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Life with bipolar disorder - An on line diary

THIS PAGE WAS  LAST UPDATED : 30.05.02

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"I doubt sometimes whether a
quiet & unagitated life
would have suited me- yet I
sometimes long for it."

Byron  1788-1824

Now playing "Against all odds" By Pill Collins

7.2.98

Okay, this is a new page and also a new experience for me. I toughed about it for a long time now,

whether to write this one or not and came up with the answer yesterday. This page is already

personal. I want it to be that way; and, well, I've already gotten to "second base" with you people,

so why not "go all the way"?

I hope it would make sense to you. For me, most of the time, it doesn't. I'm not much of a writer

you know. On tests and papers, I can't seem to put two words together, let alone a whole

sentence. Some of it is because I'm disgraphic (if you don't know what that means - look it up).

Writing is quite a torture for me and some of it is probably due to the fact that when I write stuff,

I know the ones who are going to read it and I become self-conscious about it.

IT HAS TO BE PERFECT !

A computer is different in that sense. It's not personal and when I'm writing this now, I do it for an

anonymous crowd. I can't see or imagine the faces and can't really guess what you are thinking

now. Well, maybe I can. How about: "Where is all the bipolar stuff" ?

Plus, I'm almost sure no one is ever going to read this. I mean you have to actually go to my web

page and all...

Now that I'm finished with my rumbling, we can start:

I was diagnosed as bipolar about 6-months ago, not a long time ago. Another diagnosis that was

made when I was in the army was "borderline personality disorder." Now I know that was

incorrect.

Let me give you some background on myself so you can better understand:

I'm 22, born and living in Israel. I have been a "problem kid" well, maybe not always, but definitely

from the 2nd-7th grades. I was, and wanted to be different. Guess I got my wish...

I used to have a huge conduct disorder. I made it my life's quest to make teachers, parents and all

other grownups' lives miserable. And I was REALLY good at it (BTW - still am). I was a tomboy. I

did contact karate, played soccer with the boys during lunch breaks, and if you had asked me then

what I'd like to be when I grow up, the answer would have been "a man".

I hated school and almost never showed up. When I did, it wasn't for long. The sentence "Hello

kids, Trilllian OUT !" was something I used to hear a lot. But, I was one of those kids who "had

potential". Don't you just hate that word "potential"? What the hell does that mean? I believe that

what you do, is who you are, and NOT what you should be able to do, or could have done, if you

wanted to.

I was talkative and I was always considered a bright kid. That's why I wasn't sent to a special

school and was given the chance to mend my ways. I took it. I got a grip on myself when I went to

junior high. I changed everything. I became a really good student, and in the 8th grade, I started

getting involved with all the extra-curricular activities; always busy, always running somewhere.

After a long and productive year on the student council, I was sent to a leadership course.

The most notable thing about that is, it was the first time I knew something was going very wrong.

I had my first breakdown. I was 13. I don't remember much about it. It's all really fuzzy but I was

told I went berserk. That was the first tip that things weren't going right. Unfortunately, it wasn't

the last.

High school wasn't really normal for me either. At times, I worked like six people and didn't have

time enough to breath. Other times, I felt so bad I couldn't do anything and hoped everything

would end. My first, and hopefully last, suicide attempt was in the11th grade. I got into a rage and

tried to throw myself under a car.

I was lucky it stopped before it hit me, but it was really close. I remember feeling dissociated, like

it wasn't me doing it, as if I was watching from a distance. I was so out of it that after the car

stopped, I just continued walking right back to school and to class. Two hours later, after things

"sank in," I went to the school counselor. I told her what happened, got really afraid of what she

would do with the info and ran out of her office.

I managed to finish school with very good grades and then was drafted into the Israeli army. At

first, everything was going well. I finished basic training with honors and started a command

course. But as the saying goes "every up has its downs" and boy, did I go down. I couldn't eat,

sleep, think. I turned into a zombie, brain dead zombie, and not for the last time.

I got kicked out of the course and became something that's called in Hebrew "Pkida plugatit." The

job is to take care after the soldiers in my unit. Man, I couldn't even take care myself. So after a

rather short time, I shut down again and then was diagnosed as Borderline Personality Disorder.

That's when I started meds.

I didn't want any help, I just wanted to be left alone. I was really depressed and suicidal. All I could

think about was to get it all over with. But, people were looking after me so I couldn't go through

with it. I was almost thrown out of the army, and even worse, there was talk about hospitalizing

me. I fought hard not to let that happen and managed to see it through.

Towards the end of my service, things went all wrong again. I was feeling hyped up, nerves, angry,

irritated. I couldn't sit for more than two seconds. I couldn't think, things where getting

crazier-and-crazier. I was terrified. This was the first time I was manic, really manic. And for those

of you who think it's fun - think again! It was a nightmare.

I felt like I was loosing control, and I was...but luckily for me, it was the end of my army service. I

got discharged and things started to relax again.

After all that happened, studying psychology was the logical course for me. So I started college

immediately. The first year was really good. I was in "remission," that is a break from the illness. I

really thought it had gone away, but at the end of the year, it came back-- the restlessness, the

anger. I dealt with it. But then I went into yet another depression. I broke down. Psych docs,

meds, more meds and even more meds. Believe me, you can't appreciate normal life until you've

taken some of them chemicals.

Even after the depression ended, the medications were still causing me to have panic attacks

(Prozac); memory problems (benzodiazphins); concentration problems (Prozac+benz..); really bad

hand tremors (Prozac+lithium). My coordination was gone, so was my balance. I was out of the

depression but still in hell.

I took myself out of most of the meds and stayed only with lithium. that was 4-5 months

ago. GOD I HATE THAT MED ! I still had hand tremor, probs with concentration

and a metallic test in my mouth.

Last week I had my very first lithium poisoning. that's when I stoped taking it.

I had 2 deferent shrinks telling  me to get back on it. the thing  is, I can't, I just

can't make myself take it again. it's not like I don't know what might

or better yet WILL happen, I do !

as far as I can see I have few choices here, I'll list them from best to worst :

1. taking the med's for the rest of my life , suffering the side affects and feeling like a

        week fucked  up person who can't  handle it's own life with out chemicals. feeling

        crippled and inadequate,

2. die

3. go crazy and than die

4. go crazy, become hospitalized and than die 

5. go crazy, become hospitalized and stay alive.

See, I do know what's gonna happen. Doesn't sound too good, does it ? And you want to know the

sad part - sometimes I feel like there isn't much of a difference between options 1 and 2; and at

other times, option 2 seems far better. But here comes option number 6: stopping the meds and

hoping everything will be alright, that it will just blow away and if it doesn't, that I could handle

things as they come (successfully, of course).

This option has a new element - hope. Let me tell something about hope - you all know the story of

how "hope" was the last thing that came out of Pandora's box to help man deal with all the bad

stuff that came out first.

I have a different point of view. I think "hope" came out of Pandora's box because it belonged

there in the first place. Hope is what "helps" man deal with larger amounts of pain for much longer

time than you would think possible. That is, you suffer more and longer, thinking it will get better.

I had a friend who died two years ago. She drowned. She was brain dead for two weeks before it

ended, but her family wouldn't take her of life support, expecting some sort of miracle, maybe

she'll wake up. They suffered needlessly for two weeks. Some people do it for an even longer time.

Some people, like me, do it for the rest of there life - all in the name of hope !

The one good thing about depression is that hope is one of the things that disappears first (along

with your appetite and sleep). It gives you a chance (for better and usually worse) to look at the

world without those rose-colored glasses people wear to keep them going. You see things for what

they are - not pessimistic - but from a realistic point of view. It changes you forever. And, of

course, there are the "ups" - then life is GREAT (during hypomanic phases anyway). The world

seems new, different in ways you can't start to imagine - the meds take that away from me :(

I saw and lived in Hell and Heaven - how many people can claim to have done that ?

Sometimes I wish I was really stupid - that I wouldn't be able to think - cause if you really consider

it, it isn't our problems that make us miserable, its all the thinking that accompanies them. It's

that ongoing search for answers for guidance, for a way out of it all. And you know something,

there aren't any answers - only more-and-more questions. But you keep trying to make sense of it,

and it burns you from the inside because you know it's all for nothing.

I don't know what to do anymore. I'm out of excuses. But having said that, all of that, I think life is

worth living, worth the pain. I can still find some sort of meaning.

Look at Sisyphus and his rock. He represents us all- working every day just to start again

tomorrow - the difference is, that like him, I'm aware it's all for nothing - just to see the rock roll

down again. There isn't any higher reason - the meaning is the work itself, the struggle. Nothing

else counts or matters. It's my rock to carry and I will - that's my meaning !

As for the meds, well I'm still off of them and I don't know what to do next - but who does?

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to

hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time,

and still retain the ability to function.

One should, for example, be able to see  that   things are

hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald ~

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If you want to know more about bipolar disorder please go to my bipolar page

and also my depression page

"Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be."
~ Fannie Brice ~

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