My journey to official diagnosis started just before Christmas 2018, during the worst low I have ever experienced. I believe that a number of difficult circumstances in both my work life and personal life led me down the dark path, but that doesn’t matter now – the fact is that I reached that dark place, and have been reaching back towards the light every day since. I also have a psychology degree, ironically this added to my stress while I was deciding to reach out for help – I actively studied mental health for three years and didn’t recognise within myself the reasons why my personal relationships had been failing since I hit adolescence. Although, I have been told off for thinking like this – apparently that’s an unhealthy thought process, who’d have guessed it ey?
Ultimately, weeks passed, then months passed. I visited doctors, I was referred to specialists and eventually diagnosis came. Maybe it’s because of my degree but I felt like I needed an answer. I needed to know the name of what was wrong with me. Naturally, after I started to reflect on myself, I assumed I was Bipolar. However, like most people, my assumptions have been so very wrong in the past. Formal diagnosis was a relief to me. Although this was also where my next challenge began, as if I needed another challenge, but such is life.
In the weeks following my diagnosis, with the best of intentions, I fixated on my illness. I tried to learn everything about it, I saw it in everything I did every second of every minute of every day. Honestly, education is key, learn everything you can about what life has thrown at you, give yourself a great platform of knowledge to build your recovery from. However, my vital lesson here, and I cannot press this enough, is that your illness is not the only thing worth learning about yourself. In my effort to get better, I was the absolute definition of self-fulfilling prophecy and I neglected the very real and good parts of myself, those both linked to Bipolar and those not.
Truthfully, the highs of Bipolar are magic, pure magic, nothing in the world can touch you. When I’m high I am brilliant at everything I do, I am a social butterfly, I am the best daughter, the best partner, the best friend. Alas, we all learned at school that what goes up must come down – and in my case, the higher the high the lower the low, my lows can be catastrophic. I was talking about this to my father, who explained my mind to me better than anyone else could, he said: “Your brain has always worked harder and faster than a lot of other people, and you have always accepted this as normal, try to learn to pop the brakes on so both you and other people can keep up.” It’s nothing revolutionary, but it made sense to me in a way that other things hadn’t.
I guess that is where I am now. I’m learning how to pop the brakes on the highs, and I am enjoying my life at a slower, healthier, pace. It’s better, more enriching, more fulfilling, and has led me to rebuild relationships that I thought were lost to me. It is very clearly work in progress, and I do still lose myself in that faced paced manic head space. But hey, I am becoming more accepting of myself, I am sharing more with those in my life, and I am optimistic that my road to recovery (although only just starting) is on the right track.
Journal to Wellness 