I was shaking in his office.
“I’m too scared to tell anyone what’s happening.” I repeated over and over to my psychologist.
It wasn’t the normal kind of shaking. I couldn’t stop. Everything felt like it was going at high speed. My thoughts were racing. I couldn’t form a sentence properly, but I needed to get it out. I had no idea how to tell people without them being scared of me.
In the last few years, I think there have been HUGE strides in talking about mental health—but there’s a long way to go. What I don’t see discussed very often, is the challenges of bipolar disorders, borderline personality disorders, and schizophrenia. We’re getting comfortable talking about how hard and dark depression is and we’re getting comfortable explaining panic attacks and anxiety. I’m willing to explain that side of it regularly.
It’s huge progress. I’m glad people can come out of those lonely corners and be told they are not alone.
But there’s a long way to go.
Growing up, there were two people I knew who had bipolar disorder. I have very distinct memories of one going to the hospital and the reactions of people when it happened. The other was someone who eventually murdered his sister.
That was it. They were the two people I associated with having bipolar disorder. When I would go and talk to professionals about getting help, they would ask me questions. I didn’t want to tell them everything. I remember specifically worrying that they would say I was bipolar. If they thought I was bipolar then then everyone would automatically be scared of me.
I’ve been struggling for months with intense bouts hypo-mania. It happened first in February. I woke up on a Monday morning and felt GREAT. I tweeted about it. I felt confident. I went to work and powered through an incredible amount of work in one day when it would normally take me three.
one of the things that is wonderful about hypo mania is seeing the colours in everything.
Then came the HYPER FOCUS. I couldn’t think about more than one thing. I was obsessed with it. I was up at night with racing thoughts that would not stop. I had such a big panic attack at work that I left for the day. This was the first and only time I’ve left work for the rest of the day because of my mental health. My coworkers still don’t know how bad it was.
I was so sexually charged that I thought I would lose my mind. This is a deeply personal thing to share and I’ve debated whether I should write about it. I want to educate you. I’m not telling you to be gross or give too many details—but because I want people to know what it’s like. All I’m going to say is that it’s extremely frustrating and quite possibly one of the most shameful things I’ve dealt with for years without telling anyone. One doctor explained what was happening years ago, but at the time we had no idea it was because of a mental health problem.
I crashed five days after the hypo-mania started. I knew the second it happened, but wasn’t until an hour later that I realized how hypo manic I’d been.
Sitting on the couch in silence with my friend—my heart sank. I’d been so sick that I hadn’t even realized it. I’ve always prided myself on being self-aware. It’d been years since such a bad hypo-manic episode. I’ve had them since moving here, but this one was different. I called my mother to compare details from eight years ago. I talked to my friend. They all confirmed my fears.
it helps to organize physical things when i can’t organize my brain.
For the last few months, I’ve cycled all over the place.
My skin has itched and my legs gone numb. I’ve been up at night trying my best to not scratch until I bleed. I’d coat myself with coconut oil and dab tea tree oil on spots. I ended up looking for a new car (I drive standard and didn’t want to use my left leg as much.) because I wasn’t sure how long the numbness would last. I knew it was there because of what was in my head, but the symptoms were still real.
The paranoia drives me crazy. I was convinced all the time that people were directing things towards me. I constantly fought with my mind to remind myself over and over that I probably wasn’t seeing things clearly. I stayed quiet so I wouldn’t have to communicate with people and be left with the agony of wondering if I was reading into their words all wrong.
The worst of it was just a few weeks ago.
I’ve always been terrified of being dangerous. Sometimes I get a rage inside of me so powerful that I get a headache from trying to suppress it. I went through the McDonald’s drive thru one day when I was sick and they forgot to give me salt and pepper. I was so mad I wanted to shriek. I wanted to turn around and yell at them. The anger bubbled and boiled until I felt like I was a bomb on the brink of exploding.
Over and over, I repeated to myself that this was not normal. I repeated to myself that it was not their fault. Mistakes happen all the time. I knew I was being irrational. I repeated to myself that this was my problem and not theirs. But the rage persisted.
Never once did I consider violence, but my head ached with trying to hold the irrational rage inside. I sobbed with self-hatred, wishing I could fix myself.
When I got to work and sat down, I emailed my psychologist. He agreed to see me right away.
When I got there and sat in his office, I cried about all the thoughts I’d been trying to push away, all the urges and emotions that I couldn’t tell anyone, all the shaking, all the racing ideas and shininess in my brain that felt like I was without sunglasses on a blinding sunny day.
I repeated over and over that people would think I was crazy if they knew. They would assume I would do something. People would be scared of me. People only know about what they read in the news.
I felt incredible relief to get it off my chest. SOMEONE was hearing me. He said I wasn’t dangerous to others. He said he wasn’t scared of me, BUT he called my friend (with permission) and explained to him that I was hypo manic. My friend agreed to call him if he started to worry I would do something.
Two nights later I woke up in the middle of the night. I’m used to having nightmares. I often wake up completely paralyzed with fear but I tell myself it’s just bad dreams. I always know they are just dreams.
That night I woke up confused about what was happening. I was in bed trying to sort through what was real and what wasn’t. My cats were on the bed and I was scared that I had shoved one of them in annoyance for waking me up. I couldn’t sort out what was happening. My thoughts raced. I still don’t know if I tweeted something and then deleted it. I’m pretty sure I was screaming in terror.
But what scared me the most—was the worry I would become dangerous. It’s an irrational thought, but I was terrified that I would do something. I’ve never had a history of violence, but it is without a doubt my biggest fear. When people hear about bipolar—it is often used on the stand as a defense.
My thoughts started to race faster. Was I losing touch with reality? Would I do something without realizing it? I panicked.
“KILL YOURSELF.”
The thought was frantic. I could not do something to anyone. I couldn’t. I couldn’t put people through the agony of watching me slip away mentally from them. I would not do that. I would rather die.
I wanted to leap out of bed and immediately go through with it.
I don’t know what kept me there. But I can say that it is the most out of control and the closest I have ever come to going through with it. It was not the sluggish pain of living day to day. All my precautions I put in place for when I am depressed went out the window and I had no reminders of why to live—just the urgency of protecting people from seeing the crazy inside my head.
I did not want to be out of control. I would have preferred to take my life than do something.
An hour later, I fell back asleep.
The terror of that night stuck with me. Should I tell someone?
I did. With the memory of my understanding therapist, I told my roommate. She was gone the night this happened, but I knew that she deserved to know. A part of me expected her to move out. I figured she would be terrified and not want to be around me. I didn’t blame her.
Instead, she asked me how she could help in that moment if it were to happen again. She asked me what to do if she was overwhelmed. I asked my sister in-law if she would be an emergency contact. She agreed. So I gave them numbers and told them both I trusted their judgment.
She left the door open that week, telling me she wanted to hear if I needed her. When she left for a few nights, my friend stayed over for one night to make sure I was okay. I woke up that night so scared, but I was okay because I knew he was in the loft. Both my friend and roommate assured me that I was not a burden.
I went back to my psychologist a few days later feeling a little bit calmer. I was still unstable, but less scared of myself. Less out of control.
The days since then have been hard. I have no idea how I am doing from day to day. I’ve drank too much and felt way too sorry for myself.
But I believe I’m slowly going back to a baseline of normal. I have to hope for that. Hope gets me through each day.
Why am I telling you this?
Because I know this disease is misunderstood and I know a lot of people don’t talk about it. I’m not saying every person with bipolar II feels this way. I worry some who have it will tell me this is nothing like their experience. I do not claim to represent everyone.
But the other part of me thinks people should know more. About more than just the depression and good parts of the highs. So they don’t think people with the disease are crazy and scary. Yes, my biggest fears are there when I’m angry or feeling out of control. But many in my circle have reassured me over and over that they are not scared of me and brought me back when my thoughts become irrational.
a few of the many who are there for me when i’m not okay. i am undeserving of the support system i have.
I dream of there being more understanding in this world. Maybe talking about it will bring it out of the shadows and help people feel less crazy and more like asking for help. Without a doubt, the reason I get through those episodes is because I now understand what is happening and I have the help of a support system I couldn’t function without.
I hope one day everyone will feel less afraid to talk about all of it.
Bipolar I and II.
Schizophrenia.
Borderline Personality Disorder
And all the other ones I don’t know about.
I still don’t know enough about those illnesses. I know I still have misconceptions. I know I have been part of the problem.
But what I do know is that they are all people deserving of compassion and no matter how sick they are—even if they are in the news for doing something— they deserve more and better. Our health system is failing them. Many people are as sick as they are because of lack of understanding and resources.
Leaping out of bed and wanting to end my life shouldn’t have felt like the solution because I was scared of people knowing what the disease does to my brain.
Please don’t be scared of me. I hope you understand.
a lot of people know about the struggles of inside my head, but many do not. this is the only part of me they ever meet. there might be someone like that in your life. they might be hiding it because they are worried about the repercussions of sharing.