Category Archives: Mania

Reflections on 2015

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As I sit back and reflect on my goals and planned projects for 2016, I can’t help but to think about all that I lived through in 2015 and how that has shaped this year’s prospective.

This will be a quick read, I promise.

I learned more about myself in this past year than I believe I have learned in all of my life. I learned that I am more resilient and stronger than I imagined. I learned that psychiatrists and psychologists, though I may hate them sometimes, know more than I do because of their experience. Therefore, listen to them and learn to curb your ego.

I also learned to stop thinking I know better than anyone about my mental health because although sometimes it may be hard to hear, I need to listen to what others around me have to say about my mood and behavior.

And finally, I learned to take my medication each and every day. I have learned over and over again that I truly do need my meds in order to prevent a manic episode. Yet, I continue to get off them because I know better, right? Wrong!!! So, I learned in 2015 after 9 years since my initial diagnosis, that YES I really truly do need to take my medication every day consistently and continuously. Ok, got it.

And you, my fellow reader and confidante, what did you learn from 2015???

7 years

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RE Camera

It has been 7 years since I had a full fledged manic episode. It has also been 7 years since I’ve been in a psychiatric hospital. I waited until November to write this post because my last hospitalization began in October 2008, and I did not want to write a post in October about how I have been without a manic episode for 7 years for fear of jinxing myself. Luckily, October has passed and I can proudly say that it has officially been 7 good years without a manic episode. That’s not to say I don’t get the typical Bipolar ups and downs, because I do. The difference, and it’s a big difference, is that I have not been 5150’ed and had to stay against my will in a psychiatric ward.

But let’s not turn this post into the horrors and inadequacies of psychiatric wards lest I scare off readers. Instead, I want to focus on all the progress I have made that has kept me out of those “looney bins” (I gotta poke fun to keep from becoming depressed).

In the past 7 years, I graduated from UC Irvine, got married, had 2 wonderful little girls, worked on and off through my pregnancies, bought a home, and have recently interviewed for my dream job (fingers crossed). So, I haven’t discovered any cures or vaccinations, established peace in any turmoiled countries, or created anything other than arts and crafts. Yet, I feel accomplished because not only have I triumphed over my daily mood swing obstacles, but also over life obstacles. I have succeeded in life when I was told after my diagnosis in 2006 that I would not could not do it.

I would like to make clear that this post is not meant to glorify my accomplishments, but rather shed light on a subject that many fail to address: how can you deal with life issues at the same time that you deal with your mental health issues? It’s simple, really. You take it one day at a time and with lots of support. I cannot emphasize enough how establishing a support network for myself has been my saving grace. From close friends and family, to the internet, including this blog and Twitter. I have found a relief and a sense of belonging amongst fellow Bipolar survivors, and have learned so much from them.

Let’s keep the learning going and pass on your knowledge on how to cope and triumph over your diagnosis!

Does Mania Reveal Our True Selves?

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I am antisemitic when I am in mania. I warn all my friends about it, ask them to note it as a symptom, and let my wife know that I am spinning into the fire cloud. I am also sexually inappropriate. I enjoy arguments. I quote scripture when I argue even though I am an agnostic.

There’s a theory flying about, mostly held by the sane, that I am revealing my true self in my manic state. This stems from psychoanalytic theory and the notion that there is this subconscious running our affairs from behind the scenes. Supposedly, when I am stable, I am still an antisemitic rat. I’m just able to control it. But this theory crashes because these thoughts do not even enter my consciousness when I am stable or depressed except, in the latter case, in the context of reproving myself for having had them in mania. Nor do I dream about them except when I am running hot.

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Sent from God to the psychiatric ward

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I have heard this term referred to as Grandiosity, Delusions of Grandeur, and so many other variations, but they all mean and refer to the same thing: an elevated sense of self-esteem, sometimes leading the person to believe they are famous, omnipotent, wealthy, or otherwise very powerful (Wikipedia.org). I have often wondered why this happens, especially since it occurs more often in people with Bipolar Disorder than any other mental diagnosis. And, I have experienced thoughts of grandeur myself, to the point that during each of my two manic episodes, I have believed that I was sent from God to save humanity.

I have done some research on the causes of Grandiosity, as well as asked all of my psychiatrists, but no one has a definitive answer as to why this happens. This may sound odd, but I have even gone so far as to speculate if people back in the Biblical times who claimed to be sent from God suffered from Grandiosity. And if so, they were heralded as saints, not sent to a psychiatric ward and pumped with various meds. To make my point more clear, who’s to say I am not actually sent from God? Who’s to say my thoughts of grandeur during manic episodes aren’t a manifestation of God’s power? And what would have happened if I had lived in Biblical times? Would I be heralded as a savior?

Somehow, I doubt all of this, even as I write it. Why? Because I remember that in my manic episodes I tend to be a violent person when confronted by someone or asked to stop my delusional actions (e.g. trying to heal the sick). And from studies and research, I know that Jesus was a calm and patient person, never quick to aggression like I am during my manic episodes. So, alas, I am not sent from God, I am not here to save humanity, but I am here to get the word out on mental health and staying sane.

There’s a saying in Spanish that goes, “de poetas y locos, todos tenemos un poco.” Translated, it means “of poets and insanity, we all have a little.” And I do believe this is true, but I don’t believe I am sent from God. And if I get an inkling feeling that I am, I know it is time to up my meds and take a nap.

Grandiosity, Branding, and the Purposeless Driven Life

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>Any inclination of mine to become a famous bipolar author — the kind that writes a best-selling book, gets invited to national conventions, gets coverage in the national magazines, etc. –is curbed by one reality: that I live with bipolar disorder and one of my symptoms is grandiosity. Grandiosity — for you outsiders — is different from narcissism in that the latter is strictly an extreme self-love while the former is a beyond-passionate-conviction in a crusade and the belief that one is ordained to be the leader of that crusade. It is a thing that easily falls into a shambles as people are scared away by our hyper-exuberance. As we ramp up into psychosis, we may style ourselves as prophets or even God him/herself. I have been there — once I talked a Quaker Meeting into sponsoring me for a trip to former Yugoslavia in the middle of the 1992 war when I had no clue why it was important for me to be there, other than it being important for me to be there.

Oh, I developed a rationale for my spiritual mission, and I did interesting things such as become one of the first non-journalists to report first-hand on a crisis using the Net. The governments over there didn’t like me much but that is to be expected when you know the Truth and report it through that warped, half-melted lens. The incident leaves me with several doubts about myself — where was this belief that the Spirit was calling me to do this really coming from? and Should I repay those who financed me now that I am disabused myself of the sacredness of my mission? I believe some people — quite a few — tell you that I did good and maybe I did. Others grew to hate me. Since my diagnosis, I am wary of any motivation which suggests that I alone possess a message that should be heard.

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I was forced to grow up

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At age 20, I was diagnosed with Bipolar I after a manic episode mixed with psychosis which sent me straight to a psychiatric hospital. Well not really a hospital, rather, a rehabilitation center in Georgia. No, I’m not from Georgia nor have ever lived there, but it just so happens that I was visiting a friend when I went “manic”.

But don’t be alarmed, this is not an account of my (mal) treatment in the rehabilitation center or in the jail I was held for 5 days because of all things, my mania began at the Atlanta airport. No, this is about how I was forced to grow up after my experiences. How I could no longer consider myself just a care free college girl with no worries, but rather, an adult woman with a mental health diagnosis, which was tough, at best.

I could not accept my diagnosis, nor did I want to admit that perhaps I needed help from someone other than myself. As a psychology major I should have known better than to fall prey to stigmatizing myself and my diagnosis, I thought “But I’m not crazy.” How ignorant and little of me to think such a thing.

And after yet another stint in a psychiatric ward in the Bay Area, literally three days after returning from Georgia, I was convinced I had Bipolar I. It wasn’t the psychiatrists who convinced me, nor my arsenal of daily meds that did it. No. It was my mood swings. My constant flow between happy and sad. My to and fro, that’s what convinced me I had Bipolar I, and yes I needed help.

I became my own advocate, then. Seeking help and resources in my community. Standing up for myself whenever necessary and becoming an adult, in a manner of speech. I never thought I would have to grow up so fast and so soon, it was in the summer before my Senior year in college.

I felt as though the Universe had screwed me over, big time. And after wallowing in my self-pity, I got it. I understood. Sometimes it takes a huge life change to make you appreciate life better and make you a better person. It’s life’s way of putting you back in your place and giving you perspective. And wow, did I ever get perspectified! Yes, it’s a new word, I just made it up because I can do that. 🙂

 

 

What Do I Do When I Am Manic?

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I waste time. But not in the same way that I usually do it. I’m always up nights, twittering, reading, working on recent photos. My day ends somewhere between 3 and 4, at which point I go to bed, which alerts the cats to begin their trills of demand for food from my softhearted wife. I use a cocktail of Xanax, Benadryl, Doxepin, melatonin, and my nighttime anti-psychotics and mood-stabilizers to stall my brain into torpor. I sleep well and I sleep deep until about noon or one o’clock in the afternoon, an unconventional hour but one that I can manage thanks to my unemployment and insistence on afternoon appointments.

If I am manic, I forget to take the meds until a later hour and do not feel their slowing until after Lynn has gone to work at nine. I lay in bed, staring at the pockets inside the sheets, groping for rest. Mania purposes me to a different set of activities, First, reading is impossible. My eyes fly over the words, ignoring the middles of sentences and barely noticing the presence of paragraphs. I have missed whole scenes and whole characters when I am in this state. For this reason, as my condition advanced in the late twentieth century, I read less and less. Volumes I wanted to peruse stood on my shelf for years, unopened and stinking of dust. There was no accomplishment during this time except as resulted from my strange habit of digesting dictionaries.
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Did the Meds “Erase” My Personality?

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The thing I don’t like about being angry is that it isn’t the me that I want to be. It’s a nuclear fireball, a complete eradication of the rest of my personality. For a few seconds, everything that I love becomes less than a memory. The witnesses to my explosion see a six foot six inch tall brute with a beard screaming at the top of his lungs and waving his arms about. Wouldn’t you be scared? Wouldn’t you keep that memory in your head purely for reasons of defense?

These scenes came more frequently when I was soaring in and out of manias and mixed states. It isn’t hard to see that my anger could be tied to my suicidal inclinations. Because I could not and would not destroy the objects of my ire, I turned that impulse towards myself. One time too many it brought me to a place where I was studying the veins on my wrist. Beyond the eradication of myself that was caused by my disease, lay the prospect of self-annihilation as punishment or revenge.

Maybe now you can understand my reaction that came while I was planting vinegar weed at the Native Seed Farm. I had done something stupid — I had mentioned my involvement in the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance in a passing comment. Most people let it drop, but this one woman wanted to know more. What were the people like? Was I ever scared? And then the most stigmatizing thing someone can say about someone who takes his meds faithfully: don’t the meds erase your personality?

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The InterNet Argument Addict

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Difficult to end when I am feeling stable but energized and impossible when I am manic, InterNet disputes are a drug of choice for me. I just ended an exchange that went on for over an hour with someone on Facebook. She would not stop and neither would I. It seemed to me that no matter what I said to refute her, she kept repeating the same thing over and over. My ire was up: I had a defense to make and, equally important, someone to skewer. Then in the middle of it, I realized that I had become a Facebook Mr. Hyde, shared one last anecdote, and announced the end of my participation. Others have responded to the thread since then and I have not read what they said. Whether they indict me or stand up for me, I shall not involve myself anymore.

Someone is wrong on internet

Long ago — on the abUSENET, I learned that it was a waste of time arguing against the trolls and cranks of the Net. If I spent a long time preparing an intelligent rebuttal to something they said, they’d dismiss it with a brute-force remark or lame witticism. Some even went so far as to create robots that would repeat the same argument every time certain key words appeared anywhere in the newsgroups. You could easily exhaust yourself fighting these. I gave it up for the Web because I realized that the newsgroups were a waste of time.

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The Medical Marijuana for Bipolar Lie

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Everyone seems to have a friend who has been helped by medical marijuana. When my wife had chemotherapy, we had it as a backup in case the anti-nausea drugs did not work for her. Glaucoma is a disease with medical research proving the effectiveness of medical marijuana. But the medical marijuana industry goes beyond what is proven by science. It welcomes those who use it for many other diagnoses despite the absence of peer review studies. In other words, if you can get a doctor or a nurse practitioner to write you a script, you can get high legally for any disease you can name. And the worst of the lies medical marijuana prescribers and retailers let fly is the lie that marijuana helps the symptoms of bipolar disorder.

Here is my full disclosure: First, I do not oppose legalization of marijuana provided it is regulated at least as well as alcohol. There need to be laws governing its sale to minors, bans against driving under the influence, etc. But other than that, I have no problem with seeing it available as a leisure drug. There’s considerable evidence that the liquor industry does not want this, but alcohol is worse than cannabis in some regards. Second, I have smoked marijuana. Here is where my strong feelings about the subject come from. When I was in college, I was talked into toking by my peers. They did not force it down my throat, they did not blow smoke into my lungs, they did not deceive me in the sense that they told me things that they knew were not true. I started using the drug by my own choice.

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