissed me. They said my ‘grand’ ideas were simply a
symptom of the mania and so were not valid, and as a result refused to discuss
or even consider a plan other than the ones they had learned from their
textbooks. I theorised that a
combination of psycho therapies and cognitive behavioural therapies could help
re programme another area of my brain to take over from the bits which were
malfunctioning.
The more I calmly
reasoned my point, the more I protested, the greater the resistance to my ideas
became from those treating me. One
psychiatric team wrote me off and transferred me to another department saying
that they could no longer help me. This was
despite the fact that I was fully adhering to their medical schedule and
following all their directions and advice. I turned up to all my counselling and
assessment sessions. I appreciated the
need and the power of the meds to at least stabilise my moods in order to buy
me time to put a better plan into action.
There was one beacon of hope. One person who would at least
listen to my idea. My local GP. I explained to him the basis of my theory and
he calmly told me that there was early work going on amongst pioneering
psychiatric teams which was going along a similar path. So why not give it a go, he said, but don’t
abandon your meds until you’re are absolutely sure. He emphasised the importance of the medical
treatments and support services that went along with them.
(What I found then and now is, in my case, when manic, if
presenting to a medical team for the first time (rather than my GP who knows
me,) I am often so clear and seemingly so very coherent that I have often been
told there is nothing wrong with me in their opinion. I then point out that I haven’t sought help in
many years and seeking help is never my first option and the fact that I am
sitting there looking for support should on its own, tell them there is
something wrong.
The other reaction I get is an almost complete
dismissal of everything I say as the listener / medical professional, is convinced
from the outset that, as a Bi polar I am delusional or unwell and therefore
cannot be trusted or believed. When I am
manic or spiralling towards a mania, I am at my most clear in terms of being
able to describe my condition, my feelings and my general condition. I think if I had gone in barefoot with a
Ramones t-shirt on, a spliff between my teeth and spent the whole session stood
on the table whilst insisting they call me Jesus… then they might have taken me
seriously! )
A point came just prior to diagnosis, when my manic episodes
were frequent and severe. I was drinking
regularly and closing myself away from my family. I was very moody and difficult to deal with. I was also making clear plans to end my life,
making notes as to the cleanest and most efficient way of ending things. I found a block of concrete I could just about
carry. I found some good rope and I was all set to walk out into the sea to the
point of no return where I would drop the concrete and let the waves consume me
(hoping I had got the tides right and I wouldn’t be left standing ankle deep in
the sea with a lump of concrete tied to my waist!). I parked the car by the beach all ready to go.
The only thing that stopped me taking
the final step was my mum and my sons. I
could not muster the levels of selfishness needed to create the hurt they would
carry for the rest of their lives. I
reasoned that I would rather live a whole life of internal torture than pass that
pain onto them. (I am not saying all suicide is selfish. I am speaking for my
own experience only.)
When I am high (manic) it was the greatest feeling
ever. Uber confident, very charming and
lots of physical and mental energy. My libido is off the charts. Physically and intellectually it feels like the
universe cannot contain me. During the fist big meltdown, I had decided to study Quantum Mechanics and my
fitness regime was based on the program used by people doing Triathlons at
Olympic distance. Everything was done on an obsessional scale. I could party, literally for days at a time without the use
of recreational drugs. I could write poetry and read complicated philosophy
with an ease I had never before experienced. I drove and lived very fast and
often endangered myself by my crazy antics and risk taking. Even though I appeared to be having the
time of my life, the exercise and the complicated study subjects were only a
means of satiating the pain I felt. I felt a pain and restlessness in my body
and there were huge Katherine wheels of energy spinning inside my head which
physically hurt at times and the exercise and study seemed to quiet them a little. At times, however, they also fed the mania and made it worse.
To those not close to me I was the life and soul of the
party and my energy was the envy of most. When manic on a high cycle, you feel
indestructible and able to achieve anything. The feeling is like a drug, it can
be very addictive. When you are up there, free from the usual responsibilities
of how to behave and live you often don’t want to ever come back down. (This is why
many with a similar condition don’t take their medication or refuse help. It’s
like being intellectually drunk on the finest drug rush you can ever imagine.)
When the subsequent swing happened and I spiralled into a
low I would find myself alone inside a screaming-head and a very dark world
full of paranoia, hate, mistrust and demons from past present and future that
did the fire dance inside my psyche. I really wanted to die. I wanted to get off the
roundabout for a moment. All I wanted was a little peace and quiet and death
seemed the only route to finding that. You spend a lot of time crying and feel
very alone. The paranoia isolates you from most support and everything seems quite hopeless.
When high on a mania, it would be usual for me to seek brand
new relationships both sexual and social, with people outside my current
circles. I later realised that the reason I did this was probably because of my
paranoia and mistrust of those around me when I was not well. People close to me
would question my behaviour, question my decisions and stand up to my wrong
doing, (no one likes that at the best of times.) I also knew that I was causing a strain on them, so by taking my self
away from them, the burden, i thought, would be lessened. The other great advantage to this
strategy was that amongst strangers I could be whoever I wanted to be and show
them only the good sides of who I was, only what I wanted them to see. They
didn’t judge me and they didn’t criticise me in the same way that those close
to me did. I could then go home and and hide, venting my suffering, the negative sides of my
feelings, in private.
The biggest thing the illness takes from you, other than
family friends and livelihood, is your confidence. You lose basic trust in your
own faculties, the fundamental ability to know what is right and what is wrong suddenly deserts you. Most people go their whole life trusting their own brain
and their own judgement, getting it wrong sometimes, making mistakes and
leaning and adapting to those experiences. When I am in the middle of a manic
episode, my brain tells me all sorts of things which are not true, it deceives
me, tricks me and my whole perspective, objectives and outlook are completely
skewed (and I have no idea anything is wrong when in the midst of it.) Everyone around me knows, strangers can sometimes sense there’s an issue, but
in my head I am completely in control and on top. Everyone else is wrong.
A way of illustrating
this is a phenomenon called liquefaction. During an earthquake the solid
trusted ground beneath your feet can literally liquefy. Roads, fields and whole
villages can disappear in an instant. The very ground you stand upon, the most
trusted part of our physical environment behaves in a way which is seemingly
impossible and beyond comprehension. My brain does something similar and the
resultant fall out is that you can no longer trust what you once thought was completely
solid and completely reliable. It’s terrifying when you cannot even be completely
sure of your own interpretation of the world around you.
Dear Diary – close your eyes!
In between the bi-polar swings, I would sometimes find short
periods of peace, or at the least, stable thinking patterns. During one of these times I realised that I
needed to see inside the world of my manic behaviour. I needed to create a
window through which I could observe my behaviour (once I was well enough again
to do so,) in order to attempt to find a way of understanding, addressing and
countering it. I knew that the observational and reporting power of those
around me was flawed because there was often an emotional connection to me which
could cloud their view. My paranoia also often prevented me from trusting their
accounts and whilst I was manic I could be very manipulative and crafty in
hiding my behaviour, motivations and actions to those close to me. The only
true account could be my own. This process however, depends on me being honest
enough both in the recording and interpretation of whatever I found.
I soon realised I had to write a diary. Not just any diary
though. It had to be detailed and honest to the degree where even the innermost
secret motivations had to be recorded. It also needed to be very detailed
because, at this point, I had no idea where the solution or the weakness lay. I
could not set off on this journey with my eyes closed to any possible cause or
solution. The diary also proved to be a good outlet for my thoughts and
emotions where few such non-judgemental alternatives existed. So I disciplined myself that however I was
feeling, high, low, or somewhere in between, I would record my day. I noted what
I ate and when. How much sleep I had and the hours of that sleep. My
activities, my emotions, my feelings and my motivations including my demons,
the things that no one ever wanted to admit at the very least record and make
permanent on paper. e.g. If I perhaps desired someone sexually or conversely wanted someone
to die, I would record it all in detail.
By writing a diary, I could, over time analyse my behaviour
both in and out of manic cycle and I hope that patterns, reasons and insights
would appear. Because of the records I was creating, it meant that during my
well periods, I could look through the eyes of my manic me, and in some part
experience what others around me saw and had to deal with.
Within less than 6 months, thanks to the diary, I realised
that there were certain clues appearing. Just prior to spiralling out of
control each time, there were signs that my mood was changing. Signals that
something was on the way.
You see what happens is this, at least in my case, the mania
increases from tiny periods of high energy or high emotion into large
destructive whirlwinds. It’s almost like a flywheel or a tornado gathering
speed and gathering energy from within its environment or its power source. At
lower speeds it’s quite easy to bring it to a halt again, but once it goes past
a certain point the stored energy is too great to be stopped. It then has to
burn itself out or be destroyed by other means. Those other means could be medical
intervention or self-destruction. Every case is different, but for me the
build-up usually takes several weeks and sometimes many months. In the case of
my first big meltdown, I later realised that the flywheel had been gaining pace
for many years.
I began to realise that if I could halt the progress of the
manias before they went too far, I could bring them back down and avoid the
mess they created. Over the next year or so, by means of the diary, I would
regularly analyse my behaviour prior to becoming manic, and slowly I became
better at spotting its onset.
For example, if I was desperate to go clubbing, then the last
thing I should do is go clubbing as the resultant stimulus would feed the
mania. I am not just talking a general desire to go clubbing, I am talking
about a deep down desperation to immerse myself within that type of
environment. I also spotted that when
listening to music at home, if the music made me particularly emotional either
weepy or ebullient, it was an indicator that I was beginning to spiral. In both
and similar examples, the correct course of action to take is to step away from
stimulus make sure I got extra sleep, take time away from work, watch shit
daytime TV and keep my meds nearby in case I felt I wasn’t able to slow down
the momentum without them.
Over a period of many years,, I literally read my behaviour
and reactions. I found the things which would initially trigger episodes and
through my early warning flags was able, bit by bit, to counter them earlier and
earlier to the point that I could stop them gathering enough pace to get out of
control. It’s something I still do every day now, 20 years later, as a means of
keeping myself stable.
Triggers.
I don’t want to go too deep into my personal triggers but,
self-esteem issues, romantic complications, relationship problems and financial
strains were more often than not, at the core of me eventually finding myself
unable to cope and my mania taking hold. Read this though within the context of
the other things I am outlining in this article. It’s a combination of factors
that lead to becoming unwell. The triggers are often the straw that breaks the
camel’s back in emotional terms, rather than a cause or to blame in
isolation.
One of the primary triggers for me, which cannot be over
emphasised, and is both a symptom and a cause, is lack of good quality sleep. When
my sleep patterns are disturbed (by a head too busy with mania to switch off,) it
will make my mania worse. Or if work and socialising means I am not getting the
amount and quality of sleep I need, then it can lead to a manic episode. Whenever I get the early warning signs that I
am becoming unwell, the first thing I address is my sleeping patterns, but they
are often the hardest to bring under control. When manic, even at a low level,
the last thing you want to do is sleep. Sleep seems to be an intrusion into good party and creative time.
Environmental factors
Alongside the diary I read other accounts and books of
people with a similar condition. I read psychology books about mental illness
and the myriad of factors, reasons that it comes to the fore and ways of
dealing with it.
I learned that along
with the genetic predisposition, there is a massive weight of evidence that
environmental factors play a big part in bringing it to the fore. By
environmental factors I mean, the situation you find yourself in at that time
as a collection of the many steps it took you to get there. Your history, your
family and peer dynamic all play a part in your ability to cope, your ability
to manage your personal stresses, and your ability to control any chemical
imbalances that will ultimately make your head poorly.
We all have differing
levels of what we can deal with. We all have different brain chemistry. Therefore
what induces stress, mental illness and severe anxiety in one person, is a
seeming walk in the park to another. One type of person is no better than
another in this respect. Just because you know someone who seems to be able to
deal with all that life throws at them and at the same time you fail to get
out of bed some days because your anxiety is overwhelming. This does not make them better
than you. You are not weak by comparison. You are different people with
different brain chemistry and different environments.
In my personal case I found myself in a world where I no
longer belonged and the pressure of conforming to that world eventually boiled
over and broke me.
I joined a church at the age of 16 seeking answers to the
great questions of the universe and life. By 20 I was married. Throughout my
twenties I was a minister and to many, my wife and I were considered to be
shining examples in the congregation. We were often cited as examples that
others should follow. I was also living in quite a poor working class community
in the South Wales valleys amongst wonderful family centric, community focused
people. All of this was wonderful, and a period of my life I am very glad happened. However, by the time I was in my late twenties, the pressures to conform to the
world I had placed myself within, became almost unbearable. I was no longer
that young spiritual man, happy with the simple things in life and content to
ignore the wider world around me. I realised there was a whole world of the
arts, theatre, creativity and self-expression, which were not compatible with
the brand of spiritual life which was now my whole world. I was a large thinker and
a creative free spirit contained within very high walls of strict conformity.
Whilst, from within my confines, I could see the clouds passing overhead, I knew that those clouds were travelling on without me, and it was inevitable that I would one day hop onto one and drift away to find out about the big world outside. What I didn’t realise at the time was that, rather than a gradual drift away, the onset of my Bi-polar would have me bursting through those walls in a great cloud of mess, dust and destruction. When it happened I ran at full speed leaving much rubble in my wake and never looking back. By the time the Bi-polar had done its thing, I had no god, no belief and horizons seemingly without borders.
Whilst, from within my confines, I could see the clouds passing overhead, I knew that those clouds were travelling on without me, and it was inevitable that I would one day hop onto one and drift away to find out about the big world outside. What I didn’t realise at the time was that, rather than a gradual drift away, the onset of my Bi-polar would have me bursting through those walls in a great cloud of mess, dust and destruction. When it happened I ran at full speed leaving much rubble in my wake and never looking back. By the time the Bi-polar had done its thing, I had no god, no belief and horizons seemingly without borders.
Another factor during this period of my life which applied
much of the pressure that lead to my explosion, was the community in which I
lived and worked. I grew up in quite a middle class home, my Dad had been a
research scientist and our whole world was one of a certain set of values and
behaviours indicative of that world. When I married and moved to the Welsh
valleys to be with my new Welsh wife, I found myself within a culture I did not
understand and it certainly did not understand me. For one I was English, which
was always going to be a stumbling block for the locals. When I first moved to
Wales the pits were still open and my father in Law was a Miner. A world so different to what I knew.
Now I am not suggesting for one second that I was better
than the people I found myself among, they are good hard working people with
good values and a good way of life. The problem was, it was so different in its
values and belief structures to mine, that fitting in there was really hard. I
was constantly having to change who I was, accept things that I saw as
unacceptable and conform to a pattern of behaviour which was alien to me. I was
from a different world, a different culture and I was in a foreign land trying
to make it work.
A small example of this was that I wanted my sons to go to a
Grammar school, or if there was a way of facilitating it, a private school. I
wanted the very best for them to give them a good start in life. My wife and
her family berated me for this notion asking me ‘why should our boys be any
different to anyone else around them.’ The state schools locally had been good
enough for multiple generations of their family and we should be no different. They
said I had ideas above my station and that I was an elitist. Maybe I was in
this respect but I truly believed it was the best way for them (at the time). I was
overruled.
On another occasion a member of my wife’s family who was
about 14, and beginning to go off the rails a bit, came back home with what was
clearly stolen goods. We were looking after the family home while my In-laws
were away on holiday with no way to contact them. I took the decision to call
the police as I knew this was one of a series of crimes he had committed and
felt that police intervention was necessary to both hopefully, get him back into
line, but also to reunite the victims with their stolen goods. When the In-laws
returned from holiday I was vilified and ostracised, the dynamic between us was never the same again. I was told that it was ‘family
business’ and should be kept within the family and that the police should never
have been called under any circumstances. It was just another nail in the
coffin of my disenfranchisement with the world I was living in.
These are just some examples of how my environment was
creating issues with my mental health and were in part factors in my eventual
breakdown.
Clearing out the attic.
I started a process, of what I call, clearing out the attic. Getting rid of as many of the things inside my head which troubled or bothered
me. There were hundreds of them. Some of these broken bits of furniture and
boxes of bric-a-brac inside my head went right back to my childhood. Somethings
were impossible to address and had to be dealt with in other ways. Here are two
very differing examples:
When I was 14, I was on a school trip to Germany and became
very friendly with a girl from my school. We snogged most of the way back to
the UK and she was simply lovely to be with. About half way home she told me
that she loved me and wanted to introduce me to her family. She wanted me to go
around to their house for dinner and she wanted all her friends to meet me. I
had no idea how to deal with this level of personal affection and attention
from a relative stranger. (I had come from a loving and supportive home but had
never learned to deal with, or acknowledge affection outside of that circle
partly due to my low self-esteem.) My reaction as to completely close down. I
folded my arms tightly, and went completely silent, spending the rest of the
journey home staring out of the window, refusing to talk as she sat beside me
and cried! At 30+ years old, I still
felt terrible for doing that to her, I never forgot how much it must have hurt
her, but I was helpless to put it right. I carried it with me all those years
and realised I had to deal with it. I had no idea how to contact her and also
reasoned it was probably pointless, as she would not even know what I was
talking about. In the end I stood in a field alone and had a conversation with
her, out load, and apologised. In some way I was hoping the breeze would carry it far
enough for her to hear and understand. I then opened my hand palm upwards,
visualised the hurt as a big ball sat in the palm of my hand and literally blew
it away.
Another and more complex example was one of past learned
behaviour which was affecting my ability to deal with my world on an emotional
level.
Before I describe
this one I need to add some context. I always felt that never really fitted in
anywhere. I never understood how others around me behaved or reacted especially
towards me. I seemed unable to read their signals and clues and as a result
often reacted strangely which compounded the problem. I was also bullied alot at school from quite early on, so this also fed into my sense of
isolation. So at about the age of 11, I started reading psychology books from
my Dad’s bookshelves. One in particular was about the psychology of the
behaviour between people on both a personal level and within groups. The
language and terminology in these books was very complicated for an 11 year
old, but I persevered and slowly taught myself how to better read those around
me. I also read books about how the negative behaviour displayed in people was
often a consequence of earlier trauma or family issues. Using this information, over many years, I began to better understand my peers and better understand
myself. Some of the things learned would take many years to make sense of. As I
grew older and experienced more of life it all became clearer.
The many years of studying pschology lead me to a new understanding. It wasn’t until I was in my early Thirties that, after being
ill, and carefully examining my emotional reactions, especially on a personal
level, I realised that I was displaying classic textbook accurate behaviour of
someone who had been abused at some point in their life. I, however had never
experienced any form of abuse. I was absolutely sure of this. I had no doubt at
all. So where did this behaviour come from. One day it dawned on me. You see as
you get older you learn more about those around you and small pieces of a
complex jigsaw start to fall into place. I worked out that almost without
exception, both within my family and amongst 80% of my peer group they had all
suffered from either sexual, psychological or physical abuse from people close
to them, at some point in their lives. The list of those around me who had
suffered in this way was extensive. It was then that I realised that the very
people responsible for forming the person I had become were all victims in one
way or another and I had also learned to display the traits of a victim despite
never having been one. This wasn’t a conclusion I came to lightly or quickly
but once I spotted and acknowledged it, I was then in a position to counter it
and begin to counter its negative effects in my personal relationships.
So bit by bit, piece by piece, I began to repair myself from
within. It was a long, slow, and often frustrating process, but one I knew was
vital to restoring my mental health to something more predictable.
The recognition that there was a problem that could
eventually be overcome. The incremental increase in my knowledge of mental
health issues and an increased understanding of personal and group
psychology. The diaries. The early
warning process. The understanding of the triggers and causes of my poor mental
health. The resolving of past hurts which were eating me from the inside. The
break from a life and lifestyle which was killing me slowly from within. Understanding
the vital importance of sleep and rest as a part of the healing process. All of
these and more were steps in the process towards getting better.
I was effectively re training other areas my brain to deal
with the things that made poorly. This meant that the section neurons which
miss fire in my head, under extreme emotional duress was carrying less load and
therefore less likely to fail when I needed them the most.
I would not change a single thing about who I am or the cards
I have been dealt. I embrace my condition and diagnosis, in as much as
knowledge is king, and anything can be overcome and sustainably managed, given enough
time and support.
Being Bi-polar brings with it many problems, but it also brings many benefits which I appreciate and embrace. My experience and journey have made me stronger and given me a zest and energy for life that many get nowhere near to. When you have peered over the edge into the abyss of nothingness, the sun shines twice as brightly once you find a place from where you can enjoy it. My creativity and my bravery, to take on the world with schemes and ideas many would shy away from, all come in great part from having this special, slightly faulty brain, upbringing, genetics and the experiences which have formed me.
Being Bi-polar brings with it many problems, but it also brings many benefits which I appreciate and embrace. My experience and journey have made me stronger and given me a zest and energy for life that many get nowhere near to. When you have peered over the edge into the abyss of nothingness, the sun shines twice as brightly once you find a place from where you can enjoy it. My creativity and my bravery, to take on the world with schemes and ideas many would shy away from, all come in great part from having this special, slightly faulty brain, upbringing, genetics and the experiences which have formed me.
I am a productive member of society with many precious
friends and a good lifestyle. This has happened thanks to a long fight to get
better and the unending and often underserved support and patience of those
around me. In 20 years I have had 2 majorly destructive episodes and
countless smaller ones which have caused their own problems and many set-backs.
Every day for the rest of my life I will need to keep
monitoring and examining my behaviour, my reactions and the counsel of those
around me. I do this in order to maintain a stability which is conducive to being part of
a family and a wider society. I can never let my guard down or take my current
good health for granted. I will never stop sharing and helping others in any
way I can. I will never stop fighting to stay alive. I will never stop living each day with a zeal
that makes the best of every moment and every situation. I will never stop
trying to improve myself and exceed my own goals.
I am one of the lucky
ones, I am still alive to tell the tale.
Dedicated to my Mum for keeping me alive thus far. x
