Post by oldbutwise on Apr 9, 2020 0:58:11 GMT 8
Since others have discussed their mental health issues and since being bipolar and non-binary gendered are two of the "big things" I deal with in everyday life I thought I'd share the truthv about it. Looking back I've been bipolar since before I can even remember. I was probably born with it. I remember the day I quit the band and clarinet lessons in 6th grade I had more than enough of the band teacher and quitting that day at that moment was an impulse. I remember thinking that day that I'd felt like that on and off for as long as I could remember, definitely since 3rd grade, maybe 2nd, and I couldn't remember any farther back. I now know that I was very manic that day.
Being bipolar doesn't help matters in the least. When I'm manic I have to be very careful not to spend every last penny I have in the bank. In fact, doing that is so common among bipolar people that I wouldn't be surprised if they started asking if you have times where you spend all your money even though you're not getting paid for another three weeks. Just recently I bought a bikini because I finally found some online for plus size women that didn't look like mumus. I wish listed a few of them a while ago and just had to order one right now. Try explaining to someone that you just spent some money you probably shouldn't have right nowe on a bikini when they know you only as a man. Hoo boy. And when my stimulus check comes in I have a small list of mens and womens clothes on my wish list that will go into my cart.
From what I've read biploar disorder is one of the two absoluite worst mental illnesses you can have in terms of how badly it "kicks your butt". The other one is schizophrenia. I used to joke with my ex-gf that we were the power couple of the mental health field because I'm one and she's the other; between us we had them both covered. I've been in the hospital about 12 times in my life and most of them were between May 2007 and July 2011. One particularly bad year I was hospitalized three times in one year.
I'm on disability because I just can't work. I can try and I'll do OK for 2 or 3 months but then I'll get myself pretty bad off again. Right now between meds and taking proper care of my mental health if you didn't know I was bipolar you wouldn't be able to tell.
There are a lot of misconceptions about bipolar disorder out there. When my ex and I started dating her brother told her to watch out for me because I'd love her one min ute and try to kill her the next. That's simply not true. That isn't bipolar disorder at all. I experience periods of depression, which is mostly what people are familiar with although there is a big difference between major depression and bipolar depression, and periods of mania. And when I'm manic I'm not running around with a giant axe trying to chop people into little bits like Jack Nichelson in The Shining. Where depression is a very low low, mania is a very high high. That's why most biploar people are misdfiagnosed as having major depression for a while (in my case 15 years) before finally being properly diasgnosed. The depression puts us in the hospital and has us seing counselors (therapists). It's not until we learn about bipolar disorder and mania that we realize we've been feeling abnormally good. Why would I tell my psychiatrist and my counselor in detail just how good I'm feeling? Isn't that what they want me to feel? Turns out, nope.
Even some people in the mental health field don't really know what bipolar disorder is. I read a booklet about it in the waiting room before I saw my counselor. I immediately realized I was bipolar the whole time. When I told her she told me she reaslly didn't think I was bipolar because bipolar people experience mood swings many times a day but that if i wanted to I could talk to the doctor the next time i saw him anyway. Good think I did. Not only did he confirm that I'm bipolar, he told me I'm a rapid cycler. I cycle (go from mania to depression back to mania again) 4 to 6 rtimes a year, or every 2 to 3 months. Mosdt bipolar people are either manic or depressed for 9 to 12 months at a time.
I've started really talking with a woman online and we're just waiting for the current coronavirus restrictions to be lifted before we meet in person. She asked me when was the last time I had an episode. To my knowledge, bipolar disorder is unique in that we don't have episodes. If you remember the sine curves back in high school math class, that's what I go through. Start at the horizontal axis; that's neither manic nor depressed. Slowly I follow the curve upwards until I reach my peak of mania, then is goes down until I reach my nadir of depression, then it goes up again. There's nothing I can do and no medicine I can take that will ever change that. All I can do is take proper mental care of myself and take the right meds to help make sure the peaks and nadirs are as manageable as possible.I will always have 2 to 3 days every 2 to 3 months where I'm more irritable than usual, I'll talk you head off, and it's an excellent time for my lady to show me her honeydo list so I can burn off all that extra energy I suddenly have.
That's really all there is to bipolar disorder. It's not scary at all. And yet too many people are very frightened of me or think I'm intellectually inferior because I'm bipolar. There's no cause to be frightened of me; I'm one of the gentlest people you'll ever meet. And I'm intelligent enough that Mensa would take me on what they call prior evidence if I felt like joining. What that means is all I have to do is show them something, like a certified copy of my SAT scores, and they'll accept me as a member without making me take the test; I'll have proven to them that I'm one smart cookie.
So yeah, being bipolar and non-binary gendered means I spend more time and money shopping for womens clothes than I probably should, even if I was a woman. (And I spend just as much time and money shopping for mens clothes too; it's murder trying to maintain two sets of clothes year round so I can mix and match to my heart's content.) But seriously, it's nothing scary. It's pretty fascinating stuff actually. And I'm always willing to answer any questions about bipolar disorder. Fortunately it's not very common, even for mental illnesses.