A while back a drunken colleague informed me that his life had been way worse than mine. I let it pass. Who’s to judge? And anyway, up until that point, I hadn’t considered my life to have been that bad.
Then I thought about it.
Not that bad?
I suffered the humiliations of undiagnosed bipolar disorder, thinking all the while that my manic bursts were a personality flaw, proof that I couldn’t control myself.
Plunging into sudden, unbearable depressions which went undiagnosed (and untreated) for years.
Misdiagnosed bipolar disorder. A head so full of horror that self-injury was a parasuicidal act; a desperate measure that saved my life.
The craziness got so bad that I tried to drown it with alcohol, that failing cut myself to the bone. JUST TO MAKE IT STOP
I have had so many sutures I lost count. I have been sutured without anaesthetic to ‘teach me a lesson’. I have been called an attention seeker and made to wait in the A&E for up to 10hrs whilst they dealt with all the ‘genuine’ patients (in one case I lost so much blood whilst in the waiting room they had to ‘waste’ an infusion on me).
I have kept my weight low enough for long enough to not have periods. I have osteoporosis.
I have had on/off anorexia for years and been hospitalised for it. At a BMI of 18 I am desperately uncomfortable in my own body. At 17 I still feel fat. At 16 I feel fat and weak. At 15 I get suicidal but can still squeeze the fat on my sides and thighs.
I have spent one and a half of the last ten years in hospital.
I have been sectioned.
I have near-drowned in the guilt of what this all does to my kind and wonderful parents.
I have been repeatedly told to ‘tone down’ my behaviour at, before, or after social functions.
I shovel down tablets in an attempt to keep myself in check. Sometimes I miss one by mistake and that’s enough for my mind to shoot up and away like a firework. Sometimes I take all my tablets when I’m supposed to and I still get miserable or high. Usually, I am told this is because I didn’t take all my tablets when I was supposed to.
I spend the larger part of my life high on adrenaline, in fear of doing or saying something I shouldn’t. The anxiety is blended with shame at those things I have done, or perceive myself to have done.
Consequently the smallest reprimand is a hurricane blow. I know, I KNOW! I did it all wrong, I’m a bad person…
There are moments of joy. And they are sweeter for the fact that they have bubbled up through all the chaos. The late afternoon sunlight striking a tumbling leaf; a day spent with a loved one. A view of the sea as the tide comes in. A view of the sea as the tide goes out.
And yes, the hypomania can be sweet too. Or too sweet. The mind briefly more focused. The world more agreeable. The wit tripping blithely off the tongue. But that, unlike the memories of the pure sweet, un-mania-tainted days, is fleeting. There is no normalcy after hypomania. Either it climbs into the dizzying, crazy, wonderful, terrifying heights of mania or plunges into the depths of despair (made worse by the shaming memories of acts committed under the influence).
My colleague and I are both under 30. His life stretches into the future with promise. Mine? I will spend the rest of my life battling a disease, the horrors of which are incomprehensible to others. I know what lies ahead.
But I have made it this far.