Day 352 – A crazy Christmas
Usually I love Christmas and am one of the biggest gift buyers in the country. Part of bipolar and indeed it is a recognised symptom is that people with the disease can spend exorbitant amounts of money. Many times this particular symptom has left me in a whole world of financial trouble.
While in the ward I was lucky enough to come across other bipolar patients who all told me that they had the same problem. What was reassuring for me is that these people told me that they also end up spending their money quite happily on buying gifts for other people.
This year is different in that I have barely been out of the house and ward as I find crowds and communicating with people a huge struggle. It is because of this that Christmas to me this year feels all too depressing. I want to treat my loved ones, all the wonderful people who have supported me during this illness, as much as I can but I am near powerless to do so.
For the first time today I went into town but because my concentration level is still so low I was only able to pay some cheques in, the gift buying just seemed all too much. I am gutted because Christmas is about the giving and yet I have so little to give.
Day 351 – The menu my lady
After three weeks of this all-encompassing depression both myself and my mother had enough. I was due for a review with the psych on Tuesday but it was cancelled at the very last moment and so I have had to wait until today to get the chance to vent. The ward round is the time when everyone has the chance to discuss their treatment but as of late I have seen it only as a place I have to go to try to get out of this place.
This time my mother and I were determined to ask about other possible treatments and with the week I’ve had we were even considering the possibility of Electro convulsive therapy or lithium.
Though both forms of treatment are now fairly old-fashioned and rarely used I am so desperate not to feel this way that I feel I am ready to do anything to get me back. I hate this person that I have become and my thoughts are always so bleak, so black, so grey.
The new psych has gone on holiday and I am glad because it means the old psych has returned. He has a softer approach and I feel that no matter how low I am he treats me like an adult with the ability to make choices even though they are often bad ones. My parents who are by now at the end of their tether are both so desperate to find a way for me to get better that they come into the review with me. In all credit to the psych though he answers their questions he maintains eye contact with me reminding me that this is about what I want.
In the end he carefully lays before me a range of choices of medication and is honest with me about the side effects. I am paranoid already about the amount of weight I have put on so he kindly lets me know of those that will result in the same. H also warns me of one drug which can cause hair loss and regrowth in the form of Jimi Hendrix hair. He lays the whole menu before me and then laughingly asks “What will the lady have.”
In the end we decide upon a new mood stabiliser which can cause weight loss, not a problem, and to ease me off the olanzapine which has been leaving me heavily sedated and considerably heavier. I am starting this new drug with hope for recovery and after the last few weeks that is surely a good sign.
Keep your fingers crossed there is an end in sight.
Day 350 – High times in a low life, part four
The truth be told, this blog would never have happened were I not bipolar. If I was just an ordinary person and did not suffer the highs and lows of this illness I never would have come up with the idea for 365 Dresses. Of course I had a little help with the idea from a friend whose boyfriend kept wanting to wear dresses but the truth as I’ve never said is that the idea came to me when I was high.
It was while I was down in London that I first thought of the idea for a feature which I would run in my blog. I was staying with a friend, the lovely Ms Niki Steele who is creative, persuasive and the very same woman who set me up with the boy.
It was during a night of little sleep that it came to me and I got so excited that I spent the early hours of the morning brain storming. I was high and had been for a while but this was again in the early days when I did not really know what being high was.
The most wonderful part of bipolar, and believe me it is wonderful, is how creative you can become. Take the posts for example, there are days when I cannot write, think or even feel my way through a blog and then other times when I can catch up with a week without pause or need for sleep. This creativity of course comes at a cost and the low that I am suffering now is a result of my going too high back in November when I wrote near on thirty blogs in three days.
I hope you have enjoyed this project as it is soon to come to a close and though the blogs will continue the dresses will not.
Though today has been another truly terrible day I now feel pleased as I was able to write.
Day 349 – High times in a low life, part three
His name was Aaron and he was a millionaire with a very rich daddy and a lovely body. I met him on a holiday that was booked as ever when I was as high as a kite. There had been a messy break up from the third greatest love of my life and I was fragile and looking for something to fill the void. I was drinking heavily at the time to numb the pain and on the night we met I was wasted.
We were in one of the Greek islands and had decided to go on a night out with our younger peers. Already on a high, the drink left me in the sky and by the third bar I was away with the fairies. We played a game where we had to pass the balloon and cheesily enough this was when the snog happened in the middle of a dance floor. The guy I kissed was impossibky good looking and one hell of a charmer, I don’t remember his name but it was his best friend who I went on a date with the next day.
I was naughty that night. We were meant to get a bus home to our apartment but by then I gad met Aaron and determined to put my ex behind me I sneakily stayed out to carry on drinking and caborting. It was all laughably innocent as I was too heart broken and tipsy to agree to anything but cuddles and silly kisses.
We sneaked down to the beach and chatted away while laughing at the couples around us whoo were up to no good on the rent by the hour sun beds under the stars. He was a perfect gentleman and after finally accepting that no I would not be staying the night he paid a fortune to a cab driver to take me home.
The next day I was amused to receive a text from him asking if I fancied doing something. Shopping was suggested but I called him a girl and rejected him outright. Not long after he turned up in an open topped jeep accompanied by the best friend I’d kissed the night before.
My friend came along for the ride and we spent the day playing at sweet hearts while I hoped the elephant in the front seat would never be addressed or ever be seen. We ate ice creams on the beach and drove to the most beautiful lake where we jumped in and swam like teenagers.
The holiday would never have happened if I was high and neither would the date or the kisses. The memory of the date and later meeting up in the UK is one of those that I treasure and I still have a DVD of the night of the two kisses, well three if you count the other guy.
Day 348 – High times in a low life, part two
Continuing in the theme of yesterday I still feel like crap but I intend to carry on with part two of high times. Yesterday I gave you a tantalising taste of one of my highest moments and what I had done in them. Today I shall tell you the tale of how a woman with little savings, a job and a really rather severe mental illness came to spend 40 days and nights crossing through the great states of America.
I do not know how the trip came to pass but two of my greatest friends got in touch with me and suggested that we set sail for the states. There was something in my blood, I am assuming it was the Irish immigrant DNA, that made me agree as well as the fact that at the time my bipolar was undiagnosed and subsequently only the lows were treated. My mother can remember the trip and my going as she spoke to the boy and they both thought that at the time I was quite unwell.
The problem with the highs as you may have all noticed by the attempted hospital closure is that I am never keen to listen to anyone who tells me that I am high. At the time I had come out of a long depression and only a few months before had my first ever suicide attempt. The depression had been treated and I had managed to get a job as a PR accountant but the medication I was on was merely for lows and was therefore sending me high.
At the time I had no insight into my illness and just believed any over activity was merely a personality trait and a darn good job because the job was tough and my social life was hectic. I would head up to Manchester of a weekend and spend Saturday nights dancing away and leading the life of any other 24-year-old. Looking back on the trip now and my decision to go I can see that I was behaving irrationally.
I took a month off work and by doing so risked losing the first job I had in six months of sickness. As well as this, the fact of the matter was that I simply just could not afford the trip. My two great friends who I once lived with and who more importantly had lived with me and all my crazy, not an easy feat, had been saving for months.
My mother tried to persuade me not to go as did the boy but I was as high as a kite and determined that in spite of the cavernous hole in my bank account why the hell should I not have it all. It was, I insisted to them all, my God-given right to travel the states and as an English and American literature student, I owed it to my degree to take this trip.
In the end, my bank account being overdrawn, I made the decision to withdraw the last of my inheritance from my bank account. Though it was a foolish decision and though my sister and brother have been able to keep theirs for the more permanent things in life-like houses and little people I have never regretted what I did that day.
There were times during the trip when I was certainly unwell. My poor travelling companions would attest to this fact as my mood was all over the place and my spending considering the little I had been at times obscene. I still have the DKNY and Calvin Klein dresses to show for it though and they will be up for sale at the end of the year.
We travelled from San Francisco to New York stopping off upon the way in Albuquerque, LA, Las Vegas, Chicago, Canada and many more. We ate like kings and queens and every day was filled with sight-seeing and merry-making.
During my high times I shopped in New York allowing the sales assistant at Macy’s to believe I was some kind of finance wizard while he bought me dresses that I could not afford which my overdraft later saw the sad side of. I also made an attempt one sleepless night at making my way to the gates of the white house. I got worryingly far especially considering the number of security gates I passed by but in the end someone asked me what I was doing and I muttered something about being a big fan of the West Wing and wondering about meeting the president before turning on my heel and heading back to the hospital.
Some of my happiest memories stem from America and for this I have my travelling companions to thank. They have always been extremely tolerant of my mood swings while reminding me when I have gone too far or am acting too much the diva. I will not name them for fear that they would be shamed to be associated with such a maniac but they know who they are and they are wonderful.
I am feeling, a little better.
Day 347 – High times in a low life, part one
I am still low and crying like a child but in order to survive to stop my mind from ruminating and to prevent my readers becoming remiss I have decided to focus upon the highs of my life. One of the positives about a bipolar illness is that there are a lot of memorable times. Though the highs at their heights can be terrifying for all involved there are also times when they make life take on an almost film like quality.
If it was not for the highs I would never have thrown caution and financial finesse to the winds and spent 40 days travelling the states, I would never have dated a millionaire after getting it on with his best friend and I would never have begun this project.
The highs do not make up for the lows and I would never ever choose this illness no matter how fashionable some teens apparently find it to be, but as I say lets focus on the good times for a few days, for my sake as well as your own.
Day 346 – The worries of the ward
I woke this morning after the joy of the fading of the fog yesterday feeling like nothing on earth. The depression had returned and after finally feeling a little better it was all the worse to be feeling this way.
It was my hope that this was a purely circumstantial depression and that once away from the ward I would pick up. Sadly this was not the case. The thoughts of wanting to be without breath were overwhelming and I cannot help but feel that the depression is not lifting and that the tablets are not working. It has been more than ten days now since I started back on the wonder medication that is duloxetine and still I am like a zombie.
I miss being me and am so tired of the treatment and of living on a ward where there is little Christmas spirit and a hell of a lot of crazy. I forced myself to get out of bed and to get dressed but all I want to do is sleep and company only makes me feel worse.
I feel guilty that I am such a misery guts and keep thinking about people in far worse situations who maintain a happy spirit. Depression of course is relative and even if I won the lottery tomorrow the low would still remain.
This is apparently I am told a purely chemical imbalance in my make up and the psych encourages me to see it as a broken leg but my leg is fine and pain would be preferable to this haze.
I hope tomorrow will bring happier times.
Day 345 – The clearing of the fog
I am rather undecided upon today’s topic. It would seem that I am finally feeling better but I am scared in case I now go too high or in case I wake tomorrow with the same dread as the past few weeks.
What is so frustrating about this illness is that I do not know what it was that left me feeling brighter today. The world no longer seems like such a bleak place and the feelings of guilt and worthlessness are beginning to clear.
Perhaps it was the long lie in I had this morning, or maybe it was just the joy of not waking up in a hospital bed at a mental health unit or maybe it was the coffee. I do not know but I am just so happy to be feeling better and fingers crossed this is the start of something good.
The tablets seem to have kicked in at last and perhaps this will mean that the powers that be will finally set me free.
I am scared to go to sleep in case I wake up in the haze of the miserable fog unable to think, feel or even to blog.
Day 344 – Counting sheep, praying for sleep
The depression is particularly bad today and though I know it does me no good all I want to do is sleep. I lay in bed feeling the weight of it on my temple listening to the worries whirring round my head. My thoughts are very black and my problems seem so huge that I can focus on nothing else.
The nurses tell me that it is not good to isolate myself, but all I want is to shut my eyes and either never wake up again or wake up well and able to recognise myself in the mirror again.
It is easy to feel isolated and misunderstood when in the depths of the depression. My friends and family have all been brilliant but only those that have been through it can truly understand.
I found a quote today by Spike Milligan about his desire to be put into a deep sleep during his depression. It is horrid to think of someone else suffering in the same way but strangely the quote left me feeling less alone.
“I have got so low that I have asked to be hospitalised and for deep narcosis (sleep). I cannot stand being awake. The pain is too much…
“Something has happened to me, this vital spark has stopped burning – I go to a dinner table now and I don’t say a word, just sit there like a dodo. Normally I am the centre of attention, keep the conversation going – so that is depressing in itself.
“It’s like another person taking over, very strange.”
Depression and How to Survive It, first edition, Spike Milligan and Anthony Clare, 1994.
Day 343 – The worry trap
When I become low, like a lot of people, I fall quickly into a pit of worries over problems that are never as big a deal as they seem. At the moment for example my head is in a spin about money.
The worry will always start out small. I am on sick pay so at first I think about christmas and how I will afford to treat the people I love. Next the worry increases a little to concerns about my shoe budget being hit hard by necessary belt-tightening measures. Before long I am sitting with the worry in the palm of my hand and in the front of my forehead scared out of my mind that I am going to lose my flat and end up on the street.
This worry trap was what happened to me back in October when the depression first kicked in and at the time I read an article which really helped me put things into perspective.
It is not doing me much good at the moment as I am too low to get out of bed let alone clap but hopefully it may help you if you are suffering from a case of the worries yourself.
Here are ten recommended ways of beating the worry trap as reported by Victoria Ling in the December issue of Marie Claire.
1. Go ahead worry – set aside ten minutes every morning and evening just to worry intensely. Enjoy!
2. Not now! When niggling worries creep into your head, clap your hands and say, ‘Not now!’ Wait until your next scheduled ‘worry time’ and then fret all you like.
3. Imagine that… Think of one of your worst fears coming true. Consider how you would feel and the consequences. Now imagine your life a year on and how you ultimately recovered. Nothing is insurmountable.
4. Positive worrying. Think of lovely things to replace worry in your mind. Close your eyes and think about something you’re good at. Say it to yourself for five full minutes.
5. Put it away. Keep an empty bag under the bed. When worries pop into your head at night, write them down and put them in the bag, ready for your next allotted ‘worry time’.
6. Swap ‘I must’ for ‘I want’. Think about the things you must do today and tell yourself that you want to do them, rather than have to (because you really don’t).
7. Thought clouds. Practice emptying your mind. As soon as worries come into your head, place them into fluffy clouds in your mind. When you breathe out, slowly blow the clouds away.
8. So what? When you have an anxiety about the future, ask the question: ‘So what?’ After a succession of these questions, you will discover that you do, in fact, have options for coping with anything.
9. Half-hour holiday. Break up periods of worrying by taking a short ‘mental holiday’. Read a magazine or listen to some happy music. Enjoy that carefree vacation feeling for half an hour.
10. Make a decision. Indecisive? Write down the predicament, followed by your doubts. Now think of ways to reduce these doubts. Give yourself a deadline and make a decision. Get used to thinking within a time frame.
May I suggest that you be wary of doing either the second or the fourth suggestion in a public place. I fear that this may lead to you taking a longer mental holiday than the ninth way would recommend.
