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Author: missgnutmeg

you can’t drink tea without your pinky up

you can’t drink tea without your pinky up

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One of the things that has annoyed me the most in my quest for mental health is all those people who tell me “oh, you can’t have bipolar, your moodswings are too fast.” Really? You’re serious? So I’m going fucking nuts because I can’t control my emotions and react in ways I don’t think I should and feel suicidal or angry or happy for no reason because …why?

Another great one I’ve heard less often was “you have to have the super happy with the depression, otherwise you’re not bipolar.” Wrong! Lies! Many people with bipolar affective disorder experience more of sensation of irritation or annoyance along with their invulnerability, instead of joy. I only get the “happy manic” (cheerful, over chatty, twitchiness, restlessness, unable to focus, even less than my usual no memory) when I’m hypomanic, once it scales up to full mania I’m angry and bitter until I shut down because I can no longer function because my thoughts are racing too quickly.

Wikipedia tells us:

Depressive episode

Signs and symptoms of the depressive phase of bipolar disorder include persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, guilt, anger, isolation, or hopelessness; disturbances in sleep and appetite; fatigue and loss of interest in usually enjoyable activities; problems concentrating; loneliness, self-loathing, apathy or indifference; depersonalization; loss of interest in sexual activity; shyness or social anxiety; irritability, chronic pain (with or without a known cause); lack of motivation; and morbid suicidal ideation. In severe cases, the individual may become psychotic, a condition also known as severe bipolar depression with psychotic features.

Manic episode

Mania is the signature characteristic of bipolar disorder and, depending on its severity, is how the disorder is classified. Mania is generally characterized by a distinct period of an elevated, expansive, or irritable mood state. People commonly experience an increase in energy and a decreased need for sleep. A person’s speech may be pressured, with thoughts experienced as racing. Attention span is low, and a person in a manic state may be easily distracted. Judgment may become impaired, and sufferers may go on spending sprees or engage in behaviour that is quite abnormal for them. They may indulge in substance abuse, particularly alcohol or other depressants, cocaine or other stimulants, or sleeping pills. Their behaviour may become aggressive, intolerant, or intrusive. People may feel out of control or unstoppable. People may feel they have been “chosen” and are “on a special mission” or have other grandiose or delusional ideas. Sexual drive may increase. At more extreme phases of bipolar I, a person in a manic state can begin to experience psychosis, or a break with reality, where thinking is affected along with mood. Many people in a manic state experience severe anxiety and are very irritable (to the point of rage), while others are euphoric and grandiose.

Hypomanic episode

Hypomania is generally a mild to moderate level of mania, characterized by optimism, pressure of speech and activity, and decreased need for sleep. Generally, hypomania does not inhibit functioning like mania. Many people with hypomania are actually in fact more productive than usual. Some people have increased creativity while others demonstrate poor judgment and irritability. Many people experience signature hypersexuality. These persons generally have increased energy and tend to become more active than usual. They do not, however, have delusions or hallucinations. Hypomania can be difficult to diagnose because it may masquerade as mere happiness, though it carries the same risks as mania.

Hypomania may feel good to the person who experiences it. Thus, even when family and friends learn to recognize the mood swings, the individual often will deny that anything is wrong. What might be called a “hypomanic event”, if not accompanied by complementary depressive episodes (“downs”, etc.), is not typically deemed as problematic: The “problem” arises when mood changes are uncontrollable and, more importantly, volatile or “mercurial”. If unaccompanied by depressive counterpart episodes or otherwise general irritability, this behaviour is typically called hyperthymia, or happiness, which is, of course, perfectly normal. Indeed, the most elementary definition of bipolar disorder is an often “violent” or “jarring” state of essentially uncontrollable oscillation between hyperthymia and dysthymia.

Mixed affective episode

In the context of bipolar disorder, a mixed state is a condition during which symptoms of mania and clinical depression occur simultaneously (for example, agitation, anxiety, aggressiveness or belligerence, confusion, fatigue, impulsiveness, insomnia, irritability, morbid and/or suicidal ideation, panic, paranoia, persecutory delusions, pressured speech, racing thoughts, restlessness, and rage).

Right. So where am I in all this? Medicated enough to only get mild symptoms, now. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

a spoonful of medicine to help the sugar go down

a spoonful of medicine to help the sugar go down

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“Did I take my meds?” seems to be the most asked question in my life these days. I can never remember. I often suspect the answer is “no”, though. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard to remember to take 6 little pills that improve my life so much and yet I find it nearly impossible. I mean, the 4 in the morning are easy as I have them all with my tea. It’s the other two.

One of my medications, I’m supposed to take one pill with every meal. But that doesn’t always work out. Especially if I’m busy and end up eating out. Which, sadly, happens a lot when you’re a full-time student. I do always try to keep a couple extra pills on me, in case of need, yet they always seem to end up in my other bag or in my locker that’s out of the way or forgotten at home when I actually need them.

Medication won’t work if you don’t take it correctly. Don’t I want to be sane? To be able to claim to be normal? I don’t know, anymore. Maybe I miss my old normal. Maybe I’d rather be fucked up and broken. It’s easier. Even though it really isn’t very easy at all. Maybe I’m just sick of trying.

It’s not as though anyone really cares. That’s just something you tell yourself so you have a reason to keep faking it through each day. Does it matter to them whether they see you at home or in the hospital? Not terribly. Will they even notice when you’re dead? Not after the first month or so. People just get used to things. It’s not the same as caring.

Will you take me for granted? Because I’m not, and you probably don’t want to find that out the hard way.

tea and sugar pills

tea and sugar pills

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I’ve been sleeping a lot lately. This worries me. I usually don’t sleep for more than 6-7 hours a night. And that’s on normal nights. For the last 2ish years, I’ve had rather severe insomnia. So this is a strange and rather unexpected turn around. My past has mostly only had me sleep as much as I have been (upwards of 14 hours in a day) when I was extremely sick.

At first, I thought that maybe it was just depression, as it is sometimes a symptom that comes with depression (though I usually get the opposite effect). I also wondered if possibly it could be caused by my medication, since both my Lithium and Prozac have “may cause drowsiness” as a side effect. Though drowsiness often does not equal sleep in my life.

I’m not sure what to do about this. I’m not even sure I want to do anything about it.

steeping

steeping

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Often, when I’m down, friends will try to do things to cheer me up. Or they’ll tell me “not to worry so much” or “just smile, it can’t be that bad”. What they just don’t realize is that it’s not that easy. I know it’s hard to rationalize something that you’ve never been through. A lot of people get sad, even really sad, and think they must know what it’s like but depression… it’s really something else. Depression is to sadness what croquembouche is to donuts.

I mean, yes, you do get incredibly sad when you’re depressed but it’s so much more than that. There’s the pain. Actual physical pain that creeps through your muscles until you don’t want to move. You can lose your appetite completely, or else your mood can so effect your stomach that you just throw up anything you do try to eat. (I usually get both together.) You lose all interest in everything – and I do mean everything – sometimes to the point where you’ll spend days curled up in bed not even willing to sleep just staring at the wall doing nothing. At least, that’s been my experience.

And the self-loathing! Gods, it’s horrid. Then again, I don’t find that ever goes away, but we’ll discuss both mania and self-loathing properly later on. Suffice it to say, you see yourself as the most disgusting creature on the planet and nothing anyone else says or does makes it go away. In fact, often the people who try to encourage you while you’re depressed make you feel worse, you convince yourself they’re just saying those things to be nice and that they don’t really mean them at all. You start to question yourself and everyone around you. You don’t trust anyone. You become paranoid and/or anxious. Not only do you believe that everyone is out to get you, but you convince yourself that it’s exactly what you deserve. Or you convince yourself that no one’s out to get you because you’re not even worth destroying to anyone.

The mind is a fucked up place.

but where’s the muffins?

but where’s the muffins?

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One of the things that they don’t really mention (or, at least, I wasn’t told about) when you’re diagnosed as bipolar is what other sort of symptoms to watch for. The ones that always particularly catch me off guard are the OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) like ones. Again and again they’ve thrown me for a loop.

This tends to lead to things like shopping sprees where I can’t say no to anything. (“I’ve touched it, I have to buy it!”, “It’s about food/dinosaurs/etc, I have to buy it!”) Cleaning sprees where things end up alphabetized or sorted by genre or colour, etc. when they’re already sorted. My hands need to be constantly clean, even if the rest of me is covered in dirt I don’t mind it if my hands are clean. Or (the one I find funniest when not going through it) I absolutely need to brush my teeth and can’t stop talking about it until I’ve done so. Each on it’s own may seem like a silly little twitch that anyone might have, but when you realize I do this sort of thing all the time, it becomes concerning. Especially, I feel, the financial stuff. I have trouble with money because although I’m quite frugal when in my right mind, I honestly have no control over how much I buy when I’m not. The amount I buy sometimes honestly scares even me.

I have adopted some coping strategies for things like this. One is to not let myself out when I feel the compulsive shopper coming out in me. Of course, as soon as I restrain myself to the house people start to accuse me of being depressed. Another thing I sometimes do is to only allow myself into certain stores when I get this urge – dollar store, for instance. That way even by buying a lot (to curb that urge) I’m not spending all that much. Overall, though, it’s still a huge problem for me. It’s what I’m working hardest to curb right now.

For the hand washing and tooth brushing? I just give in, as soon as is reasonable. I really doubt there’s such a thing as too much cleanliness.

There is a part of obsession which is truly unhealthy, though, and I wish I knew how to stop it. I go through this cycle where one person will become my obsession, usually a close friend or lover. This poor person becomes everything to me, and I hold them to such expectations as are humanly impossible for them to live up to. This is especially true as I always manage to pick some person that I know has some of history of failure or cheating or otherwise unloyal but seem to want to leave that past behind them – someone a reasonable person could see would hurt them if they let too close. Anyway, I let this person become the center of my world, depending on them for more than I depend on 6 other people for. Trusting them with things I can’t even trust myself with.

I absolutely love this person whenever I’m depressed and think they’re decent when I’m normal but always despise them when I’m manic. This is where it gets destructive. Because of this hatred towards this person, I either will push them out with flashes of anger or else set things up so they’ll have push me out and I can play the victim. I did this to a good friend just this summer. She’s the fourth or fifth in the last 10 years.

And I have discovered in myself quite the tendancy to want to play the victim. I’m not sure why. I suspect it might be to give reason to the depression. I don’t want to be in that much pain for no reason, so I find reasons. That’s the best I can come up with.

The fabulous singer Emilie Autumn came up with the term “Opheliac” to describe the sort of person that purposely seeks out their own destruction. I know I’m very much that type. I’ve had medium to strong suicidal urges since I was about 14-15. I’ve enough scars on my body to terrify just about anyone. I bruise myself in my sleep.

It’s getting better, of course, now that I’m on meds. But it’s not gone. I fear for my next victim and pray it won’t be you.

and what has it got in its pocket?

and what has it got in its pocket?

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Went to see Dr. A today. Told him I’ve been really down the past couple weeks. He’s decided to try increasing my Prozac, though we’re pretty happy with my lithium as is.

I didn’t bother to tell him that I’ve been cutting again. Really? What’s he going to do about it?

He thinks all the transitions going on right now in my life probably aren’t helping me. I think he might be correct. Much as I love changes and such, I think camp/moving/returning to school all at once was a bit much on me. Especially since this summer was so stressful too; what with two camps, losing a friend, and trying to balance out my lithium.

On the plus side, I only have to get blood work done every six weeks instead of every four!

setting the table

setting the table

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When I was a little girl, I always thought I’d die by 18. It wasn’t just a “oh, I’m not going to grow up” like most kids get, no, I was certain I’d be dead. As it turns out, instead, I was diagnosed (for the first time) as being bipolar at 18. In some ways, I guess you could say that little girl I was died. But maybe that’s just reading too far into things.

The doctor I had at the time wasn’t a great doctor. He shoved me on some antidepressants (which didn’t work) and just kept trying to put me on more if I complained about anything at all, healthwise. It wasn’t fun. I stopped seeing that doctor, and dealt with things on my own for a long long time.

Now, finally, I’m seeing a doctor again, trying to get treatment, trying to find a psychiatrist and it has not been a fun trip. I suspect that the worst of it is over, but I don’t really know. This summer was the worst of my life. The year before probably one of the worst chunks of my life. Now, I’m slowly getting better.

This blog is going to be me documenting my journey back to health. There will, of course, be some entries that are flashbacks, some that are explanations of manic depression and all it’s fantastic effects it can have on the body, and some that are me talking about how a poor mad girl like me is treated in the real world.

I’ve spent most of the past ten years hiding my disease. It has been my decision that in order to better cope with it, that I have to be open about it and let people see exactly what it does to me. I’m sick of losing friends because of being in a state and doing something beyond my control but pretending I chose it because I hadn’t been willing to admit my sickness. I’m sick of pretending to be something I’m not every single day of my life.

So now, meet nutmeg, as blunt and honest as you can expect someone who’s spent their entire adult life lying to want to be. I will say things that are going to be painful, I will say things that are going to make you feel sick, I will say things that will make you wonder what’s wrong with me.

…I’m mad. That’s all it is. Now find your favourite cup and fill it with your favourite tea. We’re about to begin.