Please forgive the deep irony in the title. I don’t mean to start my first post of 2014 laden with sarcasm. But it is a revealing sign of where I am on my bipolar journey. Comfort and joy feel like a very long way away.
It has been a truly awful Christmas. Try as hard as I could – and despite the amazing love and support of my family – I simply could not lift myself out of the deep depression that has hung over me like a suffocatingly heavy blanket since I came home from hospital. And, of course, I beat up on myself for feeling this way – after all, I have everything going for me – but these truisms don’t help.
And the festive season really didn’t help. Despite not being particularly seduced by the commercialism of Christmas, there are a set of unspoken assumptions about embracing the jollity which simply wasn’t possible for me (and many other folk too).
The ‘silence’ of my last post became protracted and more debilitating. Now my sense of emptiness has developed into a blackness – like a deep, black void into which I have fallen, and am still falling, and from which there appears to be no escape.
And I simply don’t know what to do. My CBT tools still feel powerless to help. And I really don’t want to resort to more meds – I am already stressed out and paranoid about the concoction I am taking. Which leaves me in the void!
I’m beginning to understand what it is to feel hopeless.
Silent night
Christmas was a silent experience.
Starting on Christmas Eve, I plunged into a real low. Try as hard as I might, I could not extricate myself. I was determined to be on good form for Christmas Day for the sake of my family. But when Christmas dawned, I was as low as I had been in quite a while. At one stage I simply burst into tears when my wife gave me a present.
I just sank into silence. The more I wanted to communicate, the more silent I became. I felt trapped within myself. It is a strange experience to ‘lose’ one’s voice when one is so desperate to talk.
But it’s more than being ‘unable’ to speak. It’s having nothing to say. It’s feeling utterly empty – devoid of anything worthwhile.
Sadly, this is not a new experience. It has been a recurrent and worsening feature of my bipolar lows. The feeling of emptiness is profound and disturbing. It’s as if there is no longer anything of substance to draw upon. All that I am seems to have evaporated. I am a pale shadow of my former self.
And I don’t know what to do about it. None of my CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy) tools seem to help. My meds seemed to be helping but then my bipolar modulates again. I guess I need to relax into it rather than fretting, but that’s easier said than done. Meanwhile, my family and I need to learn to live with the silence.
A bizarre Christmas! But at least, trapped within my silence, I have had a lot of space for thinking – about the Christ-child providing a voice for the voiceless, filling the empty, and giving meaning amidst the meaningless. Happy Christmas!
Home at last!
Well, I made it home! A source of great joy. It will be good to be here with my immediate family for a quiet Christmas. But, as with the anticipation, so too the homecoming had mixed emotions.
I was so excited when I woke up in hospital yesterday. I was full of longing for my discharge. I had a great consultation with my psychiatrist. ‘Midst peels of laughter (a great tonic) she was really pleased with my state of mental health and happy to discharge my into the care of the Home Treatment Team. So I waited, full of hope, for my wife to arrive to drive me home.
The journey was slow with lots of holiday traffic. Eventually we made it home to a warm welcome from our two cats. And so began the process of settling back into life at home.
It was lovely – gentle and warm and comforting. But, as the afternoon wore on, my mood dropped until I felt quite low and frightened. I hadn’t modulated like this for a few days. How irritating! Perhaps this wasn’t too surprising – it’s a big transition from the cocooned environment of a psychiatric hospital to one’s home. And the excitement of anticipation is bound to be followed by a dip. Nonetheless, it was quite frightening.
Despite the joy of seeing my son and daughter again, the downswing continued throughout the afternoon and evening. Exhaustion kicked in and I was glad to go to bed early. I aimlessly watched some Christmas TV but soon I was too tired for even that.
I tried to sleep but the big storm which was lashing the UK kept me awake with its terrifying noises. It was almost a metaphor for my mental health. Eventually, I succumbed to the welcome embrace of sleep.
I woke tired but feeling much brighter. After the darkness comes the dawn, and so goes the modulations of mental illness.
Going home?
I’m full of mixed emotions today. All being well, I’ll be discharged from my psychiatric hospital tomorrow into the care of the Home Treatment Team. After 4½ weeks as a patient here in The Priory, it will be a great joy to go home, and in particular to be home with my family for Christmas. But, alongside the excitement, there is also the fear – the fear of coping alone without the specialist support of The Priory team around me.
Given that this is my second admission to The Priory, I had expected not to have this reaction. But, I have been taken by surprise.
Tee joy is very real and I can hardly contain my excitement. But the fear is real too. In part, it is because one begins to get institutionalised having spent a lengthy time in hospital. In part, it is the fear of losing the encompassing support of doctors, nurses and therapists. But in greater part, it is the fear of becoming unstable – of beginning to modulate again as I have done so much these last weeks.
The last few days, however, have been good days – glimpses of myself shining through. And I will have the backup of the Home Treatment Team and a wonderful family.
So tomorrow will be a step of faith. Faith in the skill of my psychiatrist and the power of my medication. Faith in the psychological tools I have learned. And faith in God – and what better time of year to be called upon to do that.
Medication time …..
As I write, it is medication time in my hospital ward. With echoes of ‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ we all queue up (how very English) to receive our meds. It is an humbling experience.
From our disparate backgrounds, we are closely united as we wait to receive our meds. The bonds of friendship are genuine and intense. Rarely have I experienced such care and concern from people I’ve only known for a short time.
We chat openly about our meds, comparing their side effects and efficacy. We debate whether or not to take a Zopiclone (sleeping tablet) – we decide we will – sleep is essential to getting through tomorrow. Progress is slow – we each have a long prescription which needs to be carefully administered – but no one minds.
We talk about the day past, gently enquiring about each other’s struggles and celebrating each other’s progress. The atmosphere is gentle and deeply sincere. The openness and honesty are remarkable and a welcome contrast to the norms of daily life.
Eventually it is my turn at the dispensary. I am greeted warmly by the nurse who asks genuinely about my day and how I’m feeling. Then the large pot of drugs is prepared. I used to be very fearful of taking medication – now I submissively take what is given to me. No, submissive is the wrong word. I thankfully take the meds, aware of my brokenness and of my need of help, and trusting my psychiatrist’s skill and compassion.
With meds gratefully consumed, it is time to bid ‘night, night’ to one’s compatriots and to head to bed before the Zopiclone kicks in.
So ends another day in my psychiatric hospital – a day of triumphs and setbacks, of insights and frustrations. A day when the skill and care of psychiatrists, nurses, therapists and ancillary staff have carried me one step closer to wellness.
The kindness of strangers
Amidst all the emotions of being in a psychiatric hospital
– the highs and lows, the breakthroughs and the setbacks, the laughter and the tears – I have been most affected by one thing: the depth of compassion shown by staff for patients and by patients for each other. It has been staggering and has moved me to tears on more than one occasion.
The impact of these simple deeds of loving kindness on the recipients has been profound. Strangers thrown together by unfortunate circumstance offer themselves to each other in quite remarkable ways. Out of the depths of distress and the frailties of the human condition come transforming acts of generosity.
I like to consider myself a caring person, but I have been humbled, moved and challenged by what I’ve witnessed and the love I have myself received.
Those of us with a religious faith, will see in this the hand of the divine. But, whatever one’s worldview, one can simply rejoice in the very beauty of humanity. And say “thank you”.
The narrative so far …
It all began in March 2013 with an admission to The Priory hospital in London, UK. Or did it? It turns out that this was only a step on the journey and not the beginning.
But, to resume the story, after 3 months away from work with symptoms of exhaustion, I was referred to a psychiatrist because I was getting quite low and frustrated. This was fortunate because my mental health quickly spiralled out of control. Before long, I was psychotic and unsafe and needing hospital admission. I was fortunate to be admitted to The Priory, a truly wonderful hospital – I cannot speak too highly about the care and professionalism of this place.
I was initially diagnosed with severe depression with psychotic episodes. Then began the process of finding the right meds to control my symptoms. Fortunately, I had an excellent psychiatrist who is a genius with a remarkable ability to prescribe the optimum meds. Moreover, she has a wonderful sense of humour which kept me sane.
Despite my initial determination not to enter into any of the group therapies, I was soon engaged and benefitting enormously from the CBT group sessions. Of course, as much as anything, I grew to value hearing the stories of my fellow patients. And these stories soon prompted my own faltering storytelling. There followed much heartache and hard work – successes and setbacks. A recovery emerged – along with deep, deep friendships.
Eventually, after 7 weeks, I was well enough to be discharged supported by regular sessions with my psychiatrist who is also a practising psychotherapist.
Then the story gets interesting. In July I had an hypomanic episode witnessed by my psychiatrist. Thereafter I was re-diagnosed with type II bipolar disorder. That was a crushing blow. I’m not sure why? Unipolar depression can be every bit as chronic as bipolar. But bipolar has those suspicious, dark overtones in the popular imagination by which even intelligent observers (dare I claim myself to be intelligent?) are influenced.
So the summer was spent adjusting medication and adjusting my perspective.
The meds we settled on were: flupentixol, olanzapine, and venlafaxine. Eventually I got myself well enough to return to work, though it took a long time until I had the stamina to return to 100% working. Although the meds did a great job of keeping me stable, the tiredness associated with the olanzapine was really debilitating.
Just when stability seemed to have been reached, disaster struck. I developed a really bad rash and my physician thought it might be associated with the olanzapine. So I stopped taking it. Within a few days, I had crashed. I was so poorly, I needed readmission to The Priory, from where I am writing this post.
My wonderful psychiatrist took the opportunity to adjust my meds to try to get round the side effects of the olanzapine. This was not a simple process because I was modulating quite badly. Eventually we settled upon: aripiprazole, fluoxetine, lamotrigine and lithium.
Which brings us, 4 weeks later, to today in this story. As I write, I am wondering about the likelihood of being home for Christmas – a hospital Christmas seems more likely. I think I am resigned to that.
I have had the benefits of more group therapy and some wonderful new friends, lots of whom are bipolar too. And with my diagnosis of bipolar II more tightly confirmed, I have had the opportunity to reflect much more on what it means to be bipolar. This has proved to be a blessing.
I’m beginning to understand and interpret previous life events through the bipolar lens. This has made sense of numerous patches of severe ill health. And also times of remarkable activity and creativity and grandiosity – times which I can now understand as hypomanias.
For better or worse, bipolar is part of my narrative. I can rebel against it and pretend otherwise. Or, I can embrace it, and accept it wholesomely as an integral part of me.
Why double nutty?
It is essential to begin with an explanation, else doublenutty as a blog handle will seem bizarre and disrespectful.
A random picture of my ‘nutty’ cat
I suffer from bipolar disorder – a debilitating and frightening mental health condition. In fact, I am writing this from a psychiatric hospital where I am currently being treated for the second time. On a recent TV series, “Bedlam”, there was a beautiful moment when a confused old lady when asked what was wrong with her eventually remembered that she was bipolar and declaimed “that means that I am double nutty”. I immediately took her to my heart and loved her description of bipolar disorder. Since then, my bipolar friends and I have referred to ourselves as “double nutty”. Far from being disrespectful, we see this as an affectionate and empathetic descriptor. And so, it was inevitable that this should become my blog handle.
This is the first time that I have blogged, and I am hesitant, very hesitant. I am uncertain that I have anything original and worthwhile to say. But at the same time I am driven by an overwhelming conviction that I should talk openly about my condition and my experience of mental illness.
Whatever is claimed by society, there can be no denying that a significant stigma still surrounds mental illness. It seems to me, and all my peers in hospital, that we are duty bound to talk gently about our own experiences, in whatever form is natural and right for us, so that in time this stigma might be overcome.
So this blog is my own humble attempt to talk honestly and openly about ‘being bipolar’. Though you’ll notice I’m not yet being entirely open. This blog is still anonymous. Please forgive my reticence to put my name to my words. I’m still coming to terms with my diagnosis and it may take me a little while before I feel able to put my name to these idle ramblings. But please know that, though still cloaked in secrecy, these jottings are a sincere attempt to be honest about my experiences of bipolar disorder.
In my next post, I’ll summarise my bipolar journey to date and my experience of being hospitalised twice in the last 6 months. I hope, in some small way, this might give an insight into the experience of being bipolar.
doublenutty 