mania – The Daily Opinion

For the last few weeks I’ve had a particular song stuck in my head. I have been singing it to myself constantly. I have been perpetually playing it on repeat. I have become rather obsessed with this song.

This happens to me sometimes, as it does everyone. I once had the theme tune from The Famous Grouse adverts running round and round in my head for about two years. Every time I thought I’d got rid of it, up it would pot again to annoy me.

This isn’t like that. I do not find the fact this song will not leave me alone annoying. I am not being driven mad by it, I am embracing it. I am actually purposefully immersing myself in it. This usually happens to me when something about the song hold meaning, for me at least, and I’m trying to fathom out just what that meaning is.

From the first time I heard it, something about it grabbed me and I knew-without really understanding why at the time, for I wasn’t really listening to the lyrics-that there was something about this song that was very important to me.

The song in question is Lady Gaga’s ‘Dope’.

The reason I am finding this song so mesmerising is that there is one particular line which encapsulates a feeling I know very, very well:

‘Been hurting low from living high for so long’.

This doesn’t resonate with me because I have a drug problem, but rather because I have a brain chemistry problem which quite regularly sends me so high that, when I inevitably come down, it hurts.

A lot.

My worst periods of mania are always, always, always followed by a period of extreme depression. This never occurs to me while I’m manic; while I’m manic, nothing occurs to me, I just go about my insane business believing myself to be generally wonderful and, of course, completely invincible. The thought that anything could ever hurt me is inconceivable, yet the very fact I am manic is the prelude to a period of unbearable pain. I know this. Somewhere in my mind I retain this information, even when I’m high. I believe this is part of the reason so many people who suffer from mania refuse treatment while manic, avoid dealing with their mania, and generally will do anything to perpetuate the euphoria rather than allowing themselves to ‘come down’. Because we never just come down. We don’t suddenly find ourselves evening out and feeling ‘normal’ again.

We crash.

Hard.

And it hurts.

Sometimes the crash is so bad it feels like it will kill us.

Sometimes, it does kill us.

I know people who did not make it through the crash. They couldn’t manage the depression. It hurt too badly, it was too much to deal with and (as I have tried to do myself, several times when feeling like this) they took their own lives. This is a sad truth of the bipolar existence; sometimes it literally kills us.

Mania has a lot of consequences, knock on effects that follow you throughout the rest of your life, seeming to punish you for ever having the audacity to give in to the euphoria. Depression has its consequences also, debilitating you, ruining your self-confidence, ruining your body, robbing you of your self-respect and, if you’re not very careful, robbing you of your life.

When we’re neither up, nor down, it is possible to acknowledge these things and understand that the best thing for us is to avoid both states wherever possible. This would seem obvious, surely, it’s a no-brainer, don’t get high, don’t get low, stay in the middle, where it’s safe and you’ll never get hurt by either state.

It’s not so simple.

Not long ago my psychiatrist wanted to switch my MEDs to lithium-based substances, as the mood stabalisers I am on are currently at the highest safe dose and still aren’t curtailing the rapid cycles of my mood. I refused. Lithium, I was told, would even me out. At the time I said I didn’t want to be evened out, I didn’t want to be ‘flat’. I still maintain this is true, however I now think perhaps there is more to it.

The cycles of my bipolar have become such an intrinsic part of my personality that I honestly do not know who or what I would be without it. Would I have the same cynical, sarcastic sense of humour if I no longer felt depressed? Would I still be able to write the way I do, think the way I do, if I no longer experience mania? These are not things I am willing to risk losing, even if the consequence—the depression—and the risks—the possibility I’ll one day successfully kill myself—are so real.

How many people are so sure of themselves, so certain that they are who they were meant to be, that they won’t give it up, no matter the cost? I would wager there aren’t many. I would further posit that this is another gift of this ‘disorder’.

This is not to say that I don’t want to get ‘better’, but ‘better’ for me means learning to deal with my moods more effectively, understanding why I react the way I do to certain situations and, perhaps, taming the beast a little. It does not mean eradicating myself. It means acknowledging the fact that I’m still going to feel low from living high, and I need to figure out how to get through that when it happens.

Because it will keep happening.

That’s just me.

And I’m surprised to find that, for the first time in my life, I’m perfectly fine with that.

I have heard Bipolar Disorder described in many ways. Perhaps one of the most confounding descriptions I have heard is that it is like a thief, stealing from you and never giving back.

This may well be the case for many people, but it is not the case for me. Yes, bipolar is a disorder that takes a lot from you: from me it has taken, at various times in my life, my friends, my family, the only man I have every truly loved, my career, my figure, my health, my sanity, and finally, my will to live.

But it has given me a lot in return.

I see the world in a way most people simply cannot fathom. I do not say that this is a better way of viewing things, or that it makes me in any way better than those who see things the ‘normal’ way, it is simply an observation: I do see the world from a different perspective. A perspective so different in fact, that at certain times I find myself beyond frustrated, because so many people in my life are simply incapable of understanding what I’m try to say. This has nothing to do with intelligence—although it is true that many people with bipolar and similar disorders are also highly intelligent—it is a matter of perspective.

That is the gift of bipolar. An ability to look at things in a completely different way, and quite often find the beauty in them where others see nothing but mundanity. One needs only to look at the works of Van Gogh to have some understanding of what I’m speaking about; he saw the world in far greater detail than the majority of people ever could. He saw the wonder in that intricacy, the stunning nature of situations and objects that others would have found commonplace.

Van Gogh is now widely considered to have been bipolar. His insanity, for want of a better word, is well documented, but so too is his vision.

There are downsides to my cycling moods, no matter which state I am in. It has to be said that I find the depression the most difficult to deal with, the hardest to drag myself through without causing myself physical harm. It is also arguable that I do more damage to myself while manic, for I tend to act during these times, and my actions have severe consequences. The positive thing about both states however, are the insight you gain.
This is a commonality I have found many people with mental illnesses share, so much so that my fiction writing began to explore just what this meant. A series of novels was born, looking at people with various mental health issues and how they see the world as a result. These novels are heavily metaphorical, using paranormal elements and some of the more enigmatic sub-cultures in society to demonstrate various points. The very fact I was able to write them however, tells me that my ‘illness’ is not entirely bad.I am well aware that my best work has happened while I have been completely manic. I have sudden bursts of creativity and productivity, during which time I complete entire novels, huge sections of my thesis, or write full papers, in a very short space of time. These works are not always brilliant, although I am generally always convinced that they are brilliant while still in the grips of mania. What they are, however, are the building blocks of my world view. And it is so very, very different, to the view that most people have.

Such thoughts I would never have had, if it had not been for my bipolar. It is my hope that my writing will some day allow others to gain some insight into this very elusive perspective I am trying to explain. It is what I say to myself when I step on the scales each week, or catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror: my body may be ruined, but my mind is not.

Contrary to popular opinion, being ‘crazy’ does not mean you are incapable of higher though. Quite the contrary.

I know a lot of people with similar conditions to my own, and indeed other people with bipolar, who have stated categorically that, despite the fact they hate what bipolar does to their lives, were they able to take it away, rid themselves of it completely, they would choose not to.

If a magical pill existed, that could cure bipolar, would you take it?

I wouldn’t.

My psychiatrist recently offered me the option of taking lithium based MEDs. After discussing it with him at length I eventually declined. My reason for this was simple. The lithium would further stabalise my moods and decrease the depressive episodes from which I still suffer, despite the MEDs I’m on. It would make be feel, for want of a better word ‘flat’.

I have no wish to be flat.

This may sound very strange considering how horrendous this illness can be, yet I am given to understand it is not an unusual reaction for patients to have. Last week I remarked that many people, myself included, begin to heavily link their condition to their identity and, as a result, do not know who they are, or how to cope, if and when they feel ‘better’. Lithium, at least to me, seemed like a far worse curse than becoming, for want of a better word, ‘normal’.

Lithium would actually flatten out the ups and downs a person who didn’t suffer from bipolar would have.

I have an aversion to the colour beige. It is, to me, far more so than grey, the blandest colour imaginable. I currently live in a world of vibrant colour. Sometimes those colours are angry, blacks and reds, deep stains of purple and flashes of violent orange. Other times they are more bubblegum colours, pinks and lilacs, the colour the ocean always is in postcards of places you’ve never been to, but would love to see.

Lithium would make the whole world beige.

No reds, no purples, no oranges or black. No bubblegum pink and ocean blue. Just beige. Flat, unremarkable, uneventful, emotionless beige.

I may despise the negative aspects of my condition, but I also appreciate the positive sides. I know the gifts I am given, and I am not ungrateful for them. I would never wish to be without them, even if that means continuing to endure the bad, so that I might also have the good. To do otherwise, I feel, would be to become a different person entirely.

Bipolar is a thief?

Yes, there is no denying this. It is an illness that robs you of a great many things, things that can never be recovered, things that are unbearably painful to lose. But, contrary to the expression, bipolar does give back, in ways that are difficult to understand if you have never experienced them for yourself.

If bipolar is a thief, then it’s Robin Hood. And that’s perfectly fine with me.

Tag: mania

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