Alive again (Part 1)

A short while ago, something sudden, completely unexpected and entirely unwelcome happened. As always, I've tried to put fairly chirpy photos in this article to lighten it up a bit, but the subject matter of this post is not chirpy at all. For no apparent reason, I had the biggest and most dramatic 'low' that I've had in all the time that I've been taking lithium for bipolar disorder. Lithium has transformed my life - for the better - and I really see most of my adolescence and adult life so far as being divided into pre-lithium and post-lithium. Pre-lithium, I was a complete mess. After starting lithium, lots of really tough things have happened but I've been able to cope with them anyway, because the rapid cycling, mixed states, mania, hallucinations and crushing depression were finally brought under control. These tough things were just tough things that anyone could deal with, and they didn't impact upon my bipolar. I rejected lithium therapy for a long time as it has various unpleasant side effects and is a difficult drug to be on, but when I'd exhausted all the other options it became the only thing left to me. I wish I'd started it sooner; after just a couple of weeks my head began to clear and I began to remember who I had been before bipolar disorder first began to take over my life at 14 (or younger - hard for doctors to date these things sometimes).

Me aged 14. The goggles weren't just for the jigsaw machine, they were needed in everyday life.

So anyway, it's been five years or so since I started lithium, and those years have been tough but fairly stable. I wouldn't say that I'm completely 'normal' in terms of mental health, but not having hallucinations is a massive improvement, as is having some stability of my moods. I've been able to live more healthily and work more steadily than before going on lithium, and have found everything easier as a result. Bipolar disorder remains one of the most terrifying things I have to deal with, partly because although the lithium has made an enormous difference I know that I can't stay on it forever, and partly because it is in itself terrifying. If you haven't had it you can't really understand and I don't have the energy right now to try and describe it - maybe in another post.

"The camel is talking to me..."

So anyway, over the last few years I've been feeling fairly OK. Nobody is fine all the time, and I'm no exception, so some times have been healthier than others mood-wise. However, for no reason, two weekends ago, everything suddenly just nose-dived and I felt worse than I could remember since just after starting lithium. It's difficult to explain how I felt. It came on gradually at first, one evening, as a feeling of 'this is difficult to cope with'. I could feel the familiar sensory overload, and I just didn't want to talk to anyone at all, which was difficult as I was out with friends. I felt really sick and dizzy and thought I was going to have a seizure. Luckily John understood and was able to help (including showing the old 'I'm not drunk, it's this dashed medical condition' card), but no-one else gets it and I wouldn't have wanted them around anyway.

Sensory overload.

The next morning I woke up (well, it may have been morning, but it may have been afternoon) and it was as if I were a different person. I didn't know what to do with myself. I couldn't make the simplest decision (should I get up to go to the bathroom or should I just lie here until I die?). I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to eat, although I knew I had to. I didn't want to take my pills, although I knew I had to. I didn't want to wash or get dressed or even leave the bedroom to go to the kitchen. I didn't want to stay in my bedroom either - I didn't want to do anything, but because I was already in the bedroom it made sense to stay there. I didn't want to read (and in fact couldn't), or watch a DVD. I didn't want to talk to anyone or to be left alone. I didn't want a drink and didn't know how to feel thirsty. I didn't want to move but didn't want to lie still either. I didn't want to be awake and I didn't want to be asleep. Really, I just didn't want to exist.

It's really hard to find a picture of inexistence, so here's one of my rabbit pulling me into a time warp, age 10 (me not the rabbit).

This kind of feeling is bearable for about 5 minutes. The problem is that when you have a whole day like it and you have no idea how to fill it, it becomes unbearable. You cannot deal with being in your head anymore, but there isn't anywhere else to be as you can't physically move. I think one of the hardest things was knowing what to do with myself. I couldn't sleep for the whole time, but neither could I do anything else. I was meant to be going out and doing things with friends, but since I could hardly look at my phone (because it was across the room and I didn't know how to get there) there was no way I wanted to leave the flat and try to pretend that things were OK. I just couldn't - I couldn't do conversation, I couldn't hear anything properly, and I couldn't construct sentences.

Pronoun...noun...erm...verb...adjective... pronoun... pronoun... pronoun verb...stop.

The first day went like that, and as the evening came on something inside me broke and I couldn't stop crying. That made something else break, and the nothingness I'd felt before was filled by one overwhelming desire: to hurt myself. I didn't know how to do it (I still didn't have the energy to do anything) but I hated myself so much at that moment that I just had to try and do something. As it turned out, the easiest thing was to do nothing. I hadn't eaten, the crying had caused a massive blinding headache, and the window was open even though I was too cold. I lay on the floor with the headache, getting colder and colder, and tried to justify my existence to myself. I wanted to die but as I'd sent John out to be with people I didn't feel it was fair to die while he was out. I desperately wanted him with me, but I didn't want to call him back.

Eventually, I had to. The mania side was starting to creep in and I was scared. I had a brief window in which I could ask for help before it was too late, and I was just about lucid enough to realise that that was what *I* wanted, even if it wasn't what the bipolar wanted. He sprinted back and I don't know what I was doing, but I know I wasn't really with it. I know I came round and he was there and although I was so, so unhappy and still so scared I also knew that at that moment the only thing that could have made a difference was having him there. This is something I didn't have in the pre-lithium days, and it's a massive lifeline for me now. The thought of John was what stopped me hurting myself, and his presence was what made me realise that I could survive the horrible mixed state I was in and come out the other side.

So, that was the weekend. Then I had to deal with the week. That desperate and desolate feeling just wouldn't shift, and I was just so crushingly low that I couldn't imagine ever being me again. I was stunned by how quickly it had come on (really just over a few hours) after a few years of relative calm. I was also terrified that this phase would last as long as the first phase pre-lithium (i.e. four and a half years). Most of all, though, I was nothing. This is what depression is - there is sadness and there is anger and there is self-hatred and there is frustration, but above all else there is nothingness. I was completely at a loss as to what to do with myself. I knew that I just didn't want to go out. I cancelled all my plans and withdrew. I didn't want to explain myself to anyone and I didn't have the energy to pretend anymore. I just existed.

I didn't write this - but I could have done.

All this reminds me of this thing that I heard on Call the Midwife (of all things!). It's in response to bereavement, but as grief can be caused by so many things it's applicable in many circumstances: 'You just keep living, until you are alive again.' I love this, and have been saying it to myself for ages (since I first heard it). It's true and useful in so many situations.

So, I just kept living. I wasn't alive, in that nice metaphorical sense, but I was living. I was surviving. And then, overnight, I felt a bit better.  I don't remember much of the process so I can't go into it here. It was lengthy but...filled with nothing. I don't know why or how, but something enormous lifted and I was back to normal me again - albeit a me that was slightly battle-scarred and nervous. Things can go wrong quickly. On this occasion, they also came right quite quickly. A week felt like a long time, but compared to the years of misery I had pre-lithium it was really just a brief taster. It's just scary that these things can happen despite being on track with medication, and despite not having done anything different in the days and weeks preceding the little glitch.

Be wary.

I don't have anything to take from it other than a wary respect for the fact that I still have bipolar disorder. I am not heartened that it went away quickly, and I don't want to 'see the positives'. I'm annoyed it happened, because I missed a lot of things that I'd wanted to do. I'm also annoyed because it has reminded me how fragile my mental health is. I'm annoyed because other people won't understand it. I'm annoyed because people will try to say, 'oh, but you feel better now', as if that's all that matters. I'm annoyed because people will try to rationalise it, when it is something that can't be rationalised. It strikes completely randomly and the nature of a mental illness is that it stops the brain from thinking rationally - so don't tell me that everything will be fine in future, because you know nothing (and nor do I, as it turns out); bipolar disorder can and will strike me down whenever it feels like. And don't tell me that I was just being silly. Bipolar disorder is about mania and depression, which are ugly things. It's not about having a cup of tea, curling up with a good book, taking it easy for a bit, or having a good cathartic cry and feeling better afterwards. It's about worthlessness, pain, hatred, loathing, panic, fear, confusion, destructive behaviour, hallucinations, dying, rage, and, paradoxically, NOTHING. It's about a demon which inhabits your mind and your body and makes you dance to its tune, destroying your own life and taking you over completely until you are nothing. Nothingness really defines the whole thing - the goal of bipolar is to make you nothing; it does this by making you feel first nothing, then all the negative emotions it can put together, until you crave the despair of the nothingness as a sanctuary from the manic fear which grips you.

From Hyperbole and a Half.

So if you want to tell me, 'oh well, it didn't last long this time' or 'I'm sure it won't happen again' or 'you coped with it this time, you can cope again' or 'you're so strong/weak/brave/pathetic' or 'just think about the positives', then my response would be very rude and not appropriate for the hallowed pages of this blog. I am angry at bipolar as I already have one illness which has a grip on me and I don't need another. I cannot control the bipolar disorder (beyond taking the drugs, which I always do) so any kind of 'why not try <insert unhelpful suggestion here>?' is not necessary. If it would make a difference, I would already be doing it. It is a chemical problem, not just me needing cheering up.

 

All of this said, I do not want someone to make this all disappear. Like my EDS, this is a big part of who I am. Sometimes, the manic phases of bipolar disorder can be fun and even productive! Most of all, I do not want someone to change it. I do not want someone to take it away from me. I do not want someone to try to pray it away. I do not want that because although this scares me and I don't like it, it is part of me and we are in some way defined by the things that scare us and the way we react to them. Wishing those things away is not conducive to good mental health, nor does it make you an amazing person. Like a family, a health condition can be something that you reserve the right to complain about from time to time, but you recognise it as part of who you are and part of what makes you you.

They're bonkers (not as bonkers as me) but I love them.

Bipolar disorder is difficult and unpleasant, but suffering from it has made me stronger and more adaptable. I don't want to lose those things. This doesn't make me strong or brave, it just makes me a normal, regular person, who has issues and knows that nobody has a life without problems and so instead of wishing them away or on someone else we just need to get on with it, truck through the rough bits, and come out the other side - battered, bruised, bleeding, hair in a mess, face in a mess, unwashed, a little dehydrated but ALIVE AGAIN.