The Life of Manic Depression
Manic depression (bipolar is the clinical term) is often misunderstood or at the very least, most people do not know what it is like to live with it on a daily basis. So in addition to my usual blog, I thought I’d provide a short summary of what I go through on a daily basis.
Drugs: Abilify 10mg and Lamictal 200mg daily. Klonopin and Xanax as needed for panic attacks, mixed states, and general anxiety.
At least once a day I log my energy levels along with emotions along a multi axis questionnaire to track my moods. I pay careful attention to my physical sensations, my mental changes, interactions, how much I use my cellphone, tv watching, every activity is scrutinized to track what mood I am in so that I can plan accordingly. I use my mood journal to plan long term tasks so that I can maximize my productivity. It is a part time job that consumes at least 10 hours of my life every week just to keep track of all the things that can impact my cycle.
What does it feel like to be manic? It means that I have tons of energy. Sometimes it’s so powerful that I shake. It’s like pouring a pot of coffee into me on an empty stomach. I don’t sleep as much, I have racing thoughts, and sometimes quite a bit of anxiety. But I’m also creative, really creative. Most of my ideas are a bust, as all ideas are, but sometimes a few stick fairly well. It has led me to some novel ideas in philosophy because mania allows me to be unabashed in my analysis. I’m also incredibly friendly and outgoing, I’ll be your best friend and buy you lunch no matter what. However, it can also make me erratic, so sometimes I don’t always follow through. It’s like a thousand thoughts racing through my head, and every one says “do this” in the loudest possible voice. So sometimes I become trapped in doing 3 things at once and cannot decide which one to do next.
But it can be destructive. It leads to drug abuse, spending copious amounts of money, sometimes makes me disappear in some random journey that I just thought of 5 minutes ago and decided to do. It’s made me lose jobs even.
What it is not. It is not violent in any way. I will not harm you. It’s not scary for you, it’s like having an energetic friend around who will try to amuse you at every chance.
Depression is the opposite of mania. Activities do not have a voice saying “do this.” Instead, I think about what I should do, but I have no motivation. I sit, stare, sulk, cry, sleep constantly. And there is no way to snap out of it. No matter how much cajoling I may receive from others, there is nothing that can be said to make it better. There is no will power left to make me get better. I just have to wait until my mood cycles again to get better.
Paranoia. It’s a frightening word. But it’s not frightening for you except for the realization that someone is no longer in touch with reality. But really, it should be only frightening to me. Being paranoid, I think people are watching me, I see things out of the corner of my eye moving. It feels as though I’m surrounding by a thousand judging eyes. Paranoia does not mean that I will hurt anyone or even threaten someone or do anything towards another person. It’s only fear that something terrible is happening and makes me want to curl up and die in order to escape. It’s often the most misunderstood part of me because it conjures up scary images of people in tinfoil hats yelling at people. It’s not like that at all. It’s just scary for me.
I used to have a fair amount of paranoia, I didn’t realize it at the time. But now that it’s gone due to the help of abilify, I realize that there was a lot of it. It never hurt anyone, it was just a presence of thoughts that didn’t accord with reality. It’s delusional, but manic depressive delusions don’t really hurt anyone but the individual that has them.
And then there’s me normal. This doesn’t happen much. I rapid cycle pretty fast. I used to have a 6 day cycle, so every 6 days I’d be manic, and then depressed. Now it’s longer, at about 11 days, which is huge in terms of successes for me. And the edges are taken off by my medications. But I still practice mindfulness techniques every day and have to monitor every last sensation so that I can keep this cycle going. No more alcohol (I used to be an alcoholic), a nicotine addition, caffeine to self medicate depression. I employ every method I can find that works to control my moods. It’s exhausting at times.
So if you know someone who is manic depressive, they struggle a lot everyday to try to make themselves functional so they don’t burden your life and to get better. It’s rough, I fail, others do too, but everyone I’ve known who has it tries everyday to get better. And it sticks with us for the rest of our lives. It can be positive, it can also be negative. It’s debilitating and an illness that one must cope with. But it’s not different than any physical illness or disability where one encounters their limits every day and has to put careful thought into every action they do.
I would just like to say that I am so grateful to be able to read such beautiful, articulate posts about this illness. I am diagnosed Bipolar II, and have been for almost 2 years. Before that, it was there, of course. The more of us who will talk about it, the better.
Thank you for those kind words. I rarely consider myself a beautiful or articulate writer, I just write what is in my head, which is sometimes gobbledy gook. And this was just how it is to go through life for me. I’m high functioning, but most people just see the facade and not the underlying effort it takes to appear normal for a few hours every day. So I thought I ought to share with possible readers what it’s like to live a high functioning life.
Thank you for your post. I am learning to live with my bipolar disorder and it seemed like you just read my mind. It’s good to know that I’m not alone in my crazy thoughts.
“Sometimes it’s so powerful that I shake”
Yes, my hypo-mania is like that. Much like you, I am usually high energy. But I’m pretty ‘mood-stable’. Several years ago, I was recovering from knee surgery in a hell hole of a nursing home. I was screaming, screaming, screaming. I have another friend, a shrink, who came to the hospital and read the riot act to the nurses. Thank God, cause they would have put me on a hold.
But, my point, which I’m losing in my exuberance, is that I ‘itch’. I ‘itch’, you shake. Huh! I never knew another person who had a similar as we.
Anyway, I look forward to sharing with you.
My ‘exuberance’ made me lose the point. I was in the nursing home for six weeks. Flat on my back, as I said, because I’m paralyzed. Six weeks, no one to talk to ’cause I was the only ambulatory person there, there was no stimulation. Ultimately, I went a little crazy. That was my most recent, and poignant, experience of depression!
That sounds horrible! I couldn’t last that long with no one to talk to. I need people around me to talk to, even if it is only for a brief period of time.
Very well written. You expressed the essence of it. I am glad you included the part about not bring violent, about it not being scary for – the other person. Is it not so hard to be on the up and feel that energy and the creativeness – to be productive and then within possibly a matter of hours your are exactly the opposite? Exuberance is a word I use often in the up, and I don’t have one like it for the down. It is just the darkness, and I fear the dark more than any other thing. I have taken a humorous, round about way to bring the reality of this illness to the attention of those that will never truly understand it, and you have done, are doing an excellent job in telling it realistically. We have come a long way from the days when they thought the best treatment was a lobotomy don’t you think?
Peace. I always say this as a closing it’s half of the thought. Peace and balance, a middle ground. It is my hope you may find it.
Thanks for sharing this honest account of your illness. I have a diagnosis of Schizoaffective disorder (schizophrenia with a bipolar element) and I know how hard it can be taking the associated meds and having the ups and downs of unusual emotional states. I am very interested in philosophy and have a blog at http://perfectchaos.org/ if you’re interested. I’m planning on blogging more about schizophrenia and psychosis in the future. I’m now following your blog and will look forward to reading more from you. Best wishes, Steven
I took a peek at your site and I like it. Right now I’m struggling just to keep up with posting here. After that I’ll start to reenter the reading side of things. Small steps right now in getting the things I want done, done.
As for Schizoaffective disorder, that’s been tossed around before for me. Particularly because it isn’t exactly clear that my first psychotic episode happened while in any mood state. The other problem is that I can switch moods insanely fast, as in a couple of minutes, so it’s hard to say that I was not manic or depressed at the time. But there isn’t much fuss about it since the meds would be the same. I’ve found the cocktail that works for me and also for emergencies so there’s no need to get precise on the labels. I’m just somewhere in the delusional/psychotic/paranoid realm with mood problems.
Although, you have given me some impulse to write about schizophrenia and research about similarities between bipolar and schizophrenia. I’ve done it before and there are some differences, but those seem to be blurred by schizoaffective disorder. It would be interesting to see if that bridges the gap and we have a second spectrum disorder to contend with.