Down But Not Quite All Out

I’ve noticed during this period of depression and psychosis that I’ve been a lot more outspoken about what I’ve been going through. Here are a couple of posts I’ve made as an example of the sort of thing I’m referring to:

So basically they were a bunch of self-pitying, self-loathing, feeling pretty bad about being alive posts. I’m completely against the whole idea of Christmas this year and the whole festive thing is making me feel ill too, especially when our planet is dying and everyone is just looking on, laughing and drinking as they watch it burn. Also one picture is when I decided to smear acrylic paint all over myself and take pictures. I’m not sure that was the greatest thing for my eyelashes but it summed up my mania from that moment perfectly.

I began pondering whether I am actually doing the right thing by posting how I feel. After all, if I had a broken leg and was finding it hard to get around or I had cancer and was struggling with the side effects of the medication no one would bat an eyelid. I certainly wouldn’t. I would be thinking let that strong badass woman fight her battles however she wants to. Unfortunately I consider myself to be neither strong or a badass and prefer not to think about myself at all if I can help it. Just recently though I have started to accept that I AM unwell. I may have times when I am a bit better, times where I think everything will be ok after all, but the reality for me is that this IS my reality. I am on the best drug regime that my Doctors have found and it works in as much as I am more stable, I’m able to recognise when I need to add in an extra antipsychotic or anti-anxiety medication and although I still go through the periods of madness for the most part they are be shorter and less intense (touch-wood). So if I’m unwell and there is no way that I will ever be ‘cured’ why can’t I talk about it? Having Bipolar Disorder is bloody awful, it has turned my life up and down and up again and left me in a state of limbo that took years to free myself from.

So when I post a picture of myself with my hair tangled into what can only be described as a bird’s nest or share an Instagram story in my PJ’s complaining about whatever physical or mental symptom I’m suffering with, (yep, lots of physical symptoms are part of Bipolar too) it isn’t me looking for sympathy or a reaction. It certainly isn’t me boasting about being at home all day and not being able to work (I would give anything to be well enough to earn a wage and contribute). It’s me posting my life, as it is for me. There may be photo’s of me all dressed up but again these just show a snap-shot of my life. A single second in a day of 86400. Sometimes I’ll get all dressed and be about to leave but then my anxiety kicks in so I end up stay at home, feeling defeated. Sometimes I can be crying and raving, seeing monsters and hearing voices and then an hour or so later I can gather myself together enough to maybe get a coffee of take the dog for a walk. Sometimes I wont leave the house or wash or brush me teeth for a week.

What I’m try to say is that this is my new normal. My new normal is abnormal and I never know what is going to tip it one way or the other although I am getting better at recognising triggers all the time.

I miss my old normal, even if my old normal was littered with episodes of mania which were the most exhilarating and destructive times in my life and the deepest suicidal depressions. At the time I fumbled along as best as I could, seeking advice from friends and being told ‘it is what it is’. What does that even mean? It is what it is? I didn’t know so I carried on stumbling along in the dark until I found the light in my life and my saviour and began to recognise that maybe it wasn’t just that I was a reckless, unemotional wild thing on a mission to self destruct but someone who actually had a medical condition which could be helped. I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for my soulmate, I certainly don’t think I’d be here anyway.

So that’s it for today. My meds make my brain slow and this has taken me an absolute age to type. Apologies also for typos and grammatical errors. I’m normally so fastidious but even sending a quick text is taxing at the moment so I doubt my proof-reading is up to much. If you know me in real life feel free to reach out to me. In fact PLEASE reach out to me. Long term illness, especially psychiatric illness, is a very lonely place to be and lets face it I haven’t got many friends after my last big manic blow out. So maybe just say Hi, I’m just trying to be a strong, badass Woman beneath all the tangled hair and dirty pyjamas and trying to find my way in this ‘new ‘normal’

Angel or Demon

There are two types of people in this world, those who have been touched by madness and those who are still immune to its relative charms. I fall firmly into the first camp, aware that even as a young child the things I saw and felt weren’t the same as those experienced by the other pupils in my class.

Today, 30 years on, madness grips me in the worst kind of way. The kind where I don’t know what to believe or what is the truth. Is the Devil really visiting me, showing me images of horror and fire and death? Or is it my mental illness? Bipolar Disorder short-circuiting something in my brain that creates these facades? Logically I try to focus on the most realistic cause for my terror but the grip of Him is so strong. I close my eyes and all is golden and gleaming and light. There is the glow of the early morning suns rays as they shine through the magnificent stained glass window. The candles are ablaze, burning unnaturally high on the alter of pure which cloth before which I kneel in supplication. I know that if he wanted to take me now that I would be powerless to stop him. I would be his creature. He shows me murder. Murder at my own hand. And I don’t know whether I would be able to resist the things he wants me to do. Horror and fire and death and Him and, for some reason that I can’t understand, lots of red feathers.

I take my medication. Then I take another dose and another and add in a couple of different medications for good measure. Anything to block this out of my head. No, not just my head because I feel this within me. A part of me as much as the part that loves to draw and sing and paint and be in nature. This darkness has penetrated me again. It has done so before but always I hope it will be for the last time. The medications help, if only to make me so sedated that I can obtain the sweet relief of sleep. I awaken and for a fleeting second forget about my demons but then as I try to stand I jolt and nearly fall as the disorientating effects of the medicine remind me that all is not well. Motor and mental skills are the price I am paying to hold off this Devil and it is a heavy price. My body feels old and weak and my mind is so slow that I can’t find words for things that I know so well. I have fleeting glimpses of freedom which I seize with both hands and I paint my naked body with abandon, determined to reclaim ME. This is ME and I will not be yours. Then after all too brief a respite He returns and so begins the cycle of medication and sedation and sleep.

It is now nearly 03:15 and I am wide awake. I’m lucid. I went to bed at 17:00 – collapsed under the mental pressure of the medication which is supposed to be making me better – but now this is time for me to be myself for a while. There are enough drugs in my system to hold off the Demon but not enough to completely tie me to sleep. So I am up, a candle is lit, I have a pot of loose leaf chamomile tea and I am trying to pour out some of the jumble that is inside my head. There is so much inside me that is trying to get out. Imagine picture after picture after sketch after painting after photograph after poem after song after dance and more and more and more pictures. I see everyone one completely vividly but I either can’t get them out quickly enough to capture them or the Demon comes and takes them away from me and I have to numb myself with the tablets again.

Tomorrow I am going to get up early and go the The Eucharist at the Cathedral. I was raised as a member of The Church Of England but have drifted away and back again several times during my life. Although I wouldn’t class myself as a confirmed believer in any one thing over another I do believe that there is Something out there, whatever name we choose to give it. I often visit the Cathedral and light candles for my loved ones, for my past, my present and my future and I always feel like a weight has been lifted after I have been inside the glory of a building built purely for praise. I don’t think anyone who has entered the greatness of one of England’s Cathedrals can fail to appreciate that magical feeling. I am hoping that I can be purified by the experience and try to convince myself that this Devil is all in my head and I’m not actually being groomed by the Antichrist. I know that sounds ridiculous. Please believe me, I know. But if you had seen what I had seen and heard the things that I had heard and watched your own hands commit murder than perhaps just making sure you aren’t actually possessed by the Devil wouldn’t seem quite so foolish.

Now I’ve written all that I’m going to get out of my brain before it shuts down on me again so I’ll finish my tea and attempt to get back to sleep – a sleep that isn’t completely drugged.

I’ll let you know if I burst into flames when I cross the Cathedral threshold….