I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness) with depressive episodes and concurrent anxiety at the age of 41. Yes, 41. Normally, people are diagnosed in their teens and early twenties, and working with my therapist and psychiatrist I showed signs of cyclothymia (what I termed baby bipolar) in my teens, but it went unnoticed. I had the weight gain, the insomnia, and the lonliness and low self esteem in middle and high school. In my junior and senior year of college, I added the pulled away from friends save for my fiance (now husband and rock), concentration problems, insomnia, and overreacting. And none of it had a cause that anyone could find- “hormones” and “stress” was what it was called.
Looking back with my therapist and psychiatrist, I had anxiety since elementary school, and minor depressive episodes since high school. But I kept them to myself because my family didn’t talk about those things- feelings were best kept hidden save for the happy ones. No one talked about anything sad, or angry, or negative, because those were the bad feelings, and those were best dealt with by yourself. I never had a huge group of friends until college, just a few here and there, and none that I could really call a best friend. I would take piano lessons but would get performance anxiety so bad I would throw up beforehand, but would have to go through with the performance. Group band concerts were fine because I was with a crowd, but any solos were extreme hard.
My manic episodes weren’t and still aren’t the typical manic that you think of or see in the media. I stay up all day and night for days on end, and am really productive until I can’t do anything physically anymore and drop- cleaning the house, writing in my journals, reading, getting outside. I’m exhausted, but the episodes can last for a while, even though I’m on medication for the insomnia and the bipolar disorder.
On the positive, the episodes are fewer and farther in popping up, due to the current cocktail of medications that I’m on. I’m hopeful that eventually I will get relatively stable, although I realize that I will never be completely without the specter of symptoms cropping up in my life. I’m working on avoiding and reducing triggers and working on how to cope when episode occur but it is so hard because so many things right now are out of my control. How do you reduce stress, or avoid family members? How do you avoid crowds when you need to go outside? How do you control panic attacks?
There are so many things I struggle with on a daily basis, and the thing that drags me down is that I remember not being this bad. I used to be able to work full time. I used to be able to go outside and not worry that I can’t handle a giant to-do list. I used to be able to handle crowds. I used to be able to handle the drama of family without issue. Now I can’t do any of those things.
And that adds to the struggle.
