beholden by moods

I was well on my way to madness; it was my Junior year of high school, and i was seventeen years old. Within three months I was manic beyond recognition and just beginning a long, costly personal war against medications that I would, in a few years' time, be strongly reassuring others to take.. I was like a human guinea pig trying to pinpoint which medication could help me, and help me control my thoughts and moods. I knew I wasn't right, my mind wasn't right.

My illness, and my struggles against the drug that ultimately saved my life and restored my sanity, had been years in the making. For as long as I can recall I was beholden to moods. Intensely emotional as a child, unsure as a young girl, first severely depressed, and then caught up in the cycles of bipolar manic-depressive illness.

I became a student of moods. It has been the only way I know to attempt and try to make a difference in the lives of others who also suffer from mental illnesses and mood disorders. The disease that has, on numerous occasions, nearly killed me does kill thousands of people every year; most are young, most die unexpectedly, and many are among the most imaginative and gifted that we as a society have. I feel that society lacks the awareness, which is why I'm here to speak. Everyone's voice is worthy and worthy to be heard.

I've always believed that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful. In some strange way, I have tried to do that with bipolar manic-depressive illness. It has been indescribable, deadly enemy, and companion. I have found it to be overly complicated. In order to cope with it, I first had to understand all of its moods and infinite disguises, understand its real and imagined "powers." Because my illness seemed at first simply to be another version of myself-that is to say, my changeable moods, energies, and enthusiasms. And because I thought I ought to be able to handle my moods by myself, for the first few months I did not seek any kind of treatment.

My manias, at least in their early and mild forms were intoxicating states that gave uncontrollable flow of thoughts, and a ceaseless energy that would flow through me. Medications not only cut into these fast-flowing, high-flying times, they also brought with them intolerable side affects. It took me far too long to realize that years and relationships that have been lost cannot be removed, that damage done to oneself and others cannot always be put right again.

The war that I waged against myself is not an uncommon one. The clinical problem in treating bipolar manic-depressive illness is not that there are not effective medications-there are- but that patients so often refuse to take them. Worse yet, because of lack of information and knowledge, poor medical advice, stigma, or fear of exposing personal secrets, they do not seek treatment at all.

Bipolar manic-depressive distorts moods and thoughts, invites absurd behaviors, destroys the basis of rational thought, and too often eroded the desire and will to live. I believed that manic depression to be a complex interaction of disease and the self and did not reduce it's complexity beyond what was necessary to try to understand it "diseases or disorders have their own character but they present in a character, they do not take place outside of a being. Tuberculosis is only a bacterium unless it's in someone's lungs similarity a persons character of a disease. In my case, things are even more complicated than with tuberculosis because the disease is in your genes thus you have never been without it and NEVER will be.

I'm fortunate that I have not died from my illness, fortunate in having received the best medical care available, and fortunate in having the friends and family that I do. My therapist saved my life. Because of this, I have in turn tried, as best I could, to use my own personal experiences of the disease to inform research, teach, and through advocacy work. I hope to persuade others of the ore of this quicksilver illness that can both kill and create; and along with many others, have tried to change public attitudes about illnesses in general and manic-depressive in particular.

It has been difficult at times to weave my experiences but I feel more powerful by using them. From this raw emotion I feel that I obtained the freedom to live the kind of life I want, and the human experiences necessary to try to make a bigger difference in public awareness. People who are facing these painful dark experiences need support because sometimes facing it alone is even harder. We all need a helping hand sometimes even more so in this particular situations. I was a junior in high school when I had my first attack of manic episodes; once the battle begun, I lost my mind rather rapidly..nothing made sense.

I could not begin to follow the material presented in my classes, and I would find myself staring out the window with no idea of what was going on around me. I was used to my mind being my best friend; of carrying endless conversations within my head. My mind turned on me, it mocked me for my valid enthusiasms, it laughed at all my foolish plans, it no longer found anything interesting or enjoyable or worthwhile. Why live I felt?

I felt weightless like I had no control over my body. Teachers soon began to confront me about the change in my moods and school work. I was irritable because I could not wrap my head around, nor comprehend, what was happening to me.. unlike the very severe manic episodes that came a few years later and escalated wildly and psychologically out of control. Tiresome to my friends, perhaps; exhausting and exhilarating to me, definitely..

My thinking, far from being clearer than a crystal, was tortuous. I would read the same passage over and over again only to realize that I had no memory of what I just read. I thought maybe that everything was born to die, best to die now and save the pain while waiting. I dragged my exhausted mind and body each day. For weeks, I would sleep and drag myself to school, and I thought obsessively about killing myself. I tried putting on that "brave face." Friends were concerned, but I swore them to secrecy when they asked to speak to my parents. I made not just an effort, but a bigger effort not to be noticed. I knew something was dreadfully wrong.

I was out of school for a couple months, as the school claimed I was a threat to myself and others, and that I couldn't come back until I go seek treatment. Things got uglier... I began to cut myself to somehow relieve the painful thoughts that would take over my body. I remember the one night in particular, I ran away for hours, went to these apartments that were nearby to my neighborhood, found a broken glass bottle and used the pieces to harm myself several times until I saw blood and felt some sort of relief.. but I looked down and cried and knew I had to go back, I needed my family but I laid there, helpless until I wanted to go home.

I recall my parents looking at me, with tears in their eyes, cleaning the blood off my arms saying, "why would you do this to yourself, why?!" I couldn't explain it but that's the night that really showed my family I needed serious help, and without it, I may not be able to handle this, that maybe suicide was the only alternative.

I'm surprised I've gotten into such detail but I did this to show individuals that illnesses aren't a joke, they aren't to be taken lightly and shouldn't be. It is difficult to know what goes on inside the mind of someone who's suffering from an illness. Being bullied about having a mental illness isn't okay and shouldn't be acceptable, I'll never forget the moments people used my illness and turned it into a joke, posting horrific things about me, about my personal life and what I was going through. People who are unsure of themselves will always put down others to create one feel superior, but that's their problem; not yours.

Every moment that I was alone, feeling helpless, I would then I would start to harm myself again but then shortly afterward I would look down repeating why would I do this? I would try and pick up the phone and call a family member but it was too late when they arrived, because I already did it. I couldn't be left alone... I just couldn't..each time it would get worse and I turned to using a knife attempting to stick it through my chest but I put the knife down that night, I knew this wasn't the right way to handle this painful situation so that's when I knew, truly deep down in my heart that I had to seek treatment, there was no other way and that was the only alternative.

What was wrong with me you might ask? I wasn't sure at this point what was the real trigger to my "madness" but in time I was diagnosed bipolar manic-depressive. But that wasn't the end..

Mental illness is not a personal failure, to the people out in the world struggling with an illness.. you are NOT alone. Your stronger than you think. Your illness does not define you, your strength and courage does.