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I am a 48 year old bipolar woman, living in NYC, married (common law),
with 4 children between us.
I have been diagnosed for two years but have been bipolar much longer.
I can't tell when it began because much of my childhood, teen years and
early twenties was spent drinking alcoholicly, drugging, promiscuous
acting-out, passionate love affairs, floundering, and sporadically
deeply depressed. I got sober at twenty- three and my first year of
recovery was the best year of my life. Staying sober is the one thing
I've managed to do consistantly all these years and I am amazed and
grateful. Well, to be scrupulously honest, I did have two episodes over
the past ten years where I drank rubbing alcohol during the emotional
violence of mixed state moods. Suicidal and hyper-anxious, in the
throes of explosive sieges.
I was diagnosed bipolar after a protracted severe depression. I could
no longer work, I took to my bed, never showered or brushed my teeth,
could't bother changing my nightgown, very angry, rageful when
confronted with reality by family members. Attempted suicide with a
prescription of respiradol given to me by the first shrink I saw, (this
was after many, many attempts to get help over the course of 6 months).
I just couldn't make phonecalls, couldn't leave the house, wouldn't
talk, would only scream at those around me. I began to cycle into a
manic phase and this was when I met the woman who is now my
psychiatrist.
Since I have been seeing her, people ask me skeptically, "Is she any
good?", because I cycled rapidly after medications began. For nearly a
year I have been swimming in a deep grey depression - can't remember
when this started either - which is only broken up by periods of black
suffocating depression, bedridden again, dirty, stinking and also
encased in fleshy rolls. The lithium put 35 pounds on me. I have
trouble concentrating on any one thing so I can't read more than the
Daily News, which needless to say is far from inspiring literature and
very grim fare. I am fascinated by morbid, horrible stories. I can
barely stop thinking about the starving children in Africa, the hideous
war in Iraq, and the possibility of a nuclear bomb hitting NY. The
attack on the World Trade Center was one catalyst in my depressive
breakdown, marked by shaking, crying, auditory hallucinations, and panic
attacks. It went diguised, however, because so many people were shaken
up, only not to my extent.
I am currently on lithium, lamicital, geodon, and lexipro. My days are
nearly all the same. I have progressed from last year in small but
significant ways. I wake up filled with fuzzy dread. I put on the t.v.
and listen to the news, over and over. Then I wake up my youngest son,
give him a bowl of cereal, and put on the lesser dirty of the two pair
of pants that fit me. I think to myself, "where and how should I carry
my keys on the trip bringing him to school?". "Should I take a
pocketbook - so much trouble how it falls off my shoulder - am I
wearing the pair of pants with a pocket?" Both of my coats have
huge holes in the pockets
so they are rendered useless. I admonish myself, "You are a wreck. You
are living like a 'crazy' person". I walk the four blocks to school and
rush home although there is absolutely no reason to rush. I am coming
home to an empty house, no job, no obligations, except two: walk the
dog, and pick up my child from school at 2:55. I am consumed with
panicy dread as to how I can or cannot accomplish these tasks. I get
really worked up inside but I smile politely and say hi to all my
neighbors. I turn on the t.v. again, make a cup of tea, pace around,
play an hour of solitaire while listening to court t.v. I never answer
the phone --all calls are screened and I call back only those I must to
appear functional.
Every day this one neighbor drops by and I am always bracing myself
for the hideous shrill of the front door buzzer. She chats mostly about
herself and I am cordial but only thinly diguising my impatience for her
to leave. She talks about books, art, her career as a journalist, and I
am reminded in the dullest way how I was once interested and a
participant in these things too. I once had an academic career of my
own, as well as a very physical job for 10 years as a massage
therapist. I used to be in great shape and walk around with the
collected Emily Dickenson. I get nervous when she leaves, wondering
what impression I left her with, for she is one to point out my
irritabilities, my shaking hands, my bloat, my spacey eyes.
Sometimes I watch old movies with many interruptions of bathroom breaks
and pointless cleaning. Very rarely do I get much household stuff
done. I steel myself to take the dog out and again I am in a quandry
about the keys,"is my lipstick too bright? I wish I had sunglasses,
which route do I take with the dog? why am I so fucked up?" Then I
have about three hours, oh the hours, the hours, to fill, to exist
through before I get my son. That's the hardest part of the day but it
is a job I could not do for over a year. My husband would have to drive
from work, a 45-minute trip each way, to bring the kid from school to
home where I used to greet him in the nightgown he always saw me wear at
home. I have improved as now I get him myself, counting every step
until I reach him, literally counting in order to keep my feet moving
and my mind off the anxiety. I can fix him a snack now, and
occasionally stop at the candy store to give him a sense of normalcy. I
buy the Daily News and read this as he unwinds from the day. We do
interact alot more than we used to. I play solitaire, I wash a couple
of dishes, I wipe down a counter, I put away some crap lying around the
living room, I try to be a 'mom'.
I've decided not to go on desribing my day because you get the gist and
it is tedious even to write about. It may be equally tedious to read
although you never know, someone may get some identification with it.
I haven't had a fullblown mania for a number of months. My
mania involves: obessive creative activity (albeit on the smallest
scale) where I totally block out the world and my family, days and
nights that were neverending and blending into eachother, impulsive, mad
shoplifting, screaming rants. I had my share of visual and auditory
hallucinations. For a terrifying while I saw rats scurrying everywhere
and a mysterious man sitting in the corners of my apartment. Perhaps
this is the best the drugs have done; they deprived me of the worst of
mania. They have also made me a shadow of my former self. Gone is the
gregarious, active Claudia, always on the run of work, home, and
children's activities. There were golden afternoons cheering on soccer
matches, doing three loads of laundry and washing the kitchen floor at
once, giving a satisfying 1- hour deep tissue massage. But it seems
that these losses are the price I pay at this particular time in order
to avoid the rampaging moods and the destruction I brought chiefly to
myself. After my last hospitalization I vowed to keep my medication
schedule and doses as close as I can to what is prescribed (I have a
problem in this area of dispensing my own drugs). I don't want to end
up in that ward again with the lack of freedom and the complete
submission to those in authority.
We used to say in A.A. "I am a grateful recovering alcoholic." I cannot
say this about bipolar. It is exceedingly hard to live with, impossible
to explain even to the most dutiful caretaker. But I am in it with as
much motivation as I can muster on any given day. I have to go on faith
when I can feel it...this too shall pass...I am a survivor.
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