Manic Depression, the story of my life in two simple words,
they are polar opposites yet co-exist together making one hell of a mess and
leaving mayhem in its wake. It is hard
to explain to anyone the extent of which this illness reaches, but I will do my
best to tell you, from my experience.
It was three months before my 30th birthday when
I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (Manic Depression), at first it merely
explained why I was acting the way I was.
One minute I was ready to jump off the bridge and the next I was
cleaning the house from top to bottom in two hours. There was no middle ground, and I had no idea,
which part of me was going to show up when, I was lost and confused. After three weeks in the hospital, I was sent
home with medication and a therapist, but nothing to prepare me for what was to
come, the new life I was about to face how
to deal with it.
To explain the brain of a Manic Depressive is difficult,
I struggle to find the right words to come close to an analogy, but what comes
to mind is a train. Imagine a train
going 60 miles per hour down the tracks and suddenly slam on the brakes hitting
a brick wall, everything stops and the wall crumbles to the ground. Somehow, the engine of the train is still
running, though everything is in a heap on the ground incapable of moving. This is the feeling we get, a body unable to
move and a mind that does not have the ability to stop and wants to keep
moving. The combination does not work well,
and it takes time, far too much time, to figure out the correct way to deal
with it.
Medication is a tricky business with this illness, to find
the right combination is a game of chance and delicate adjustment. We begin with a mood stabilizer, with any
luck this will keep the brain pretty balanced; then we add the anti-depressant,
and this is where it gets difficult. The
anti-depressant should, while working with the mood-stabilizer keep things stable,
but for some, the anti-depressant if not given at the right dosage will bring
on a manic episode. Are you confused yet,
yeah, me too.
Therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists, these people
are an interesting breed, for lack of a better word. I have had the worse and the best; I am currently
in the best category after many years of searching and becoming
frustrated. Without my current doctor’s
I would not be where I am now. That said,
I have seen some who are merely interested in their insurance money, there were
one or two who I felt more like I was their therapist and then, my favorite by
far, was the one who lectured me that if I just changed my way of thinking,
everything would be perfect.
The most important thing that I have learned over my 18 year
journey with Bipolar Disorder is no matter what medication you take or don’t take,
whether you spend time in the hospital and have the best doctors around, what
we really need is people. Without family
and friends who care and will be there when the days get hard, and we make
stupid mistakes we have nothing. The
stigma that surrounds any mental illness is what strengthens the silence of
those who live with it and keeps those we need the most away from us.
No comments:
Post a Comment