I’m pretty sure I have bipolar disorder. Growing up I felt something off with me. However, I was raised in a family where mental health was swept under the rug. Especially mental illness. For example, I was molested at a early age by a family member. But instead of taking me to seek therapy or counseling, my mother claimed I was making the issue bigger than what it was.
So, I knew as I got older that I shouldn’t talk about mental illness. It was like a open secret, however in my household. Because my grandmother has bipolar disorder and she is also schizo affective. Then my aunt is schizo affective as well. I have a brother that is schizophrenic.
I don’t know why my family has mental health issues. I think it might be due to the fact that my great grandfather and great grandmother were cousins. Maybe that familial genetic breeding caused insanity rather than physical deformities or delayed intellect. Or maybe it’s just the luck of the draw.
Either way, my mother did not allow for us to talk about mental illness although she knew there was a high chance we would end up developing disorders thanks to our genetics. Instead she emphasized that our mental illness was a result of not being close enough to God. And that if we focused on removing the demons inside of us, we would get better. Basically, she told me and my brother that because we weren’t good enough Christians, that’s why our minds were loopy.
As I got older I found myself being sad for seemingly no reason. I had social withdrawal and developed sever social anxiety and paranoia. I felt like everyone was looking at me. Even if the blinds were closed, I felt that there was someone on the other side of the windows in my house, judging me. I felt extreme worthlessness and insecurity. I developed horrible posture because I couldn’t look anyone in the eyes and instead just stared at the ground all day. I lost all of my friends from when I was a kid.
But instead of getting me help, my mother used my mental illness as a weapon against me. She claimed it was my fault and that I was exaggerating. That I could control it and that I was being dramatic.
So, I never got properly diagnosed. Although I would find myself having moments where I would go into a room, scream at myself in the mirror, hit myself and pull at my hair and dig my own nails in my skin to seemingly get the racing, negative thoughts out of my head but I couldn’t. (I later found out that this is common with people with mental illness and is called psychomotor agitation or something like that).
I also formed OCD habits. Where I would check the faucet sink ten thousand or so times because I felt like I had to. I would also feel like I’d have to do stuff a certain way or else I wouldn’t feel right. For instance, if I walked past a door and didn’t touch the doorknob, my mind would tell me that I need to touch the doorknob or else something bad would happen. I didn’t register at the time that this was OCD. Because I thought OCD was a disorder where people like to clean or something. But I didn’t know that I was developing this as well.
On top of that I began to withdraw more into myself and spend all my time fantasizing away my life. I would jump up and down to music and skip through the house and flap my hands while having powerful daydreams that sent me into different worlds with different people and characters that I created. The daydreams felt so real. All I had to do was listen to loud music, and jump up and down and I could live any life I wanted to. I later found out that this was called maladaptive daydreaming.
Again, my mom saw all of this but never got me any help.
I graduated High School even though I wanted to drop out due to my social anxiety and paranoia and depression. But my mom made me stay.
My other brother, however because he is obviously schizophrenic got put into a psych ward after trying to kill himself where he was formally diagnosed by medical professionals. My mom couldn’t brush it under the rug although she tried to hide his diagnosis from the family. He dropped out of High School due to his mental illness issues and got his GED instead.
Meanwhile my mom applied to College for me. She always wanted so badly for me to be “normal”. Which I guess is why she never got me any mental health help despite my obvious issues. But brushing them under the rug only made them worse.
I went to College for a year and there I experienced even more severe depression and social anxiety. I dropped out because I didn’t want to go back. Despite making good grades.
At this point I didn’t really think that I was bipolar.
I knew I had issues. But I didn’t know what ti really do about them.
I joined the Military. Which was a big mistake. I got in because I’d never been formally treated for mental illness, so although I had these issues, it wasn’t any documentation. Only if I told someone or they spent some time around me would they really know.
I did two years and during that time I still had my mental illness issues, of course. Which didn’t help me succeed in the Military. Thankfully nothing bad happened to me while I was in, but it was the first time in my life that I took it upon myself to check myself into a ward for depression and suicidal thoughts.
I got discharged from the Military due to having a mood disorder and adjustment disorder.
I went back to live at home. This is around the time I started to think I had bipolar disorder.
Mainly because I would find myself having these periods where I got really goal oriented and believed I could do anything. Or high impulsivity. Which is common with people with bipolar. I would find myself switching from job to job, spending money on things just to get the high, but then all crashing down and feeling suicidal for no apparent reason.
The real nail in the coffin came when I once quit a job I was working to go try out to be a Disney Princess at Walt Disney world. At the time, I really believed I was going to get the job. Mind you, I don’t live anywhere near Disney. I pawned my laptop and packed up my car and drove down to Disney for the first time ever just to go to an audition. I stayed in a crappy motel and didn’t even make it past the audition. I had this fantasy of myself living a life of a Disney princess and really thought it was going to happen.
Then another time I quit my job and believed I was going to sell my art on the street and own a company. I really believed I could do it. But of course, the reality hit.
That’s when I was starting to see a pattern in my behavior. It dawned on me that I had these feelings of extreme highs a lot and then these feelings of extreme lows a lot too. All which seemed to come out of nowhere. I also realized that my life choices weren’t always the most sound. Especially when it came to money.
The highs, however. I always thought the highs were when I was really “me” again. I never realized that it was just me feeling up for a period of time before I came crashing back down to the depression. Which makes sense because the high phase only last for about four or five says in most people who have bipolar disoder.
I’ve read up on bipolar disorder and it fits. It says that most often times people who have it are misdiagnosed as major depressive. Which is what I have been on medication off and on from. When I feel the highs, I stop taking the medicine because I feel like I’m doing good again. But then just as surely I crash back down to the low.
I set up an appointment with the VA to tell them that I think I have bipolar disorder as well as my laundry list of other disorders that I developed over the years but never got treatment for (OCD, social anxiety, and maladaptive daydreaming).
I just don’t know how the fuck that’s going to go, though.
How do you walk up to a therapist and say,”Hi, I think I have this this this and this”.
Btw bipolar irritability sucks ass, too.
Submitted August 23, 2019 at 04:19PM by VixL707 https://ift.tt/2ZfmbKb
No comments:
Post a Comment