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AskMeImBipolar | #AskMeImBipolar - Living with Bipolar, Q&A, Mental Health, VLOGs
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Hadrian’s Wall Hike – Part 1
10th August 2018
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10 Signs That You’re Manic/Hypomanic
14th July 2018
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3 Reasons Sun Can Kill If You Take Antipsychotic/Antidepressant Meds
8th July 2018
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Sensory Overload in Bipolar – Part 1: Auditory
2nd July 2018
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I Experimented on Myself with CBD Oil
22nd June 2018
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Is Bipolar An Adjective? Rant:Chris Jeday/Katy Perry/Lilly Singh
11th June 2018
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Why Sleep is SO Important
5th June 2018
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Money Management in Mania
5th June 2018
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3 Stigmas About Bipolar Disorder – Debunked
10th November 2018
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This post was originally written for: We all hear the word ‘bipolar’ bandied around today when describing someone who is indecisive or even describing the weather when it doesn’t seem to know if it wants to rain or shine. Comments like these show a lack of understanding about the serious mental health condition known as ‘Bipolar Disorder’ and unfortunately perpetuates the stigma associated with this. There are three things that I always come across when I see stigma against Bipolar Disorder so here they are – debunked. 1. Does Bipolar mean that you can’t make up your mind? Absolutely not. See, I made a choice there with a very vehement NO. The word for this is either indecisive or ambivalent and every human being on the planet will have times of indecision or ambivalence. There is no evidence that people living with bipolar are any more indecisive that the rest of the population and let’s face it, we have all faced that mind blowing question ‘what shall we eat for dinner’? Bipolar Disorder used to be called ‘Manic Depression’, a term coined by German doctor Emil Kraepelin in 1896 but was renamed in 1980 by the American Psychological Association to apparently represent the dual nature of the disorder. Many people including myself believe that this is a misnomer, there is much more to living with Bipolar Disoder than up’s and down’s and that certainly doesn’t account for those who live with Cyclothymic Disorder (mixed episodes) which is on the Bipolar Spectrum. Bipolar episodes are dictated by a lack of or excess of neurotransmitters such as dopamine, noradrenaline and serotonin. Would you assume someone with an under-active or overactive thyroid is indecisive because they body either makes too much or too little thyroxin? Of course not. Same goes for bipolar 2. Is it really an illness or are you just moody/lazy? The most recent description of bipolar tells us that it is a neurobiological disorder that occurs in a specific part of the brain and is due to a malfunction of certain brain chemicals, neurotransmitters. For those of us, like me, without a degree in biology, the simple answer to this question is yes, it is really an illness and with this particular illness parts of your brain don’t work properly and malfunctions. The effects of this are both mental and physical, for example it affects motivation (mental) but also energy levels (physical), it can cause depressive mood (mental) but also slow speech, confused words, aches and pains (physical). Calling someone in a depressive episode lazy is the same as calling someone on a diabetic diet, picky. One of the biggest challenges we face with an invisible illness is the perceptions of others. Many people living with mental health issues and some invisible physical conditions such a fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue, for example, will have at some point in their lives had somebody question if they are just ‘being lazy’ or ‘making excuses’. This opinion comes from people who do not understand what it feels like to live with something such as bipolar and they have no frame of reference for knowing what we are and are not able to do. Bipolar Disorder is a biological and physical problem, but for our loved ones they might only see actions which to them appear personality driven and assume that deviant behaviour is a choice. Listening to loved ones saying things like that can be extremely demoralising and disheartening especially if you are just starting out on your journey to living well. 3. Are people with Bipolar Disorder violent? Did you know, people living with mental health conditions are statistically much more likely to be the victims of hate crime than commit crime themselves. The UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed that people whose disability impacted them ‘socially and behaviourally’ were four times more likely to be victims than those who said their disability impacted their mobility. So the simple answer to this question is no, but the media like to portray mental health in a very negative light, especially in movies. What we are looking at here is prejudice and stereotyping. Violence is generally a learned behaviour and not innate, therefore only a small percentage of people in general would resort to violence with or without a mental health condition. An experiment funded by the Swedish Medical Research Council and the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research was conducted where researchers from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and Oxford University, in a population-based, longitudinal cohort study, compared the risk of violent crime in people with bipolar disorder who had been living in hospital with the risk in the general population. They looked at 3,743 individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder and found that while 8.4% were classed as committing a violent crime, this was mostly (95%) confined to those with substance abuse issues. What this study shows us is that people who are hospitalised, substance abusers and not in control of their mental health have a small percentage likelihood of being violent and this has literally no reflection what so ever on everybody else. As somebody living, working and functioning well in society, I am no more likely to commit violent crime than the next person, just because I live with bipolar disorder. While it’s really frustrating to be stigmatised like this we have to remember that it’s a lack of education that created the problem. People who have not walked your path or lived your life will not understand what you experience. When someone doesn’t understand your depression and tells you to ‘cheer up’, for example, instead of getting angry remind yourself – My reality is not your reality. You can’t expect people who have never felt what you feel to understand it. It’s like asking a person born blind to describe the colour red. They can make an intelligent guess based on things they’ve heard but they can’t truly understand something they’ve never experienced. Have patience with loved ones, only with education will come understanding....
What You Did – A Hypomanic Reaction Explained
8th August 2018
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*In a hypomanic episode you can become really irritable to those around you. Sometimes you don’t know why you feel so snappy, other times it’s for reasons those around you will never truly understand. This was one of those times.* I was having a great time, for the first in weeks I actually had fun. The shadow had backed off for a short caption of time and I felt free. So free, I felt like myself again, that person I thought I’d totally lost. I felt on top of the world. The anxious voice had faded into a feint whisper, the stress and worry of the future dissolved, the fear I live with every single day, at that moment, had gone. It’s the fear that breaks me, living constantly on edge, paranoia, like every second I have to be ready for death or trauma. It consumes me and exhausts me: There is no break from it. Or so I thought until right then. At that moment, it was different. For that moment in time I felt human again, connected to my body, tethered to the earth, a violin in the orchestra of noise all around me, a cacophany that would usually send me over the edge into further darkness and pain. I had somehow forgotten to feel bad for a that instant, I had forgotten to feel the usual pain coursing through my veins like red hot lava, slowly burning my body away while I have no way to stop it. For that moment, I felt the cold of the weather on my skin, but not the usual deadened cold that paralyses me and eats away at me, freezing my core. I felt the cool air on my face, a breath of life, I felt excited but not the normal excitement that feels like my body is vibrating but not part of me: where my limbs feel like they are attached to strings and someone else is the puppet master. I felt happy, something which I’d forgotten existed, not like the usual mixture of overwhelming anxiety and fear because my mind is out of control right now, where I feel like I’m in a huge canon pointed at the moon listening to a count down wondering if this will be death or the stars. For a moment there, I forgot about the bipolar, about the hypomania. I was just another human, experiencing fun. Then you came over told me you wanted to leave. The instant the words came out of your mouth the whole world slowed down around me. My heart began pounding harder, quicker, harder. My vision became a tunnel and everything around me darkened except your face. You looked unhappy. I fought back the tears as I felt the joy slipping away from me, draining my body and slowly being replaced by that blue anxious energy again, is that it now? How many months before I get a moment like that again? I know you didn’t take it from me on purpose but it’s too late now, everything is fading away. I suddenly become acutely aware of the stabbing pain in my heart, the lump in my throat, the noise of everything around me made me panic. You didn’t know this would happen, I can’t resent you for it. You didn’t know that simple words would plunge my world back into the darkness, the hopelessness creeping back in with the fear. For a second I am frozen, I don’t know what to do, the world has changed around me and it’s dangerous now. I’m afraid. I walk forward in a daze, trying not to move too much, hoping it will go away again but it doesn’t. I can’t take it anymore, we have to leave, now. I can’t stand here, I can’t be here, it hurts too much. You are annoyed because I lose my temper: the alternative is to cry but everything is frozen inside me now, my tears have become icicles that feel like they are stabbing me from the inside out. Although I know for you it was just a simple need, you wanted to eat, you stole my moment of peace. The only one I’d had in months. You brought the darkness back, the fear how will you ever understand what you took from me. How your simple words ripped me out of that sweet reality like a car crash, dumping my helpless soul back in my own cold, callous head. It’s hard not to resent you but I realise that you have no idea what is going on. To you, I just got annoyed because I didn’t want to leave. To you it was irrational. You just wanted to eat. For me, I was forced back in prison for another few months....
Why ‘The Walking Dead’ Broke My Heart
12th April 2018
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This post was originally written for: ** Spolier Alert ** Trigger Alert I’ve had Netflix and Prime for a long time but as I spend most of my free time either studying or engaged in some kind of outdoor activity, I was late to the party with ‘The Walking Dead’. My friends were positively shocked when I told them I’d never seen the show (this was March 2018) so I decided to binge watch the zombie action to catch up, I’m a sucker for a good sci-fi series. Now I’m not a person who cries when people on TV die, I managed to sit through Titanic without shedding a single tear, multiple times, but what I saw in Series 5, Episode 9 of ‘The Walking Dead’ made me sob like a small child. If you haven’t seen the show and don’t want to know what happens, then this is your spoiler alert, don’t read on. Without giving away too much, there are a few scenes at the end of the episode where the character called Tyrese dies. Now for anyone whose watched ‘The Walking Dead’ you will have become accustom to the death of popular characters, everyone dies in the end, so I’m told. Tyrese wasn’t a character I was particular invested in, he wasn’t a main character, in some respects he kind of just existed in the periphery of the group without a real purpose. Every time someone died, I wasn’t really moved on an emotional level, which is why it really shocked me how the death of Tyrese shook me to the core. Tyrese was an average good guy in a world that had gone to hell. He tried to maintain his innate goodness and didn’t like to kill people, he was an all-round heroic character on a moral level. The reason his death gripped me was the raw portray of what I can only describe as his depression and utter despair after losing someone he loved. It started with him becoming distant from the group, which included his sister, he didn’t really say much and the most obvious problem was that his character now lacked purpose. This led him down a dark road. He displayed more and more signs of depression, freezing in battle, being lost in his own thoughts. The lead up to his death was heartbreakingly raw. During a routine house search, he was cornered by a zombie that snuck up on his as he was transfixed looking at a photo of two twin children, the zombie bit his arm. He fought it off and ended up hiding under the table. The next scene showed visions of those who had died coming to him, the first blaming him for the deaths of others, the next trying to reassure him that it wasn’t his fault and ‘it went the way it was always going to go’. Tyrese is lost, in a world of guilt, pain and confusion. He hasn’t seen a way out for some time now, these visions are manifestations of his internal turmoil. He’s had enough, he doesn’t want to fight anymore, he doesn’t remember what he was fighting for in the first place. Another vision comes from a dead character telling him ‘it’s better now’. There is a moment where you can see in his eyes, he gives up. After watching him struggle with the idea of life and death, what is worth living for, he makes a decision. All he wants is peace from the brutal agony that he feels every second of every day and he realises that the only way to get this peace is death. He can’t take it anymore, he doesn’t want to fight anymore, he just wants to let go and let the pain melt away. The zombie is attacking him and to move it away he puts his already bitten arm in the zombie’s mouth. This is the moment you can see he has accepted his fate, welcomed it. He was done with the painfully high cost of being alive, with the daily struggle to work out what is worth living for. The scene then shows more visions of the dead, assuring him it is better this way and he slips into a state where instead of seeing the characters trying to save him, he sees those already dead just waiting for him to cross over. The episode has been described as ‘beautiful, dark and twisted’. It hit me so hard because I have been in that place. As someone who lives with bipolar and experiences depressive episodes, I have felt that pain. I have felt that guilt. I have questioned the reasons for my own existence, felt so helpless, so worthless and so tired of the battle. I know exactly what it’s like to wish for an end to the pain and see no future for myself without eternal agony. To feel like I don’t have the strength anymore to keep fighting, to just want to give up, give in and let go. I have been to the edge of the abyss more than once, the brink of choosing life or death, but I have survived and I continue to do so. I have found over the years that my experience with depression has made me stronger and as I grow as a person I am thankful every day that I never gave in and that my friends and family never let me. Life can be beautiful, even when living with mental health, it’s just a case of remembering that sometimes. This episode was one of the most excruciating yet beguiling things I’ve ever watched on TV. Kudos to the producers, directors and of course to Chad Coleman whose magnificent acting had me, the ice queen, curled up like a child in the foetal position sobbing into my pillow....
Why Living With Bipolar Is Like A Life-Long Game Of Chess
10th March 2018
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This post was originally written for: Having an invisible illness such as mental health comes with all manner of problems and stigma. I’m very lucky in the sense that I am supported by my family and friends but I often find that thought creeping into my head… ‘they just don’t get it’. What I mean by that is, even though everyone supports me, looks after me and helps me where they can, they really just don’t understand how intensely bipolar affects my everyday life. Life is one massive game of chess for me. I have to work out everything a few moves ahead to make sure my mental health will be alright. For example, if someone asks me to join them for a drink on a Friday evening, instead of just saying yes I have to run the possible scenarios in my mind. E.g If I drink alcohol on Friday night that means the side effects of my tablet will be worse, plus the fact I will get home late. This means that I won’t be able to get up and I will be groggy and feel like hell tomorrow. That means that I have to write off tomorrow and postpone anything I need to do tomorrow until the day after. If the day after is Sunday, am I able to do the tasks I needed to do on Saturday, are the shops open, for example. Saturday night I will also get a bad night’s sleep due to the mess up in meds the night before, so Sunday is a maybe on whether I’ll feel able to do the tasks anyway. If I don’t feel well, I will need to postpone until Monday, but then Monday I’m back to work. It may sound like a lot of overthinking but in fact it’s almost become second nature to me now. Somebody will ask me to pick them up from the airport at midnight, I will say no because that will postpone my tablet time, which will affect my morning and afternoon and therefore affect the whole of the next day and possible impact the one after that. This is often misconstrued as not wanting to participate in social events or just being plain selfish. While I agree to some degree that is right, I have to be selfish and I’m 100% happy choosing myself as a priority. When I am in an depressive episode, Christine Miserandino’s ‘Spoon Theory’ definitely applies. There are a limited number of things I can do in any one day and getting others to understand this is difficult. Often I find my internal battery is flashing red because I’ve just got out of bed and managed to get my clothes on. I have to lie back down again and try and conserve energy to get enough to let me get up and walk into the kitchen, never mind actually making breakfast. To explain to my partner and friends, I tried two methods. The first was for my partner, where I would limit the number of things they could ask me to do in the day to 3. The 3 things could be anything, make a brew, wash the pots, tidy the laundry. The rules were that there was a 24-hour time limit on those tasks and I could choose when I did them. This worked mostly but in some cases I had to reduce the number of tasks to 2 or 1 depending on how bad I felt in the day. I also got my partner to ask me ‘how’s your battery’ before asking me to do something that would take energy. This way I had the chance to say ‘red, yellow or green’, red meaning – no chance, yellow meaning – give me some time and green meaning – yes I can do it. The second method I used on my friends. When they asked me to do something I would take the time and tell them to play out the scenario for me vocally. That way they realised on their own how one thing impacted the next as I guided them along. It was almost like a role-play game with rules; for example, if I take my medication I need 10 hours before I can function properly again, therefore if I take it later than midnight I won’t make work in the morning. Initially they didn’t really understand, but now I find if they ask me to do something they quickly think about it, realise that I can’t ,then say oh, never mind, you can’t because of your medication, for example. Living life like a giant chess game is not a bad thing. It takes some getting used to and at first you will make mistakes. Learning to anticipate the next moves is a skill that can be applied to all aspects of your life. In this way, living with Bipolar has made me a better person....
How Xena: Warrior Princess Saved My Life
19th January 2018
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This post was originally written for: Every year in January I have a ritual, I re-watch the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess, all six seasons of it. Xena was a TV show that aired between 1995 – 2001 about a warrior woman of ancient Greece who used to be a warlord but turned to the side of good though was constantly fighting her demons. I would have been 10 years old when it first came out and even then it resonated with me. As the years went by I saw more and more of myself in the character of Xena, constantly trying do the right thing but often being sabotaged by my own mind and past. Living with bipolar can sometimes feel like you are forever fighting a war that will never stop. As much as I tried to be a good person and do the right things, I will always be haunted by the times my mania or my depression took over and my decisions were poor. Before I was diagnosed (at age 27) I often found myself trying to be a ‘good person’. At school there were many times I swore I would behave and pay attention, then failed to do so. As an adult there were so many times where in the wrap of mania I drank until the sun rose and hurt people’s feelings by accident, I even ended up in some sticky situations. Just like Xena, I wanted so badly to be this good person who had their life sorted and had a plan for the future. I wanted to help people and I wanted atone for the bad things I had done before, the people I had hurt. I went out of my way to try and do this, Xena helped people by fighting their battles, so I did the same and with some degree of success. I worked in close protection and security for a long time, I protected people, but it didn’t stop the darkness inside me. At every turn Xena was tempted to go back to her old life of being a warlord. It was easy, it was all she had known. I was tempted so many times to go back my ways of drinking, partying, hating and having no regard for myself. In the series, the God of War Ares comes to Xena at various points and tries to steer her back to her wicked ways of the past. He is like the whisper that I call ‘the shadow’. That tells me all the things I don’t want to hear, or sometimes that I do. He tries to tell me there is no hope and that I should just submit to what I am. Like Xena, I learnt to ignore him and fight on. In the first season Xena’s darkness makes her believe that to die would be the better option, it would be the only way for redemption. It makes her think the world would be a better place without out her. This is just like my depression. She gives up more than once over the season and almost allows herself to be killed. The only reason she is alive is because her best friend, Gabrielle, never gives up on her. I could say the same for mine. Xena was my role model as a child and even now, when I get into a situation and I feel a little out of control or I feel a little lost with my life, I ask myself one thing. What would Xena do? The answer is always to do the right thing, fight on and listen to positivity of those close to you who can sometimes see clearer than you can at the time. ...
3 Advantages of Loving Someone Who Lives with Bipolar
10th January 2018
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I’m not going to sit here and tell you that loving someone who lives with bipolar disorder is an easy task. It will be very challenging, sometimes you will get hurt, sometimes you will feel angry, frustrated and even borderline hate for the person. You will need to get used to a new way of living, their needs will more often than not come before yours. You may have to compromise on a lot of things, take on the burden of their chores when they can’t function and accept that you will have to time your life around their medication. “Following a diagnosis, the first and most dominant response from a spouse usually is sympathy”, says David A. Karp, professor of sociology at Boston College and author of The Burden of Sympathy: How Families Cope with Mental Illness (Oxford University Press, 2002). “But further down the road, a spouse may experience emotions they don’t think they should be having—anger, frustration, and even hate.” There are lots of down sides to relationships that people always talk about. Google ‘Bipolar Marriage’ and the first thing that will come is a damning statistic from November 2003’s article in Psychology Today called ‘Managing Bipolar Disorder’ that tells you 90% of all marriages where one partner is living with BPD ends in divorce. It’s almost like when you fell ill and you google your symptoms, you suddenly convince yourself you’re about to die based on the results. What nobody tells you is that loving someone who lives with bipolar and manages their condition well can be the most profound and fulfilling experience of your life. 1. You will get to know yourself better Loving a person who lives with bipolar will test you in ways you never imagined. Not only will you learn how strong you are and about your own limits, you will also learn to let go of the small stuff. Arguments and little things that may have hurt you in the past will no longer bother you, giving you more time to focus on what really matters. Your temper might improve but more importantly your ability to work out what is important and what is not will develop. You may have to learn to compromise, give in and adapt to the changing situations. The power to adapt to new situations quickly and turn negatives into positives is something that you will definitely learn from your partner. If you have open communication with them, you will learn about how you react to things and why as well as what goes through their head, you will be able to decipher what goes through your own. Don’t forget, you must learn to take care of yourself before you can take care of others and a bipolar partner can really hit that home. 2. They will motivate you While it is easy to get sucked into the lows of a partner’s depression, recovery and maintenance can be motivating for both of you. Exercise is a great way to help depression and burn some energy off in mania so use this to your advantage. Go to the gym together, go for a run, swim or a bike ride. Exercise has a massive clinically proven impact on mood both for you and especially for your bipolar partner. While they might not be able to motivate themselves in depression, if you can persuade them to go to the gym with you it will not only help you both keep fit but will vastly improve their dopamine levels. Take the opportunity to eat well also. Bipolar can be greatly affected by what food the person consumes so learn to cook something new and healthy or research what nutrients your partner and yourself should have more of for a happy, healthy life. 3. They Will Change Your Outlook on Life Loving someone who lives with bipolar is a constant reminder that you are lucky not to have to deal with the frightening highs and crashing lows that they experience. Your values and ideas will naturally change over time with maturity and life experience, but loving a person who lives with bipolar can be a catalyst for this. They will teach you to live in the present, appreciate the good times and learn through the bad times as the future for them can be uncertain in many ways. They will show you that sometimes the little things in life can be the best and how to face challenges instead of running away from them. When you only get a limited amount of ‘good days’ then living by the phrase ‘Carpe Diem’ is all that more important....
New Years Reflections 2018
3rd January 2018
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I have been sitting at my laptop thinking and wondering what on earth I should write for a New Year’s post that would be profound or at least a little helpful. All the ideas that came and left my head I didn’t consider good enough until finally after a few days of staring at a blank word document it finally hit me. Every New Year people around the world make resolutions, document their aspirations for the year and list all the things they want to do or change in their lives. This year, as I sat at home on New Years Day I reflection on my life thus far. From being a hyperactive, curious child full of energy to a bipolar teenage metalhead/rocker who discovered self-harm as a way to cope with life. To a 20 year old who was mad at the world, drank to forget and partied day and night to a 25 year old who strived so hard to please people, opened her own company and went back to university, only to find that everything was just as hard, if not harder than she had ever imagined. At 27 I was diagnosed with bipolar, by 30 I was stable with medication and now, I sit here at 32, finally happy with my life and its direction. Instead of sitting and listing all the things that I want to do this year, I thought I’d tell you about what I’ve learned so far. As a child I learned that my mother would always be my rock and no matter what she would always believe in me, even when I didn’t see the point in being alive myself. As a teenager, I made a best friend who would stay by my side for the rest of my life, even when I put her life in danger with my aggressive behaviour that nobody understood, not even me. I tried to kill myself three times and I lived, which I truly believe is for a reason as I am now here to tell my tale. I hated everyone and everything, I didn’t know why I felt the way I did, I’d never heard of bipolar disorder and the doctors treated me for depression that sent me into a mania. All I ever heard from psychiatrists and GP’s was ‘it’s just hormones, she’s a teenager’. In my 20’s I thought that the way to peace was to please everybody else, I went out of my way to help people, look after people until all my energy was sapped and I was left with a dead battery. So instead of recharging, I’d go out drinking and partying to mask the symptoms. I was so sure that I knew who I was, that I knew what type of lifestyle I wanted to live. I was trying to convince myself that I was happy as I surrounded myself with people like me, people who normalised my behaviour and thus in my little bubble I remained. At 25, everything changed. I made a decision to more with my life. I stopped wanting to party all night in favour of working every hour available to make money with my new company and also studying to get my degree. I barely went out drinking, but when I did, I binge drank to the point I could hardly remember the night. This was my way to ‘blow off steam’. I realised that I wasn’t happy before and I tried to be happy in a different way. Again, I thought I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted for my life, which was totally different from the rock and roll lifestyle I previously was sure I wanted. At 27 I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Suddenly there was a name for this demon that haunted me every moment of every day and just knowing that it wasn’t ‘me’ was such a eureka moment that all of a sudden, I questioned my motives for everything I’d ever previously done. The next 3 years were a trial of medication, doses and I finally got my degree. Then I hit 30. People had told me that in your 20’s you don’t think the same as in your 30’s and I’d always thought that I would never change my mind about anything. Partly because I didn’t believe them, but partly because I knew how stubborn I was. I was wrong, so wrong. I hit 30 and everything changed as the relationship I was in broke down. I decided to sell my shares of the company I had helped to build and I moved out of the city centre. I had no desire to go out drinking and partying, no desire to be super social, maybe that was just in my mania? I realised that my whole life there had been this black shadow hanging over me called bipolar and even though I now knew its name, I hadn’t really dealt with the fact it was there, forever. I made the decision to concentrate on myself, who was I, what did I really want from life? Had all my previous thoughts been influenced by the bipolar? What would I be doing if the bipolar wasn’t there? It took me two more years to get to where I am now, New Year 2018. In that time, I started the Askmeimbipolar project, I studied all the ways I can help myself in lifestyle to take the edge off the effects of the bipolar. I’ve found the right dose of medication for me and that leaves me where? Well, the short answer is happy. For the first time in my life in 2017, I experienced true happiness. It wasn’t from the bottom of a bottle and it didn’t come from anyone else or anything external to me. I found my pace in life, I exercised, I ate better, I hardly drink anymore and I haven’t touched a cigarette in years. All the things that I was adamant I’d do because I loved it in my 20’s are now things I don’t go near anymore. If I had 3 bits of advice for anyone in this New Year, it would be this: 1. Don’t be afraid to be you. If you don’t like someone, say so. If you don’t want to do something, don’t do it. If you need some space, take it. Don’t let your pace of life be dictated by anyone else, this includes loved ones. To live well, especially with a mental health problem, you have to put your wellbeing as the priority in every situation. You don’t want to go to bar with your partner and their friends because it makes you anxious and you don’t really drink anyway – Don’t go, stay home and read something fulfilling. The power to say NO is the one thing that I never realised I had in my 20’s. 2. Follow your heart. I don’t mean that in a romantic sense, unless that’s what you want to do but you are a beautiful individual person with strengths and qualities that are unique to this world. If you want to walk in nature, do it. If you want to travel, find a way. If you want to start a pottery class or even distil your own whiskey, whatever it might be that you have a passion or a curiosity for, do it. For all those people who tell me they don’t have time, answer me this. If a freak storm damaged your house and you had to call repair people and get some major fixes done, would you have no time to do it? Would you live in a broken house with no plumbing or no doors? Of course not. You’d find the time. It’s all about priority, make yourself and your wellbeing the no 1 priority this year. 3. Vodka tastes better when you freeze it. Yes, this is not a discovery to anyone who lives in Eastern Europe but it’s something I only learned in later 2017! As a non-vodka drinker (I always thought it tasted like paint thinner) it’s a revelation! ...
Why I Dread Christmas
28th December 2017
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Christmas is a time for happiness, mince pies, chocolate, sherry, family, merriment and a plethora of other great things. It’s the time of the year when we are supposed be happy, relaxed, taking time off work and indulging ourselves in cake and wine. When I was a child, I loved Christmas and everything about it. It was a magical time of year that I’d look forward to all through winter. As an adult, I absolutely and utterly dread it. I live with bipolar and my depressive episodes quite often align themselves with the winter season, something which I don’t think is coincidence. This winter is no exception. As the months changed from October to December I became progressively worse and deeper into my depression. By December I had no energy at all, moving felt like fighting my way through treacle and simple tasks became almost impossible. Then came Christmas. A whirlwind of having to do things, having to smile, having to please other people and keep up this guise of my happy former self. All the while, inside me, my battery flashed red and my mind screamed STOP. It started with Christmas Eve, dinner with my partner’s family. I slept all morning trying to gather the energy to get up out of my bed. The moment I opened my eyes, I felt that dread inside me, the one where I know I have to leave the house and interact with others. I got myself up, got dressed, lay back down and curled into a ball. I got up and went to the bathroom, cleaned my teeth, washed my face then came back to bed and curled into a ball. The time came for us to leave, my body felt like it weighed five times more than it should, my breath was laboured, like even my lungs were tired. It was a bit of a whirlwind to me, getting up and getting into the car, driving over to their house. I don’t remember the journey, just stopping the car and seeing the lights. Christmas lights are pretty, I should have been excited or at least calm, but I started to feel intense fear. I swallowed it down and put on my ‘happy face’, though I don’t know if I’m as good an actor as I think I am. It took me ages to get out of the car, the lack of energy and the fatigue in my muscles made my movements so slow. Inside the house everyone was having a great time. Luckily for me, everyone else in the room was Polish so I had an excuse not to talk much. I was so aware that my brain was processing thing much slower than normal and that in turn made my speech slower. I got through the evening and we went home to bed. I was so tired I slept as soon as I hit the pillow. Then came the morning of Christmas Day, time to visit my parents. The same process again, get up, lie down, get dressed, lie down, get clean, lie down. I think I fell asleep again at one point. Instead of boring you will all the minor details I’ll give you the summary of the next 48 hours. We went to my parents, we ate lunch, I pretended to be totally happy to the point that by the evening I started snapping at people and being irritable. I had gone from low energy to no energy. I went to sleep, woke up, we then had to go back to my partner’s family for a boxing day meal. I had no patience left, I ended up screaming in the car, crying and having a meltdown. I don’t even remember what we were talking about. I was so angry and so tired that I just couldn’t cope anymore. We sat in the car for a long time, we were late for dinner. I finally worked up the energy to go into the house. We had dinner and then came home pretty quickly afterwards. It took me almost a week to recover. The day after I felt so low I didn’t get out of bed. I didn’t really get out of bed for the next four days. In fact, I didn’t even have a shower that week. Christmas is a wonderful time of year, for most people. For me, it’s a source of stress, fear, exhaustion and endless acting. I dread Christmas....
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