As a kid, I wasn't exactly what you would call social. I hung around mostly with a few kids from my parent's church, and I had known most of them for nearly my entire life. I went to a church-run school, and my classmates all went to church with me. At home, if I wasn't playing with my sisters (I'm the only boy, and have four sisters), I was in my room, reading a book. I didn't really make any new friends. I just hung out with my school/church friends when they were around.
When I was in 5th grade, the church and school I had attended all my life closed, and I rarely, if ever, saw the children I had grown up with. Some of them had moved away, and seeing them would have been difficult. My parents homeschooled me and my sisters that first year, so it was just us and my mom for my 6th grade year.
In 7th grade, I started a new school. It was still a church-run school, but I didn't know anyone there. I was, to put it mildly, awkward. The first year or two, I don't know that I would say I had any friends. There were a few kids I talked to in class, but mostly I was the awkward kid who sat by himself at lunch.
Sometime during junior high, though I didn't realize it at the time, my illness struck for the first time. Junior high was when I made my first suicide attempt. I took a couple bottles of pills from the medicine cabinet and took every pill. Tylenol, ibuprofen and a couple Sudafed were, obviously, barely enough to make me sick to my stomach. But I was in a bad place, and it was a genuine, although ignorant, attempt.
Then the pendulum shifted, and I went into a mild hypomania. I remember the rush. I would talk to everyone in my class, and in other classes. I would joke, I discovered how to make people laugh. I didn't know what was happening at the time, but it felt wonderful. My social awkwardness seemed to have disappeared. I was a new man (it was 8th and 9th grade, so I would have called myself a "man", because teenagers are dumb).
My moods, thoughts, and behaviors shifted back and forth, with some periods of "normal" mood in between. The cycles tended to be significantly longer than they are now. During a depressive episode, my mom recognized that something was wrong, and took me to see a professional. I was given an antidepressant, and assigned to a therapist.
I took the meds for a while. But they started to make me hostile, angry, irritable and mean. I refused to take them anymore, so I just quit going. After stopping the meds, my mom saw that the depression wasn't returning, so let me stay off of them. I know now that the reason I had that reaction to the meds was because of my illness. Individuals with Bipolar Disorder, when they are given only an antidepressant, tend to respond badly, and my behavior was a fairly typical reaction for someone with my illness.
My mood continued to fluctuate throughout high school. I would feel euphoric and social for a while, and withdrawn and sullen for a while. I'm not sure what others thought of my behavior, but in my mind, this was just the way it was. I didn't know that this was abnormal. I didn't have a standard to compare it to. I just knew that when I was younger, I had struggled to make ANY friends, and that when I got into high school SOMETIMES it was easier.
My senior year, I switched schools again. I left behind the friends I had FINALLY made, and spent my last year of high school in a public school. Again, there were ups and downs, and I did end up making some friends, although, I know, looking back on it now, that they must have thought I was strange.
My senior year, a lot of crap happened. It wasn't a good year, by any measure. I won't get into specifics, but I will say that the stuff would have sent a person without a mental illness into a dark place. I spiraled out of control. I started faking illnesses, so that I didn't have to go to school. I contemplated suicide. I came close to another attempt. I managed to make it through, but by the skin of my teeth.
The summer after I graduated, I went into what I now know was a mixed episode. I started picking awful fights with my dad, just to piss him off. It got so ugly that he kicked me out. I don't blame him. I was an asshole. I lived briefly with my grandmother. That period still bothers me, because I was mean and nasty to her, too. I moved out of there after a few months. I started to drink, experimented with drugs. I was reckless, I started and quit jobs. I was in college, and was regularly skipping classes, and almost never turning in homework. I lost a lot of chances in those years. I managed to meet and make a few good friends, but I screwed up a lot of things.
I hopped around from place to place, never living with the same people in the same place for very long. I performed poorly at work. My behavior with romantic interests was ridiculous, as I would start a relationship, end it, and then want to go back. Anyone who put up with me was a saint. I made friends, and then just dropped them, never returning their calls. I was awful.
Another depression hit, and I went back for help. Again, they gave me an antidepressant, and again I reacted the same way. That's the problem with Bipolar Disorder. When we describe our suffering, a lot of times we don't describe the manic episodes at first. They don't seem like a problem. I didn't realize that the extreme good moods were a symptom. They were a reprieve from the depression.
Even my marriage was probably due to my illness. I love my wife, and I would have ended up with her regardless, but I asked her to marry me, and insisted that we have the ceremony three days later. She said okay, though. At that point, I don't think she realized that there was something wrong either. She just saw it as my being impulsive. That impulsiveness had been part of me for nearly the entire time she had known me, as we met in junior high. She didn't realize it was my illness.
Shortly after we got married, I went back for help. The darkness was back. Again, the antidepressant made me unbearable. Again I went off of it, and went into mania. I cycled back and forth for a few more years.
In 2009, I had the deepest, darkest moment of my life. I had a well thought out plan, and was on my way to commit suicide. I was alone in the house, I wrote a note, and left. Instead of going where I planned on committing suicide, though, I went to the hospital. I had a brief moment of clarity and realized I needed help.
That was when I was hospitalized, and put under observation. It was then that I was finally properly diagnosed. In the hospital, I was given a fast-acting antidepressant and antianxiety medication, and after a day or two, I went into a manic episode. I was giddy and euphoric, laughing and running through the halls, when just a few days earlier I had been suicidal. The doctor diagnosed with me with Bipolar Disorder, and that is also when I got the ADHD diagnosis.
I was tempted, at first, to go off the meds again. But I knew, now that I had a mood stabilizer, that this would probably be different. It took a while to feel it, but it was completely different.
Those meds worked. I felt like I could function. A funny thing happened. Both my socially awkward and my overly-friendly episodes leveled out. I think that was the hardest thing to deal with prior to effective treatment. I struggled SO MUCH with even the most basic social interactions. I could be pushy, overbearing and obnoxious when manic. I was sullen and miserable when depressed. In mania, I made friends quickly and easily, and talked to everyone - but I had so much DRAMA that few could handle it for very long. In depressive episodes, I dropped off the face of the Earth. I ignored phone calls, refused to go hang out with people, and was just a miserable person.
Once I leveled out and got onto an even keel, thanks to treatment, I found that I could make and keep friends much more easily. I was comfortable in social situations. I could hang out, make new friends, and get along with people in general. It made it easier for me to handle difficult situations, and tolerate people that before treatment would have been unbearable. Life was just easier.
Reading my old journals, my struggles with my social life come up again and again. It caused me so much pain. The extreme moods and behaviors drove many people away. Why wouldn't it? They just thought I was an awful person. I didn't know what was happening either. I thought it was all my fault. I thought I was broken, and a hopeless case. I thought I would always be a pariah.
That was a big source of the panic and anxiety I felt when I began to have severe symptoms again. Even though I know that this is a temporary setback, and that I will be stable again sometime soon, the fear of losing the ability to function and interact with people overwhelmed me. That was, in large part, why I told everyone about my illness, and why I started this blog.
I don't want to lose control of my behavior and do or say something that causes anyone pain and drives them away. I was finally functioning. I don't want to lose my friends, distance myself from my family, or lose anyone during my moments of madness. Sharing my struggles, I hope, will allow them to grant me some leniency.
I know that my mental illness, this disorder that can cause such a drastic change in my moods and behaviors, can be traumatic for those around me. When I am symptomatic, if I can't keep it in check, I can be hard to handle. I can be rude, inconsiderate, and condescending. I can be hostile and aggressive. I will sometimes talk over other people, interrupt their conversation, and act like my thoughts and ideas are more important than theirs. I can be sullen, distant, and unbearable. I am hopeful that explaining my illness, its symptoms, and how it affects my behavior has allowed people to see my behavior in a different light.
That is my greatest hope for this blog. I want it to cause people to see someone like me behaving in an unusual way and instead of thinking "He's being an asshole!", I am trying to help them think "Oh, he's not well. Let me see if I can help him." If even one person changes the way they think, I will consider my pain, my suffering and my illness completely worth the struggle. Fostering compassion and understanding, and ending stigma, is the whole point of this blog. It's why I am writing.
I hope that my words have started something, a change in people's way of seeing others. I hope I have created a window into what the pain of mental illness feels like. I hope that I have helped people be more open with others about their own struggles. That would be success to me.
To my friends and family, I just want to say thank you. For your understanding, compassion and endless support. I am leveling out, and am feeling 90% normal again. This battle is nearly won. But, there will mostly likely be another battle ahead someday. That one, too, will be won. I hope that you will continue to stand with me. I hope that my blog has made standing at my side easier.
