It’s an illness. Yes.
It really is an illness. People can see if you’ve got a broken leg. And they go oh
you’ve broken your leg. But you can’t see what’s in your mind and in my opinion
it can be worse because wherever you go your mind is with you and it’s a powerful thing.
For a while I used to get maybe kind of two or three episodes a year where I’d have
maybe an episode of hypomania that lasted a couple of weeks and then that was followed
by a sort of episode of depression that would last a couple of weeks as well. So it was
always the hypomania followed by the depression. Sometimes with me there can be a pattern,
but it just seems to change quite a lot and in some ways it’s difficult to manage because
of that, because you’re not quite sure where things are.
I wouldn’t even know that I’m actually becoming manic. It might be just thinking
that I can push the envelope here and I can spend a bit more money. I can go out another
night. You know I can work until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning and you know I’m sure a couple
of hours of sleep will be fine because I can make up for it next time. It’s always putting
things in a bank. You know that kind of mental bank thinking I can just push the envelope
a bit more. It gets to a point where it has built up to a critical mass where you just
simply can’t cope anymore and then you slam down into a depression. And when
I get to depression then I really tear myself apart thinking, why did I even do that? Why
did I kid myself into…? And then all the negativity comes about, oh you’re such a
bad person. You shouldn’t be dominated by this kind of thing. Why did you do that? Really, really…
Self-blaming. Self-blaming totally.
People will assume that it’s highly manic, highly depressive. Although there are episodes
it’s not as easy to track as that. The term bipolar can be a little bit misleading
actually because I don’t think there are just always two pools of being depressed and
being manic. I think like… Because it sounds like that doesn’t it?
Yes you can kind of have states where… I think a lot of people think that when you’re
depressed you’re really sad and when you’re manic you’re really happy. But you know
you can be manic but not be really happy. You can feel really agitated and really kind
of frustrated. So I don’t think it’s quite so simple as kind of two sides to a coin that
maybe some people think it is. Being bipolar doesn’t mean to say that I’m
necessarily a depressive person or pessimist or those kinds of things. And I refuse to
let my condition even dictate what kind of person I am.
Stephen Fry was saying it is like the weather in your head and when it’s raining it is
raining. You have to believe that it will get bright the next day. You have to accept
that it is raining you know, it’s bad or it’s good. But you just have to be hopeful
rather than trying to fight it because it can’t change.
If you’ve got that network of people around you who can support you particularly when
you’re depressed it’s so important. If people don’t hear from me they’ll phone
me up and I’ll just be able to say I’m in a really bad place at the moment and they
completely understand. When they’re trying to have a laugh with
you and you’re just not in the mood and you can’t snap out of it, it’s nice for
them to understand and be patient. And I think with people that understand they can adapt
their conversation, their mood or interaction with you. It puts less pressure on you and
you can still have a laugh or try to, but only when they truly understand and work with
you. That really does help. In sort of helping me kind of balance out
my moods and sort of staying well there’s been quite a few things that… Like now I’ve
got a kind of package of a few things that have kind of helped and one of those is definitely
my medication. I’ve also had CBT in the past year and that again like I think is a
really kind of important tool. When I’m depressed out I really try and not kind of
catastrophize and I think that is something that I really kind of learned in CBT. And
it doesn’t make the sort of depression go away, but I think it kind of helps writing
a to do list before I go to bed of what I’m going to do the next day. It might just
be really simple stuff like kind of go to the shops, get up, get dressed or make yourself
a nice lunch. Like just because otherwise especially at times when I’ve been off work
I’ll just wake up and think what is the point of getting out of bed. Whereas at least
if I’ve got a list there of things to do then…
It’s keeping busy isn’t it? Yes.
Routine I think helps. Yes.
Some things like as you say waking up, because you want to stay in bed if you’re feeling
depressed. I think having plans, meeting friends or maybe doing a bit of a job for someone,
a routine really helps keep stability and normality. Even if it’s just you know something
as simple as showering every day, going to the shops, going outside or making contact
with another person even if you’re just buying something from the shops.
Simple things like that, normality and routine help.