me and my bipolar disorder

What is Bipolar Disorder? Bipolar disorder is politically correct name for manic-depressive illness.
More accurately, what is Bipolar, or manic-depressive illness to me?

When we think of bipolar disorder, we think of ‘mood swings’. A mood swing from extreme highs to lows. Being very happy and energetic, and within moments, no energy, and depression. For most of us, that’s as far as we know. That’s as far as I knew. We look at it as a personality flaw, not an illness. Here is news. It is an illness. Manic-depressive illness is an illness. It’s an illness passed on from generation to generation. This is an illness that affects every aspect their lives.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in early October of 2004 by a psychiatrist, MD that charges people almost 300$ per hour. After being diagnosed with the illness, the doctor prescribed me some medications. What she failed to do was that she didn’t explain what was about to happen to me. For a long time, I thought I was the demon. The demons are the illness. The illness is part of me for life. The following few months, the demons got bigger and stronger, before they lost some of their energy, and the medications finally started to do what they were designed to do.

I’ve always had bipolar disorder. I see it very clearly. Hindsight is 20/20. The illness usually does not get diagnosed until the late childhood, early adolescents. I had symptoms of this illness as far as I can remember, surfacing where others can see it when I was in high school.
I’ve read few books on this matter. You can say, I’m now obsessed with this subject, which is one of many symptoms of this illness, Obsession.

This is about what the illness did to me, and is doing to me. Again, it’s about my illness. The information I have is from my readings, and personal experience. I read a book that was written by a psychiatrist, who suffers from the same illness and on top of that, she’s married to a person with bipolar disorder. The book gave me a lot of information, insight, gave me some level of comfort, and made me realize that I’m not alone. For the first time in my life, I feel like that there is someone that understands things I feel and what I live through, every day. Things I live through, the inner pain, uncontrollable irritability, paralyzing depression, elevated mania, being obsessed with things that aren’t even remotely interesting to normal people, spending sprees, suicidal thoughts and attempts, racing and raging minds, not being able to think logically, and being totally misunderstood. I now understand why I am what I am. Those are the symptoms of my illness, not a flaw to my character. Realizing now, the people around me, the people closest to me, and the ones I love the most had to go through some difficult times. It’s about the suffering that they never expected, and never asked for.

Bipolar disorder is not what the name suggests. It’s not black and white. It’s the entire spectrum of colors. It’s the highs, the lows, and every emotion you can feel as a human being that I felt with far more intensity than necessary.

Bipolar disorder is not something a person can control. The person that suffers from this illness cannot just ‘snap out’ of it. It is biological in nature, psychological in every aspect. The illness can be hard, extremely hard to detect. And in most cases, it looks as if the person is just ‘down’, ‘irritated’, ‘up’ or ‘happy’. When bipolar is not in control of the person, the person is perfectly okay. It’s when the symptoms do surface, that’s when all hell breaks loose.

Bipolar is always unreasonable. When a person acts completely different than what you know of the person, that’s the illness taking control of the person. It is no different than alcohol or drugs. It takes control of everything the person does, and everything that the person is. When the person is in full control of bipolar attack, bipolar cannot be reasoned with, cannot be controlled, and it cannot be cured. No one that’s under the spell of this illness is strong enough to beat the symptoms on his or her own. It’s not their weakness. It is their illness. It is my illness.

These are the bipolar symptoms by the book.

1. Depression
2. Mania
3. Hypo mania
4. Psychotic symptoms
5. Paranoid symptoms
6. Intense anger and irritability
7. Anxiety
8. Feeling over stimulated/overwhelmed
9. Problems with maintaining focus, attention, and concentration
10. Suicidal thoughts and impulses
11. Self harm
12. Hypochondria

Not all people who live with bipolar disorder have all the symptoms. Sometimes, it creeps out little at a time. One day for me, it hit me like ton of bricks, all at once.

What are the bipolar symptoms to me? What causes the symptoms? The root of the cause is the illness itself. But with every symptoms creeping out, had its triggers. It is obviously different with everyone.

My first major bipolar attack that I can remember has been when I was around seven years old. I didn’t have the luxury of growing up in a house of love. I don’t blame my parents on having the problems we had growing up. Bipolar is hereditary. I can’t say for my parents, but my illness came from somewhere. We had some serious issues being a family. To me, the marital problems between my mom and dad were my fault. I heard my dad talking on the phone about how leaving my mom would make him happy. And then, he’d say if it wasn’t for us kids, he would have done it long time ago. It was my fault. No question about it. I thought it was entirely all my fault. I still remember the guilt, the pain of having to live in the house full of yelling, screams, the fear, and waking up with terror, too scared to set a foot outside my bedroom, to go to the bathroom. It was my fault. I existed. I still wake up in the middle of the night, borderline anxiety attack with the voices that are permanently imbedded into my brains. When I close my eyes, I still hear the screams.
My friends were jealous of things I had. The endless supply of toys, the latest and the coolest of bikes, the colorful new clothes, brand new white athletic shoes, I had it all, but never enough. A new interest sparked me every so often and I had to have the entire collection of something else, followed by something else.
I was jealous of things my friends had. Nice family dinners, seeing the love in the eyes of their parents. They exchanged soft loving voices among the family. I would have traded everything I had to have what they had for just one day. I remember coming home and walked in on my mom and my piano teacher. I was shocked, mad and angry. I got on my brand new shiny red bike, went down the hill fastest I could, went into the intersection where the cars and busses were everywhere, and I ended up slamming into a car. I’m not sure if that was my first suicide attempt, but I still remember the pain like it was yesterday. The physical pain was minor compared to the pain on the inside. It didn’t hurt enough to cry, but it hurt enough to drive a seven year old to end it all.

I remember in the summer of 1976, my dad packed his things to go tour around the world. He had gone for a business trip to Europe, southern Asia, and North America. He was gone for what seem to me like it was 100 years, and wasn’t gone for long enough when he came back. Although I missed him a lot, there was peace and quiet at home. I can wake up in the middle of the night, and go to the bathroom without being scared. My symptoms of bipolar disorder subsided with time, but my anger to my parents for dumping everything in the world to escape their problems and coming to this country never faded.

The next major bipolar attack was in high school. I lost a sense of security, and identity when my older brother left for college. My brother has always been the glue to holding what’s left of my family for years. A lot for a kid to go through, now I realize. After he left, in combination of making wrong friends, losing my first close relative, and going through my first heartbreak with a girl, this was the first time I felt the paralyzing depression. I started to cut classes. My grades, which were never good to start with, plummet to bottomless pit. I didn’t care. I started to accept the invitation to smoke pot, then the cocaine, then the LSD, in which, I have never abused prior to, and since. I simply didn’t care what they did to my health and me. I just wanted to escape the pain, even just for few hours a week. My parents didn’t care why I had the straight F’s. They were busy grilling me for failing classes. Our relationship got gradually worse, year after year. Only if they understood that it was my illness that caused that, not my character, we might still have a relationship. It’s torn, and beyond repair.

I don’t remember how the depression ended and mania episode started, but following the depression, when my mania stage of bipolar took over my soul, things were addictively great. I enjoyed working out and preparing for upcoming season in football. I worked out 3-4 hours per day. I went on spending sprees, now buying bright and colorful clothes over dark and drape ones. I went on 3-4 dates a week, each time with a different girl. I thought my depression and the dark days were over, and things were great. Everything was more colorful. I had pep in my step. I felt great day after day. Little did I know what was waiting for me on the other end. What was waiting for me was the end of the football season, end of the highs, and beginnings of depression all over again. So much so, my best friend, dragged me in to the counseling office, scared that I might end my life. The real scary thing is that he was right. If the door from the house to the garage didn’t swing open, and if my dog didn’t run out to me with it’s tail wagging, I would have sat in that running car, with Pink Floyd blasting and the doors closed.

My symptoms continued through college. I’d take 20 hours of semester hours in the beginning of the year, under the spell of my mania and optimism, only to find myself in deep depression in the mid semester, either dropping the classes or failing all together.
After end of what was the best summer to date, the summer of 1989, my mania continued to the next fall. I pledged for a fraternity house. I was the life of my pledge class. I was the center of attention in each and every meeting, every party, and every get together. Then it all faded once again. With 3 days to go to become an official member of Alpha Tau Omega, I quit. I didn’t care. Everyone started to get on my nerves. I didn’t want to be bothered. With everyone trying to talk me out of quitting, I still walked away. I wanted to be alone. Crowds at the parties, at the fraternity house terrified me. Once I was the life, now I was the darkness. The ups and downs, being depressed for months, and being high for months ruined what was supposed to be the best time of my life.

After leaving the school, I got a job at a car dealership selling cars. My first year, I was again under the spell of my mania. Only in my 7th month selling cars, with me full of energy, I sold 30 cars in 3 weeks. That one-month selling record still stands today. That high lasted 3 months. I made more money in those 3 months than I made the entire year combined. Shortly after the record setting months, my spending spree of the mania symptoms took over me. I bought a big TV. I bought an expensive stereo. I bought an expensive bicycle. I once paid over 800$ for a pair of in line skates that I used twice. I bought brand spanking new yellow Mustang GT convertible with leather interior, Mach 460 sound system with CD changer, powerful V8 engine, and the slick 5-speed manual. I was flying high. Nothing can stop me. I was the best salesman in the country. The region representative of Ford Motor Company took me out on lunch. He talked about me being the youngest franchise owner. My future in car business burnt brighter than magnesium. I was on fire. I was set for life. Then by December, it all came crashing down. I sold 2 cars the entire month. I went from a hero to zero, just like that. Instead of reading ‘congratulations’ on back of my pay stub, I get ‘what have you done for me lately?’

The following few months, my ups and downs came and went much quickly. What lasted me for 2-3 months at a time, now lasted weeks to weeks. Bad week and good weeks came and went. I had no purpose in life, once again. I was selling just enough cars to survive, and being hit with all the bills from previous spending spree put me in further and further depression. I couldn’t pay bills, and I didn’t care. Then I met a girl.

Meeting the love of my life lifted me out of depression, and into normalcy. Love is not a replacement for medications and treatments, but for a while, it helped. I didn’t get into mania. I was discovering me, for first time in my life. I was falling in love for the first time in my life. It was as if, the world that I only saw as black and white were suddenly in color.

Years went by, and I got out of car business all together. I made a commitment of going into IT field. It was okay. I missed the addictive highs of car business, but it came with its advantages and disadvantages. Having a weekend was nice, and I stayed in it.
Years after that, my mania wasn’t as high, and my depression was barely noticeable. Being married and steady and stable relationship calmed my bipolar symptoms to much lower level. I was in a stable relationship, and a stable spouse. She kept me level headed. She made sure I wasn’t going off to the deep end. Then one day, the world came crashing down. It bent and bent, and one day it finally snapped. The demons were going to surface soon or later. It was time.

It hit me again, the depression. It may have come slow, or it may have suddenly come, and I’m not sure. But it came. It started as depression, and the chaos that followed my life, triggered me into full-blown manic-depressive illness, the bipolar disorder.

At first, the medications didn’t help. The doctor never told me that my symptoms would get a lot worse before it’d get better. I was not prepared to face what was coming to me. I simply didn’t know. The pills fired up parts of my brain that was dead for years. The pills short-circuited my emotions and my personality. What was once so easy, the aerobics, which I used to teach for 10 years, is hard to do, because my coordination has disappeared. I wake up in the middle of the night with thousand thoughts, and can’t fall back asleep. My short-term memory is shot. I can’t put one and two together and come out with a three. I’ve become a dumb ass. But I have to live with the side effects. Medications are now part of me for life.

Think about this. Think of one most painful event experienced in your life. Think about the time. Think about the heartache. Now, multiply that by 100. That is what I felt every day, for no reason. No reason at all. I woke up with suffocating pain my chest for years and years. I didn’t know that it wasn’t supposed to be there. Even with the side effects, I have to be on the medications. Being without the medications might kill me.

Depression is the most widely understood, and misunderstood part of this illness.
My lack of concentration caused me to lose jobs. Losing jobs triggered my depression. My lack of concentration was caused by depression. Yes, the ages long question, chicken or the egg? It’s neither. It’s the illness.

Depression is a part of this illness, and depression alone is an illness by itself. Those around a person with a depression, who’s never had it as an illness, they don’t and they can’t understand what it does to someone. Sure, we’ve all been depressed here and there. It’s a normal human emotion. What makes the difference between an illness and normal depression, I believe is the length of it, cause of it, and the intensity of it. When you’re depressed, you feel. When I’m depressed, I’m numb, followed by intense, uncontrollable pain. I don’t feel pain. I experience it. Just like those who nearly froze to death will tell you. When you’re about to die, you don’t feel the cold. You’re numb. I had no reason at all to be depressed at times, but I was. When waking up to get myself out of a bed is the hardest thing in the world, when searching for a reason to live every morning, when going through your day aimlessly, totally without purpose, when everything around me, everyone around me does nothing but irritate me and angers me for no reason at all, when I cannot lift myself up from ‘snapping’ out of it, it is not laziness, it’s an illness. Believing that one can snap out of illness related depression is like telling someone with a cancer to snap out of it and get rid of the tumors with your mind. No, it can’t be done. I repeat, it can’t be done. And I didn’t have a choice to make. It was forced upon me by nature.

People ask me, ‘what is wrong?’ And I say ‘nothing’, because you have no idea. You have NO idea.

And then, there was the uncontrollable irritability and anger. This kind of irritability is apparent in both depression and manic stages of the illness.
Things that we see in everyday life, everyday stress, becomes irritable to me, so much more intense, and so much more uncontrollable than they should be. When I feel myself losing temper, it is like something, an unexplainable force is taking over me. Almost like a devil taking over my soul. I felt it and I couldn’t control it. I broke numerous remote controls for the TV. I have thrown a shop vac over the back yard fence. I’ve frightened people all around me, especially those who I care for the most. I had the police called on me, twice. I carried with me so much pain on the inside, so much irritation, so many feelings, and so many things that most people can’t even imagine feeling, all bottled in, and bursting out at the seams.
The only relief came in a form of physical pain. Yes, the self inflected wounds. When the knife pierced through my skin I felt a cool sensation. The demons within inside of me escape my body with drips of my blood. When the blade starts to feel hot, that’s when I knew the inner pain has subsided and I was headed for a relief. It was saving me from unbearable inner pain. And it’s real. The inner pain is real as when you miss the nail and hit your finger with the hammer. The pain is real. Some end their lives, because they can’t escape the pain. It’s was never about hurting myself, or punishing myself. It was saving me from the death causing pain.

Paranoia was the ugliest of all the symptoms. I felt that everyone was lying to me. I felt that everyone was out to get me. I felt like everyone around me was going out of their ways to hurt me. I felt like everyone was trying to find a way to make my life a pure hell. That brought even more anger and irritation, followed by mania stage of the illness. There were triggers that started my paranoia. The norms for most people are triggers to me when I’m ill. When I’m ill, anything and everything will set me off. Yes, you’re walking on eggshells.

Mania stage for me was feeling ‘invincible’. No one, no gun, no knife can hurt me. You can bring 50 cops to my door, and I can kick every one of their ass. They see it in my eyes, and they feel it, and I can smell their fear. They reach for their guns, because they feel that I might explode. There is no nuclear bomb strong enough to burn me. When this kind of mania takes over my mind and my body, I really am the superman. Those around me, while I’m feeling that way feel frightened and scared, because they don’t know what I’m capable of doing. I have the look of a ‘psycho’, because for a moment, I am. I talk million miles an hour. My mind races with thousand thoughts, all at once. I know the solution to world problems. I know everyone’s problem, whether I knew them as a person or not. I have the creativity of Thomas Edison. My IQ is 100 points higher than Einstein’s. I’m Sigmund Freud with a PHD in human psychology. I’m a genius, I’m a superman, and I am the super human. Then, it all comes crashing down like the World Trade Centers in 2001. Then, the anxiety hits me, followed by deep paralyzing and numbing depression.

I’ve made numerous promises when I’m in manic stage. To me at the time, they are all real, and reachable. And I come crashing down from the highs of wanting to do everything on earth, followed by deep depression once again. Part of this illness, everything I felt at the time, whether it was depression, paranoia, or manic stage, it’s real to me. At the time of bipolar attack, everything is real. The phrase “you never kept up with any one of your promises” doesn’t hurt me anymore. I now understand that I’m not a liar. I suffer from an illness.

The part that people can’t understand is that bipolar is not me. I’m not the illness. I suffer from it. I suffer from it more than you can ever imagine. Those around me suffer from my illness. The illness is so much more serious than people think. The unscientific statistics say that 1 in 3 people with bipolar die from it. This is not to make excuses for my actions what so ever. But every unreasonable actions I took, every spark that turned into forest fire out of control, it was the illness. The illness fueled by things around me. Loss of jobs, breaking down of my marriage, lost dreams, lost hopes, and lost love. All fueled by and fuel to my manic-depressive illness. It isn’t my character flaw. It is not my weakness. I suffer from a very misunderstood illness.

Bipolar disorder is an illness that will stay with me for life. It can be controlled to a point, where the symptoms may never appear, but there is no cure.
I know I will never be free from it. I know I can never stop my medications, no matter how wonderful I feel. If I find myself thinking that there is no need to treat this illness anymore, that’s my manic stage of the illness.

I never asked for this illness. I never did anything to catch this illness, but I have it. I was born with it. I have to live with it. I will die with it. I have to treat it every day for life.

I have to deal with this illness, but you don’t. You have a choice. I don’t expect anyone to stick around to deal with my illness and me. It’s my illness, not yours. I don’t want anyone to deal with it with me. There is nothing you can do to snap me out of my depression, highness, and irritation. When bipolar gets a hold of me in full force, there is nothing you can do except to be frightened and watch, call the police, or leave the house all together. I’m alone in this battle. It’s my battle against the illness. Battle against those who think my symptoms have nothing to do with me being ill, because to them, the symptoms are simply personality flaws. Battles to convince some people of my illness, because they have never seen my symptoms and think I’m a wonderful, caring, funny, soft, warm, understanding, and loving person that I am without the illness symptoms. It’s a battle with the demon. It’s a battle with multiple demons.

I’m not apologizing to anyone about my illness. It’s not my fault that I have this illness. But it will be my fault if I don’t do anything about it and treat it, as I should. Yes, I caused a lot of pain to those around me. But I learned that it’s the illness. I will never forget things I did, because to forget is to repeat. But I will not dwell on it. What happened a second ago is in the past. It happened, and I can’t change the past. I’ve learned from my past. There is no time to dwell on it. My dwelling on things I did while I was under the spell of my illness, it’s going to bring me grief, guilt and sorrow. Things I can’t afford to feel when I’m in all out war with the demon. The demon feeds off negativity. I won’t do it, and I can’t afford to do it. And if you can’t separate the person who was under the spell of the demon, and my true character, then be it. I know what I did when I was ill. I know who I am and what I am as a person. I know my true character and personality. If you find this offensive, then be it. I have to move forward. This is about working on me being free of symptoms. As long as I’m free of symptoms, I can be whom most people know as me. I will not let my past hold me back from having a present and the future. I cannot rewrite history, but I can plan my future.

In order for me to live a normal life, a life free of bipolar demons, I have to keep up my exercise. I have to eat the right foods, and skip the bad ones. No caffeine, no alcohol, and no, absolutely no TOBACCO. And I have to keep taking my medications. I have to continue my therapy. It would be nice to surround myself with people who love me, but hate the illness. I want to be with those who understand that I’m in this battle for life.

I’m alone in this battle with the demons. I’m not looking for help in this battle. This is an illness that others cannot help. This is my battle. This is the battle I never asked for. It’s a battle I’ve been losing my entire life. This is a battle that I have to win, if I was to be happy and live rest of my life the way I know I can live. Realizing that there is a battle to be won is the very first step of beating this demon.

Most people suffering from manic-depressive illness don’t even make it to where I am right now.
I’m not petting myself on the back but I do know this. I was one step away from being a fly splatting on windshield of a speeding train. I was less than a second away from crashing my Toyota Supra Twin Turbo directly into the viaduct. I was flirting with becoming a statistic. Of the one out of three that dies due to this illness, it’s in a form of suicide. It’s in form of drunken driving, drug overdose. Reckless driving. Hi risk behavior. One in three. That’s one in three. How many people do we know that died from smoking related illness? Johnny Carson? Only one in four people that smoke die from it. This illness is real. It’s as real as it gets.

Maybe surviving the last six months were my first battle won. The second is my understanding of this illness and start battling. And I have rest of my life to fight this battle. Some, I’ll win. Some I’ll lose.
Your rainy days come and go. There’s sunshine after every rain in your life. You may have thunderstorms that soon or later, clear up. I have tornadoes that might never end and take my life. I have to remember and constantly be reminded that the calmness after the hurricane may be an eye of the storm. Light at the end of the tunnel is more likely an oncoming train. I don’t have the luxury of being happy and not worry about what may come next. When I am happy and energetic, I have to keep reminding of myself that it might be the demons.

You and I take our eyesight for granted. We can see where we go. We can see the blue skies blending into crystal blue of the Lake Michigan on a sunny day. We can read this document I typed. We can see the beautifully lit skyline of Chicago from the planetarium. For blind people, what I can do, what you can do is something they would trade for anything. They would take no amount of money over being able to see. It’s the world of darkness that you and I can never understand. Yes, we take eyesight for granted. We don’t think about it until its dark, you flick on the lights and you realize the light has been burned out. You feel your way around until you find another source of the light, and you can see. Blind people don’t have that luxury. Being normal, being in stable moods day in and day out is something you take for granted. You never have to think about it. For someone like me, who live with manic-depressive illness, being normal, having stable moods, being predictable is something I have to battle for every day, every hour, and every minute of the day. Something you’d never understand.

It’s my battle to win or lose. I have to do this alone.

Those that lose the battle end up homeless drunks, end up in mental hospitals, coffins, get their remains scraped off of the train tracks, or live a life of pain, suffering and destruction. Those who win, get to live a normal life, the life that you take for granted.

All I know is this; I can’t expect you to understand. No one, except those who also suffer from the same illness, can possibly understand and imagine what I feel. It’s about the pain, the numbness, the depression, the anger, the irritation, the highs, the lows, the frustrations, and being misunderstood. Some of you will forever think it’s my character flaw, personality flaw and ‘I need to grow up’. Nothing I can do to make them see things as they are. I don’t need them to change their minds. Those that matter the most to me will forever misunderstand me. Those who are closest to me, and who think that they know me the best are the same ones that won’t be able to understand, and refuse to believe what I have isn’t an illness, but just an excuse.

It’s time for me to move on. I need to be free from hurtful sarcastic comments. Free from doubting looks and triggers. Free from the cold shoulders. Free from hateful stares for what I did in the past. Free from suspicious pessimism that wonders when I’m going to crash next. For once, I want to be spared from being punished for my manic-depressive illness. I have more than enough to deal with without the guilt that is forever poured on me.

This is my battle. I need to fight the demons. I don’t have any allies. I’m in this battle alone.

This battle… it’s not for you.

This is for me.

You can call me mad, a crazy, a nut, a psycho, a koo koo. Name me what you like. While you’re at it, you can make fun of people who have MS, TB, Leukemia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

I’m not a clown. I’m not a lazy bum. I’m not a freeloader. I’m not stupid. I’m not a genius. I’m not a psycho. I’m not a liar. I’m not a raging lunatic. I’m not evil. I’m not a promise breaker. I’m not a weakling. And I do not ‘lose it’.

I’m just a person who is hurting, and suffering from a terrible and possibly fatal illness that causes me to forever have labels slapped on to my face and my character by most of you.


I’m not bipolar. I just have the illness.
I have to live with this illness.

The people with manic-depression illness are some of the most passionate, compelling, and thoughtful, caring, intelligent, artistic, loving and wonderful people.

And this is my battle.

This is my battle to become and being the person I already am.






I'll remember that everything I really needed I already had, and whatever I didn’t have would have came to me if I was ready to receive it.


Readings:

An Unquiet Mind
by KAY REDFIELD JAMISON

Loving Someone With Bipolar Disorder
by Julie A. Fast, John D. Preston

The Bipolar Disorder Survival Guide
by David J. Miklowitz

Surviving Manic Depression
by E. Fuller Torrey, Michael B. Knable