Being Bipolar

Angela Cowgill Professor Amy Gardner October 11, 2005 Final Draft English 101, Section 33 Being Bipolar Bipolar Disorder is a long-term medical illness characterized by dramatic mood swings from overly “high” and/or irritable to sad and hopeless, and then back again, often with periods of normal mood in between. Severe changes in energy and behavior go along with these changes in mood. These periods of high and low are called episodes of mania and depression. People who are Bipolar usually keep this diagnosis to themselves. The only people I have told, until now, are my family and a few close friends. For those that do not know, many times they see certain behaviors and think, “What is wrong with her?” My “high” moods are defined as hypomania. Hypomania is a milder version of mania. I become extremely happy, I talk fast, and I use my quick wit (which is not normal for me). I have grandiose ideas about what I am going to accomplish in life. New business ideas, second jobs, volunteer time, college, and the list goes on and on. Nothing is out of my reach. I can make the impossible possible with just a fraction of my attention. Ideas for crafts and organization appear out of nowhere and I begin to act on them. My mind is racing with plans to finish all of the projects, this time. Once I recognize the signs of hypomania, I put all thoughts of sleep aside knowing that this mood will not last and the crash is coming. I go from the high of highs, right through the normal mood zone, into a deep depression sometimes within a matter of days. Then, as fast as the high came, the anger and irritability will begin to surface. When the downward spiral begins to kick in, I get a physical feeling of being angry, and it is not anger at anything specific. I am living on the razor’s edge; the slightest thing will push

me over the edge, causing me to snap. Then I will begin to sink lower. This is where the true depression would begin. This is not just a sad feeling; this is much deeper. I literally cannot make myself do anything. I do the bare minimum to survive each day. It is all I can do to get the kids ready for school in the morning before returning to bed for the day. I can sleep all day and then all night and have to, literally, drag myself out of bed. Many times my alarm will go off for an hour before I even realize it is time to get up. I do not cook, clean, or even take care of myself. I liken the feeling of depression to having fallen into a deep well, clawing to try to get out, but all I am doing is pulling the dirt back into my face. The entire family now recognizes the behaviors I exhibit and know what is going to happen next. My husband realizes now what my behavior means. He loves my “high” moods. I am willing to do things for anyone at anytime. During my high moods, he tries to temper my large projects without stifling my creative energy. Each time he hopes that this will be a permanent mood for me, even though history shows all good things must end. When I begin to come down, he cannot understand and sometimes accept the sudden change in my mood. He begins to withdraw from me or stop communicating. We begin arguing over the silliest of things or stop communicating all together. I cannot fault him for his behavior. It has taken us all of our married life to understand what is going on in my mind. How did this all begin? Growing up, I was a very shy and sensitive child. I tried to stay in the background and under the radar as much as possible. Everyone thought I was the perfect child. What I did not let people see were the times I cried myself to sleep. I never could understand why I felt like crying. Looking back, I realize this was part of my depression. During my senior year of high school, a time in ones life when possibilities abound and you are planning for your future, I was all set to go to college with my best friend. We had

planned for months. I applied for admission to the college. We visited the campus and saw the dorms. I put down a deposit on the room for the first semester. I could not wait to begin my college education. That excitement began to wane and was replaced by terror. My mood began to slip; I became weepy and began to doubt my abilities. There was no way I could handle a four-year college. I lowered my expectation to a business school specializing in medical transcription. For the next two years, I attended the business school and worked a series of part time jobs. I met my husband and became engaged a year later, during one of my high moods. During the course of our engagement, I kept having doubts about getting married. I would go from expectant desire of marriage to wanting nothing to do with this man. During a high state I mailed our wedding invitations, the next day I was depressed and told him I did not want to get married. I kept my husband’s head spinning during this time in our life. What neither of us knew was this was not just a case of pre-marriage jitters. The trend would not stop once we were married. The next four years of married life where filled with extreme highs and lows. We bought a new car on a Saturday, and I wanted a divorce on the way home. Two days later, I did not want a divorce. We did not know how to communicate to each other so my mood swings caused serious rifts to develop between us. At this time, we found out that I was pregnant with our daughter. My husband describes the nine-month pregnancy as nine months in the desert without water. When Kristen was born, I was diagnosed with major depression. At the time, I did not think anything was wrong. One day I had a follow-up with my OB doctor. He asked me how I had been feeling and I told him I was fine. He then asked me to watch a movie about depression.

I asked him why he thought I should watch it and he told me that my husband had talked to my daughter’s pediatrician about my behavior. He said the pediatrician had called him to let him know what was going on. My OB decided that he should have me watch the movie at my next appointment and see what I thought about it. I truly believe that he saved my life that day. I watched that movie which included people’s testimonies of being depressed. They gave detailed descriptions of symptoms, feelings, and thoughts and all I could do was sit there watching with tears rolling down my face. It was at that moment that I realized this depression had been present with me for as long as I could remember. Once we had determined that we were dealing with depression, my doctor prescribed an anti-depressant. Within 2 weeks, I began feeling extremely better. I was in the bathroom looking in the mirror one morning about two weeks after I started the medication when I realized that for the first time in forever, I was happy. I felt and looked happy, and I spoke as if I were happy. My husband noticed it as fast as I did. My entire demeanor had changed and it was great. However, before long, the medication’s effects began to diminish and I started spiraling down again. For the next six years, this was the story of my life. I tried five different anti-depressants. Each time they would begin to work and my mood would begin to stabilize. What the doctors forget to mention many times is that the medications may only work for a given amount of time. That is what happened to me. One medication would work well and then its effectiveness would wane. The doctor would increase it until it would not work for me anymore and then he would try another medication. Six years after the birth of my daughter, I’m sitting in my home in Springtown, Texas with my 6 year old daughter and 1 1/2 year old twins. My husband calls to tell me he has been offered a job in Tulsa, it would be a promotion. The only catch was that he had to be there in

three days. It was not possible for all of us to go in March because we felt Kristen should finish Kindergarten before we moved. Chris packed up what he needed and headed for Tulsa to start the new job while I stayed behind to wrap up our affairs in Texas. This ended up being the worst period of my life. The stress of this move pushed my moods swings to new highs and lows even with the medication. I was now a single parent of three children under the age of six. I was responsible for the children, selling the house in Texas, buying our new home in Oklahoma and getting everything finished before the movers came. I was depressed for most of these three months, but on a couple of occasions my mood soared. I actually accomplished many things during these times of hypomania. The high mood would last an average of two days. Then, I would begin to sink into that black hole again and not want to go on anymore. I would daydream about driving off the road on the way to an appointment. I never attempted anything because my kids were always in the back of my head. I could not do something like that to them or the rest of my family. There were times I could not get out of bed. There were times when I neither was depressed nor hypo manic where I was able to get things done and was okay overall. I expected all of this to end when we arrived at our new home in Oklahoma. Nothing went as planned. This was not a simple move; it was a combination of families on top of a major relocation. My mother-in-law, Sandy, has Multiple Sclerosis and was unable to live alone any longer. Sandy and her two youngest sons moved in with us in Oklahoma. We were now a mixed family of eight living in a three-bedroom house. My mood did not improve but only began to worsen. Sandy would tell the same story repeatedly never remembering that she told it to me earlier in the day. She was constantly challenging how I raised my three daughters. She would undo the simplest things in the kitchen after telling me that it was my kitchen to organize as I

saw fit. She would reload the dishwasher after I had finished loading it, claiming to get more items in after she fixed it. I found myself no longer the head of the household, but a prisoner not only in my own home but also in my mind. I began to withdraw into my room more and more. This just made matters worse. Sandy would meet Chris at the door with tales of my poor stewardship. I would meet Chris at the door with tales of the horror my day entailed. My poor husband was caught between the frying pan and the fire. Now throw in a few mood swings and the situation was more than most families could handle. It was during this time that I found my new psychiatrist. During my first visit to his office I related to him all of my history and especially the last few months surrounding the move and the time in Oklahoma. Finally, after seven long years of changing medications he diagnosed me with bipolar disorder. The reason this diagnosis had never been given before, is that, up until this point, I had never recognized these moods as being “high.” I truly believed those times were normal for me. The only thing I ever elaborated on in my psychiatric appointments was my depression. The bipolar diagnosis brought about an aggressive medication regimen. There was a pill for everything. I took one for depression, another for mood stabilization, and still another for energy. The visits became once a month with the medication changing almost as often. For the next two years, I would go through countless different medications and dosages to try to find the right combination. Today I take four different medications and have been stable for almost one year. I still have times when my mood fluctuates, but we now recognize when it is happening and try to be more understanding of what is going on during those times. This is the first time in fourteen years that I have had such a long period of normalcy.

I used to say, “Why me?” I questioned why I had to take medication to be normal. Why can I not be like everybody else? I finally have an answer to these questions. Everyone has something in their life that makes them unhappy. In addition, so many people have illnesses much more severe than mine. There is not one person out there that is like everyone else. I am finally learning how to take charge of my problems and not let being bipolar ruin my life. I realize that I will probably have to take medication for the rest of my life, but I would rather do that than live the life I lived without the medication. I am taking care of myself and I look forward to what tomorrow will bring.