Safe Areas, How Moving Impacts Bipolar Life

Moving day is almost upon me, tomorrow I’m out of my co-op, my old home. I’ve already started to look forward to the new place, but moving is rough. It’s rough on a lot of people, but I think that it’s a little rougher on people with bipolar. But it may just be me.

The thing that makes it rough is that I’ve settled in and have my quiet spots. When I’m manic or depressed, I have my own little space that I can retreat to. Now that space is gone. I don’t have it any more. I haven’t had a very good one since I was evicted over discrimination of my diagnosis. But I still had a small enclave in my bedroom that I could safely retreat to. These spots are important psychologically since they provide an area where people cannot intrude and whatever I do, I’m not going to be watched, judged, or interrupted. Moving takes all these spots away from me.

It’s a problem that I’ve faced at other times. When I go home to my parents, there’s no place that I can retreat to when I feel my moods changing. I’m very private about my mood swings. I live with my girlfriend and she’s only seen me rapid cycle a few times. For me, my natural response when I have these swings is to hide, they’re embarrassing since I’m all out of sorts and I feel even more vulnerable during these times regardless of whether I’m swinging up or down.

These areas also entrench me in a geographic area. It’s literally an area where I don’t have any intrusions of any sort. It’s almost a sacred space. I read in them, watch tv, laugh, cry; any emotion where I’m feeling a little out of sorts will cause me to go to these areas. I have only one outside of the house, it’s semi-public, but in the summer it’s nearly always vacated. Still, when I see someone else in there, I start to panic in a mild sense. It’s like someone is intruding into my life when these areas are violated, and I actually mean that it feels like I’m being violated. And the thought of a stranger living where I have these spots is very unnerving. Despite being gone, there’s still someone there who doesn’t have the holy respect for it that I did. And it makes my personal space shrink to just a few feet around me to the point that right now I have mild claustrophobia despite sitting in a relatively large room.

If you live with someone who is bipolar or any other mental illness, and they seem to have certain areas that they like to settle in to at all times. It might be a conscious or unconscious safe area for them. If you see these behaviors, try to respect the areas. Even if they’re not around, just have that area labeled as X’s area and leave it at that. It doesn’t have to be a big area, for me it’s one of my really ugly chairs that I have to take with me. It’s important to have these little safe areas to associate with calmness and have it bring me down from anything that’s bothering me. And I have a sense that this is probably true for other people too.

One week left before eviction

As of yesterday, there is one week left before I have to move out of my house. I’m not looking forward to this move at all. The place I got I rushed into since I was in a complete panic at that point. There are only so many apartments in the campus area available around this time, and they’re usually pretty crappy. Overall, the place was a steal because of it including all utilities, which would knock off about $100 a month. But I’m still anxious about the move. I’ve been living at the co-op for longer than all but 1 other member out of 27. I was entrusted with a great deal of knowledge about what works and what doesn’t work at the co-op. So in moving out, I feel like a lot of time has been wasted over the past few years.

I’ve also begun the process of expanding my anxiety to the entire co-op even though I’ve tried to stop it. When I usually have a traumatic event, I have difficulty with the general area around the place that it happened. And this time it happened where I live. I barely feel comfortable in my own room. Most of the time I spend is at a chapel near by that has a student center in it. There I can relax, eat some snacks, and not worry about bumping into people. I don’t think that most people realize that springing things on people who have anxiety issues is a far more traumatizing event than for people who don’t struggle with anxiety. The effects of trauma don’t go away, they linger and consume one’s mind. For me, it’s so strong now that even though I wanted to stay before, I no longer do. Just because I have associated so much anxiety with this place.

Although, thanks to abilify, I’ve bounced back at least some in terms of mood. I don’t harbor a terrible amount of resentment against some of the people who voted against me. Others I just want to go away for ruining another part of my life. I don’t think abilify is going to change that. The good news is that I’ve developed a much better relationship with my parents out of all of this. Now they’ve seen me in my chaotic moods and known what has happened that made me disappear for several months. I’ve had to visit them more because my old house is almost a safe haven now. It’s not perfect, my parents still don’t know how to really respond or interact with my diagnosis, but it’s better as a result of getting kicked out to the curb. So at least some good has come of all of this drama.

But in some other ways this has been good, including the past semesters where I struggled with depression and anxiety. One day I hope to obtain a decent position in a university as a professor. Seeing these events unfold and seeing how it impacts my life will definitely make me a more empathetic individual. It reminds me of one of my math professors who encouraged me two semesters ago, when I was depressed, to simply drop the class and not worry. He too had a meltdown, but it was in grad school. His daughter also had one. For me, seeing someone survive and get a good position is something that was very encouraging. And here I am, after what can only be described as the worst year of my life with dealing with a girlfriend who tried to commit suicide, being failed by a professor who was not empathetic, having surgery, 3 bad drug interactions in 6 months, 2 suicidal episodes, erratic mood cycles every few days, finishing 3 classes during all of this, and eviction; I’m still standing. Life can get really rough sometimes, but it can be endured.

Should I or Shouldn’t I Tell People I’m Bipolar

I’m always at a dilemma of whether or not I should tell people that I’m bipolar.

The reasons for telling them is that to educated people, it offers an explanation of my erratic nature. The fact that I cycle frequently really lends itself to not being the most stable of people. Thus, when I disappear for a few days, or take a while to get back to them, or seem really energetic, they can take it in stride as it’s just “being James.” I’ve definitely found that telling my teachers that I’m bipolar is crucial to them understanding what is going on when I have difficulty with class. Working through an anonymous system that doesn’t tell them what’s going on is, I feel, unfairly leaving them in the dark. Though, it needs to be that way to allow the individual to control the information about themselves. Teachers are often supportive too and it seems like some even view it as a learning experience for their own careers. So I have little problem telling them. Also, if the individual I know has experienced some fairly traumatic events or has some mood disorders themselves, it’s almost a bonding experience to share such intimate information with them. So essentially, if I know that the individual that I’m telling it to is educated, mature, and sensitive, I have no problem telling them that I’m bipolar. In fact, it feels good since I can tell them that I’m having one of my days and they’ll understand, and I can lean on them for support at times.

However, there’s a lot of bad times to tell people. There’s a strong stigma attached to being mentally ill in any way. I’ve recently experienced it with being evicted over being bipolar in a roundabout way to cover their asses from any guilt. I’m still bitter about it since I’ve lived in that co op for 2 years, all while bipolar. It’s also difficult to tell even casual friends since it leads to, I feel, a second guessing of every action I take. Any lack of understanding about the illness can lead to bizarre tensions and a lot of misunderstandings. Plus, it can be very awkward to bring them into such an environment, it can put pressure on them to need to support you, even if you don’t really want it. It also leads to a lot of pity. Pity is something I hate, even sympathy is something I don’t really care for since I neither want it nor does it do me any good. In fact, both make me feel even more abnormal since it’s given from a stance that I’m something to be pitied. I had a hard time telling my parents that I’m bipolar since I didn’t want to become that son that had a mental problem.

So over all, the only people I tell are people who I am absolutely positively sure that will understand or want to understand, or people who are in a position of authority that I need to explain my actions to. This is a very limited cross section of the general population, which makes it rather lonely to have this diagnosis. I also try to only tell people in a one on one session when it really turns to personal experience. I don’t like to casually drop it unless that person is really asking me about how it is going. It’s almost rude to respond to light hearted conversation with something so intimate about your life. It’s also not good to break social conventions in such a way since it really sets it up that I’m labeled as bipolar, rather than just being bipolar. I’d rather people understand my erratic actions as part of my normal course of things than everything I do falling under the label of my diagnosis.

The only time that I can see myself really broadcasting (and by broadcasting I really mean talking to people one on one) that I’m bipolar is after I’ve had a successful run at things. Where people can see that I’m capable, able, and successful, and I’m bipolar. Something where they can attach something positive to my diagnosis rather than any random stigma that might be floating around. I also think that this is a good thing for many people to do since we must break the stigma some how. To show to people that we are creative, fun, energetic individuals who also have a human side that can nearly crush us.

So I guess I can say that I err on the side of being shy, but proud. Where I try to take advantage of successes to help people discover more about mental illness, but in every day life, I’m only going to share it with people I really have to. I’m not sure how other people do it, but that’s how I see who and when I should tell people that I’m bipolar.

We judge on actions, not the illness

I’m currently sitting in a chair waiting to see if I’m going to be evicted for lacking in duties while I was severely depressed. One phrase kept cropping up “we’re judging you on your actions, not on whether you’re mentally ill.” I’m personally baffled at this kind of statement. You do not have a mental illness if it is truly all in your head, it has physical manifestations as well. That is why it is so destructive to people’s lives, it manifests itself in behavior. To judge the behavior is to judge the manifestation of the mental illness. One cannot separate the two into “bipolar” and “bipolar actions” without ignoring the direct link between the two. To see this see that it is impossible to say to someone that you’re fine with them being bipolar, but you cannot stand the behavior of bipolar people. It’s like saying “it’s ok to be bipolar, but it’s not ok to act bipolary.” The crucial problem is that we cannot help it. If I could stop acting on what goes on inside my head, then I would do it in a flash. But that’s why I take medications, that’s why I do cognitive-behavioral therapy, to try to stop it. However, this is not perfect. And it frustrates the hell out of me to think that people think that it is perfect and solvable in just a matter of months. I don’t know, this is a rant, but I cannot believe that the people I’ve lived with would be so ignorant about this.

Discrimination and Bipolar

I’m writing this while mildly inebriated off of klonopin, a new drug for me since I usually take xanax. The back story will give the reasons why.

I went on vacation this weekend, my moods had been out of sorts, my girlfriend’s mother had her birthday, and I figured that I’d also meet the folks. Being in Cedarburg, I had limited internet access, but saturday night I received a quick message: there was an agenda item about my at my co-op. I was rather irritated since I wasn’t going to be there, and I asked if it would be postponed. It was, until sunday, when I got another email saying that they were going ahead with the meeting. I asked what it was about, no mention, just that it’s about “negativity” in the house. Ok, cool, I’d rather be there if I am mentioned, but if it’s just abstract discussion then I’m relatively ok with it.

I come back on sunday after the meeting has taken place. They’ve decided to try to evict me. It sent me into a tailspin of anxiety and depression that left me at the hospital under suicide watch because of how bad it was. What’s worse, is that they won’t tell me why they’re trying to evict me, just that I am. After reading over the notes, I discovered that most of it is due to me not doing things in two time zones, one occurred in may and the other was june. In may I had a catastrophic reaction to seroquel, I ended up having itunes communicating secret messages to me. Doing things while under that kind of influence tends to be difficult and heavily embarrassing, I had to postpone make up work on my classes by a month. Then during June, I had a surgery on my back and was not able to walk for about 3 weeks all while experiencing what can only be described as a chronic concussion. These were not considered as acceptable excuses, instead as something for me to hide behind under the threat of law suit.

But other issues were brought up, particularly my usual appearance-disappearance behavior that is linked to my mood swings. The only way that I’ve discovered that I can cope with bipolar is to have a lot of me time. So some weeks things would slide, then the next week I would make up for it in some other way. It’s a little ad hoc, but most of my life is ad hoc at this moment.

Still, there is a movement among the other members of the house to kick me out for these behaviors. Their reasoning comes down to the idea that you can have a mental illness, so long as it doesn’t effect your ability to do things. Personally, I don’t know of a mental illness with these traits. I just feel depressed and alone when I hear misunderstandings like that.

Even more worrisome than just the fact that I might be evicted do to a misunderstanding about mental illness is the fact that it is even an option in people’s minds. As an atheist, I find that there’s a lot of discrimination in public areas, but there’s a growing acceptance. And let’s face it, we have pretty good laws protecting eviction due to religious beliefs. Here at my co-op, we have christians and atheists living together in the house, at no time would we evict either one because those beliefs interfere with their lives in the co-op. Especially if it was a religious observance.

Instead, because I have a mental illness, I’m cast (their words and not mine) as untrustworthy and a liar and lazy. Most of these ideas stem from the ad hoc nature of my life where I may say that I can do something given some time, and then a mood swing knocks me on my ass. While it might be frustrating to them to have to wait a day or two longer, it’s equally frustrating to me to be humiliated in being unable to achieve a simple task on time. And it’s frustrating as hell to think that I can be discriminated against and possibly evicted over something that I literally cannot control but am actively attempting to control. Nobody’s perfect, we all have slip ups, and in my case, slip ups will be a common experience in my life, but I can still get the majority of things done, and when manic even more.

However, it’s frustrating to explain this to people, and then have the common line that I’ve heard dozens of times that “maybe you just shouldn’t do x in the first place” be it living with other people, having kids, going to grad school etc… Who gets to have the right to decide what I can and cannot do? What sort of patriarchal sensibility says that others know best about my unique diagnosis and life? The discrimination that is occurring is not just the opposite of empathetic, but it’s a casual assumption that being mentally ill, I cannot make proper decisions for myself. And in order to rid themselves of the discomfort of my minor disappearances, they can legitimize it in thinking “well, this is better for you.” It’s a discrimination that is both condescending and self centered. But they’ll have to face reality, at some point in your life, you’ll have to live with, work with, or know someone with mental illness. We’re not going anywhere. The line of reasoning above is just an excuse to brush it away so that it doesn’t have to be encountered in any substantial form and people can go on with their merry little lives.

As a form of discrimination, mental illness is pervasive as ever and easily excusable. It’s so pervasive that I can live in a house that prides itself on serving every member of the community, except for the crazies. And it adds another fold to what it is like to live with this diagnosis, that people are not only afraid of me, but that I can actually be evicted because of my condition. This is an injustice that I’ve rarely heard from other groups, but I’ve now seen 3 times in the past 6 months. We, the mentally ill, need a stonewall of our own where one day we won’t take it any more and demand our rights. But of course, then we’d just be dismissed as literally the lunatic fringe. Right now, I live in a world of catch-22, and I’ve never experienced hopelessness quite like it.