bipolarandhuman

[bipolarandhuman]

The introduction

I’m a 31 year old woman with bipolar disorder type 1. No, Im not crazy, and no, I’m not dangerous 😒. Stereotypes! Am I right?

It all started in 2008 when I was 18 years old and went off to university. Where I’m from is really common to keep living with your parents if you go to school on the same town. Well, I had decided to go to a different city 3 hrs away by plane and around 12 hours away driving without stopping.

I’ve always been close with my family so I knew I was going to miss them. The introduction day I was so excited and happy and pumped up with all the welcoming events they had: music, dancing, DJ, food, games. I know, it was awesome and I felt like I found my place. Little did I know it was going to be too much. New place, new people, by myself. I clearly wasn’t ready to live that far away from my family - which now I know it is ok, everyone has different timing - because I started to slowly get depressed, didn’t want to go out, was feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, started binge eating and having a lot of anxiety.

The first semester ended and I was ready to go back home. I spoke with my parents about this and my AMAZING dad drove 12 hours to get me and my stuff and drove 12 hours back home.

I remember I arrived and felt huge relief at the beginning. Finally! I was home and everything was going to be ok. Mmm….not really. I started watching TV all day long, or trying to sleep as much as I could with my blackout blinds in my bedroom. Clearly something was wrong but neither me or my parents knew exactly what that was.

My parents would even tell me to go out and be with friends and go to parties. And I would plan on going out but by the moment I would have to leave I would back out and just stayed home. My reader friends, it was bad.

I distinctly remember this one time I was watching TV - and had been watching TV for hours and hours - and my mom came and was talking to me telling me to get up and do something else, something productive. I felt so annoyed and frustrated and didn’t even look at her when she was saying this. She grabbed me by the shoulders and softly shook me crying telling me to please snap out of it and react…..I did nothing. No expression, just stayed as I was looking at the TV, and saw her walk away. I remember I started tearing up because I did feel guilty and at the same time angry, really angry with me. I didn’t like this state of mind. I was feeling numb.

My parents researched and researched for the best psychologists and tried to convince me to go with at least 1. I agreed to go with the 1st one, the 2nd one, the 3rd one….after this 3rd try I refused to go back. I hated them talking to me like I was going to break. That made me really angry, like they were being condescending.

Then, they came back with a great recommendation of, now, a psychiatrist. I was so over the psychologists that I really didn’t want to go with this new doctor. But after much convincing I decided to go. I wasn’t expecting much, and got a big surprise. I actually liked this woman. She had me get some blood tests and an Electroencephalogram. Oh boy, that electroencephalogram was an experience. You can’t sleep at all the day before, you arrive and they connect this cables to different parts of your head (no, not directly to your head, there’s this things that they stick to the head, like stickers yes, and then the cables connect to that). Then, they flash these lights at you non stop and start asking you questions, like math questions, logic questions, puzzles, they show you images, and they sometimes go too fast for you to get to an answer and that was really frustrating.

Aaaaanyways, the results came back. Finally! We had a diagnostic!! I had bipolar disorder type 1. What is this? I basically get super super depressed - No, thinking happy things or seeing how lucky I am compared to others doesn’t make me feel better - or I get extremely happy and hyped up and feel like I can do anything and be anything I want and just euphoric without a reason. Really high ups and really high downs, but the downs last longer than the ups. I know, that’s not cool 😕. In a few words my brain is not producing enough dopamine and other chemicals, to the levels that any other person without bipolar disorder has. Soooo I had to go on medicines. It took so long to get the right dose but we did, we got it and I was stabilized. Also, getting some sun always helps to produce dopamine.

So really that’s the story of how I came to find out I have bipolar disorder. I remember a quote my mom always tells me when it comes to taking my medicines. “Va por mi y por todos mis amigos”. It basically means take the medicine for your own benefit but also do it for the people that care for you that want to see you well.

Nowadays I have a different dose of medicines and actually more medicines that my doctor has added to help with stabilizing my disorder. I’m really thankful that I’ve always been functional. I’ve never let this get the best of me when it comes to job or school responsibilities which is nice.

Oh I didn’t mention it but I ended up finishing university and getting my degree at my home city and had great times during that period of my life and made great lifetime friends.

Until next time,

- me and my bipolar disorder

[bipolarandhuman]

Giving therapy a chance

I’ve been going to therapy for the first time in my life and it has been interesting. It all started about a month ago. I never really gave therapy a chance - my first experiences with psychologists weren’t great. Let’s put it this way: I didn’t like them talking to me like what I would call “stupid”. You know? When they talk kinda low and slow like being super careful that you’re going to break, like you’re made out of porcelain. Ugh! So uncomfortable.

At first, honestly, I started a little skeptic and the first 3 sessions didn’t do a lot. I think the lady knew that I wasn’t on it 100%. On our 4th session everything started to take shape. I started to be open to it. I guess what they say that “you need to want it for it to work” is right.

Next week is session #9 and I must confess I’m looking forward to it. I’ve discovered things I wasn’t 100% aware of. Some scary ones and some I knew about but she’s helping me work through them.

She mentioned I need to accept having bipolar disorder. She also mentioned I shouldn’t see it as “I am bipolar”, but rather “I have bipolar disorder”. I am not my disorder and I need to accept this is something I have to live with my whole life. So yeah, realizing things I didn’t believe needed work.

Until next time,

- Me and my bipolar disorder