World Bipolar Day

March 30th is World Bipolar Day.

I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder exactly 9 years ago in March 2016 at the age of 17. Bipolar disorder is characterized by episodes of intense highs, also known as mania, with episodes of intense lows of depression.

Last year, I experienced a manic episode for the first time since 2021. It started around the summertime, but gradually worsened. It wasn't until right around the December holidays that I finally saw how out of control my life had gotten and acknowledged that I was manic. I also recognized that I wasn't getting the level of care I needed with the previous psychiatrist I was seeing. My new psychiatrist is much more competent and I am getting the quality care I need, but I am still figuring out my medications.

While the mania is not quite as intense now, I am still very much in the throes of it and still suffering from the consequences of my actions while acutely manic. Most notably is the fact that I have problems with extreme overspending and making poor financial choices, to the point that I am in severe debt and regularly drain all my finances. I am likely having to file for bankruptcy for massive credit card debt. It's honestly so embarrassing and shameful to admit, even admitting it to myself, but the longer I go on this way, the worse it gets. I made an appointment to start free financial counseling next week through the city of New York. I know it won't be easy to confront my shame and start tackling this, but it's a necessary huge first step.

Bipolar disorder is literally an illness of the brain. Studies show that the brain makeup of bipolar people is different from those without it, and some studies even suggest that bipolar episodes actually cause progressive brain damage. It's different from depression or anxiety that can eventually go away. I will have this for the rest of my life. There's no cure and it's not an illness that can be overcome or progressively “get better” over time, if anything it's quite the opposite. I don't say that to be a downer, but to illustrate how serious and disabling this is. It literally affects every aspect of my life in debilitating ways. My therapist said in my recent session that my brain works twice as hard as other people’s, just to function at a “baseline” level.

I will require medication for the rest of my life, but it's not a cure. Bipolar will never go away. Antipsychotics are no joke. They come with heavy serious side effects, but the benefits mostly outweigh the risks, so the side effects often just have to be lived with. I've been on most antipsychotics and mood stabilizers at this point, with varying results, and sometimes it feels like I've exhausted my options. Even with medication managing my symptoms to the extent that it does, and when I'm not in an active episode, I still have residual symptoms and characteristics that never fully go away and are very difficult to unlearn.

It's so hard for me to even know what a “stable baseline” looks like for me because bipolar disorder makes me feel EVERYTHING more intensely. Every emotion, positive or negative, is experienced at a heightened level: stress, happiness, sadness, fear, anger, anxiety, excitement, you name it.

It often takes a while to even realize I've entered into a manic episode because at first it's just happiness that feels so good, but it actually ends up being euphoria, which sounds great, but is merely a delusion and exaggerated sense of self. Then it ends up being combined with other detrimental symptoms, like decreased sleep, excessive talking and “flight of ideas,” loss of sense of time, racing thoughts and inattentiveness, reckless impulsive behavior, and more energy than I know what to do with… Next thing you know my life is in shambles. That was the case with this recent manic episode. I used to be wary of times I felt too happy, because I would fear I would be veering into mania territory. This time around I did indeed recognize that I was inordinately happy pretty early on, as well as talking excessively and feeling a decreased need for sleep, but I think I was in denial for so long, because it felt enjoyable at first, like a whole new me, but then the other symptoms got so out of control until I could no longer deny how debilitating it was.

With each episode, I genuinely feel like I lose a part of myself that I can never get back. With my 2021 episode, for example, I lost a lot of the imaginativeness I once had, and I've never fully regained it sadly. That's why I absolutely believe the research that suggests bipolar disorder causes brain degeneration. I'm starting to believe that a “baseline” mood for me is not happiness or contentment, but just neutrality. It's hard to know what recovery looks like when you have a lifelong mental illness that can wax and wane so unexpectedly.

I've genuinely had to grieve so many hopes and dreams I've had for myself and my life. I'm going to be completely honest and share something very vulnerable. Things have come up for me recently that have forced me to grapple with some difficult realizations. Growing up, I never had persistent career aspirations, but I always knew I wanted to be a mother, which is arguably the hardest job in the world. But with recent developments, I know now that realistically it is almost certainly not feasible for me to have kids ever. While I desperately wish for kids, I know that it would not be possible to raise a child when I can't even always take care of myself. It's scary that even with meds and seemingly doing all the “right” things, I can become manic or depressed at any time. I mean, I look at what happened this past year, denying my mania for as long as I did, until my life felt like it was falling apart and I no longer recognized myself… It would be selfish and unfair to subject a child to that. I mourn the fact that I will never know a child who has my eyes or shares my humor. I will never get to choose their name, or pass down beloved items I've held onto for years. I will never pass down my bloodline or leave behind that legacy. I mourn my lifelong dream of being a mommy. I have so much love to give and I'm amazing with kids, but I know deep down that I could never have that. It's heartbreaking and devastating, but it's reality.

I wish I could share some positivity or say it gets better. But right now I feel hopeless while I'm still in the midst of struggle. Sometimes I feel like I'm too screwed up as a person. I don't care if this sounds pessimistic or dramatic, but I genuinely wonder, why me? Why was this the hand I was dealt with in life? It's a living hell to fight your own mind day in, day out. It is truly a disability in how seriously it affects my life. This is just my reality and sometimes all you can do is accept that it is what it is, but what it is absolutely sucks.

All that being said, I am proud of myself. Because despite it all, I still press on. I get up and go to work each day. I work jobs that I love, doing worthwhile work. I have talents and I am a valuable person, no matter how much my mind tries to make me believe otherwise. Sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm fully living, but I am surviving in spite of it all. And I am strong as hell.