Brave New World

I have bipolar disorder. I have seen where some on Blogger use their personal blogs as an outlet for the anger, frustration, ennui, learning and grace that comes as a part of living with a disease that colors all input from the world, and every thought we think. My docs have of course suggested to me that I journal, as this is supposed to be a relative gauge of our own reactions to day-to-day living, and therefore, I am choosing Blogger as my journal. In the process, I hope to be able to share some of the things that I have learned, and make this something of a forum for others to talk and share as well.

I have lived with this, as far as I can tell, for almost a decade now. It's not all been difficult, but it's always been a trial. I'd like to share my history to give my background:

For reasons I shall not go into, I suffered a particularly difficult time my sophomore year of college. I left that college at the end of that academic term, having displaced my anger and paranoia on the location, the people I knew, etc. and somehow figured that by leaving this *place* behind, I could leave those feelings behind.

Within a year, I had a terrible fear of my new bedroom. I couldn't sleep in there at night, I was actually afraid of the ceiling, or perhaps what was above or within it. I interpreted this as stress. I was working full-time, going to school full-time, and working out regularly. Making good grades and good sales, I was nonetheless pretty bleak as a person. I spent my free time reading and drinking, primarily. I felt trapped, I had an urge to run, but I had nowhere to go to, nor did I understand where these feelings came from.

I was sitting in my car before work one morning, when I heard a commercial on the radio for a clinical trial for a new depression medication. As I listened to them list off the symptoms, I thought to myself, Thank God! There's a reason for this! I enrolled in the trial knowing it was the only way I had to put myself into treatment for something like this without my family knowing (I was young enough that I was still on my father's insurance). Thus began a long and inglorious trek into pharmacopeia.

I spent the next few years trying and failing to take my meds, to see the docs as they wanted to see me, and basically and firmly believing that I could handle this. I would get to feeling better, then super better, then godlike, and I'd stop the meds. They made me fat, slow, pimply, sexless, and made me feel sorry for myself. When I felt good, I'd quit and enjoy my life immensely and without worry for a while, only to plummet (seemingly without reason) again. A more thorough investigation of my medical history and such led one inspired doc to reason that perhaps this was more than depression, and declared me bipolar.

The only way I know how to take charge in a situation where I'm very clearly over my head is to learn. To use what's left of my mind. I read what I could find about BP disorder and realized that I agree with my doctor this time, this seemed more like what I had been through.

It took another few years of trial and error, therapy and much hair-pulling to get me to where I am now. Moreover, it took me a long long time to come to terms with the fact that I will likely have to take these meds the rest of my life. An alcoholic is always an alcoholic, and I will always be bipolar.

I am not angry anymore, but I was for a long time. Why did I earn this honor? What contest did I win? Which deity did I piss off, this time?

I have left out the deluge of emotion that each stage of this process carried, and basically made short work of the last ten years of my life above, but I only wanted at this point to introduce myself. While I have come to terms with this for myself, I haven't yet grown comfortable with telling the people around me what it "is" with me from time to time, I tell them I'm ovulating, or that I had a cruddy night's sleep, and hide the fact that there is a demon in my head that wakes up every now and again.

I will write more later, when I feel a little braver.

AA