The day to end the week to end the life?

Happy Wold Bipolar Day! 

I had actually decided to kill myself today (or tomorrow depending on which continent you are on). Not because it was ‘world bipolar day’, (which it isn’t anymore here in Australia but is where most of my readers are reading this from thanks to weird internet induced time travel rules) no, that was simply an ironic coincidence that I didn’t even know about that until Tuesday evening. But because back in early December when my body was giving up on me again, I was starting to feel the icy whisper of Bel’s voice in my ear once more and the withering tentacles of depression clawing at my soul, so I made a deal with the devil. 

“Let me have my trip to Melbourne with my best friend, let me have Christmas with my family, let me ring in the new year, climb up Mt Kosciusko and wish my mother a happy 70^th birthday, let me be free of this metaphorical cage and then, then you can have me.”

I picked the date, the 31^st of March 2017 as the day I would take my life. Just long enough past Mum’s birthday and just long enough before my niece’s not to be forever associated with them.

Once the date was picked my mood 180’d and happiness verging on hypomania ensued. I had a ball crossing off bucket list items in Melbourne where for the first time in 15years I ate ‘real’ food and ‘real’ cakes like it was a normal thing for me, without fear or guilt even though I didn’t run for 5 days. I was not compelled to exercise incessantly or burn myself nor was I subjected to the expected constant verbal abuse by a now seemingly silenced Bel. 

It’s funny, I haven’t seen that friend and only spoken to her on the phone twice since we got back, whereas once upon a time we spoke on the phone daily for hours. But even though it would be nice to catch up with her, if the last memories we have together were of an amazing adventure, then somehow that just feels right. 

I returned from Melbourne about $1500 poorer and fairly hypomanic, as evidenced by a folder in my computer full of poetry, rap songs and well over 1000 photographs. I had a few ‘off weeks’ here or there with many hours through the middle of the night spent deep in reflection; December seems to do that to a lot of us.

Christmas time was spent with family, his and mine. My 32^nd birthday came and went, I’m not good at birthdays I still struggle with the various parts of my mind asking why I’m not dead yet and how can I possibly be 32 when I am still living in my high school mindset and don’t recall anything since my 16^th birthday. 

A burst of “New Year New Me” hypomania followed and the world was my oyster. I photographed, wrote, drove to the beach and climbed Mt Kosciusko, I was binge eating again but my exercise plan was equalling it out in my mind. Then I hurt my ankle and freaked out momentarily about not being able to run/ shed calories. The freak out was more about the fear of the dreaded and currently subdued Bel returning to eat my head because of her obsessions and fears, than the actual fears and obsessions themselves. Strangely the feeling of impending doom passed and I coped. True to her promise Bel remained in her box.  

The kids returned to school after the summer break and my boss at the pet shop announced to me that they would spend one last ditch effort trying to sell the shop and then they would be closing down at the end of March. The end of an era, I had spent the best part of 17years as their employee. It was sad but as I remembered my pact with the devil, the timing was rather convenient.

As the weeks went by I was still hypomanic, I drove too fast and blew hundreds of dollars on expensive headphones and assorted crap. Good things were followed by bad, then good again. My daughter turned 8, Dad got diagnosed with Dementia and I spent my mother’s 70^th birthday celebrating with her. The shop didn’t sell and the closing date was official, but I ran faster and further than I had ever run before; running from my shadow.

I had intermittently wondered about my decision to kill myself. It wasn’t really practical anymore – I had blown most of the money I was planning to use to fund my suicide on manic shopping sprees, Mum was going to need me to help with Dad now, besides I was having a lot of fun generally and I didn’t particularly want to die. I started to wonder if on the 31^st of March Bel would just suddenly possess me and drive us into a truck or if perhaps I would just die from something completely random like a falling tree. 

So here I am, sitting at home on my computer on ‘D’ day letting antipsychotics flow back into my blood stream, It’s been a crazy up/down week of life lessons for each part of me which I have explained in the previous posts that I have posted before this one, separating them because it was all far too long winded for one post, like over 4000 words kind of long winded. 

If you really have nothing better to do or you are killing A LOT of time, then by all means continue starting from Monday through to Thursday. I have posted kind of backwards so they appear "how you would normally read a book" for better context.

I guess right now I don’t know what the rest of this day will bring, I am currently a little bit of each part of me, mostly Suzi I think but Bel is still nowhere to be seen. I’m supposed to have my final Pet Shop shift ever tomorrow which couldn’t possibly be worse than Wednesday’s effort and as much as I hate goodbyes and dying today could get me out of one, it’s about time that I actually finished something that I started. 

Just as I ended that sentence, the phone rang. It was the best friend I went to Melbourne with. We spoke for an hour and a half about all the important things in life. I told her how much she meant to me and that I didn’t need to talk to her all the time to know how blessed I was to have her in my life. I also told her that I looked forward to seeing her again soon. 

So Bel, if you are out there, don’t make a liar out of me, I’m ready for a fight. Bring it on, Bitch.

Wednesday

I woke up shaky at 5 am after around 2.5 hours sleep. After getting home quite late I had informed Hubby about the death of M.R and must have seemed relatively non-chalant about the whole affair to him, I remember having passionate sex and then being shitty that it was too late at night to smoke a joint because I had to be up early for work the next morning. I then spent the majority of the night trying to cry as silently as possible. Everything was hitting me at once and my thoughts were racing.

The next thing I remember I was driving on the way to work for my second last shift ever, potentially my last and watching the early morning light glisten on the tall gum trees, wet from last night’s rain. I was thinking about how everything was ending and how this was the first morning in over 82 years that M.R would not take a breath. 

The next thing I remember after that was about 40 minutes later, I was in heavy traffic and wondering if I was disassociating or just sad and dreamy from lack of sleep, I thought out loud “What the hell is wrong with me” and a car cut me off – it’s number plate began with the letters ‘BP’ then I said aloud “fuck you universe, stop talking to me in number plates” when that happens it’s a known sign that I am right on the edge. 

Glanced over into the next lane before merging and the number plate of that car literally started with the letters ‘NO’ that’s when I started laughing manically. Then I was behind a car with a bumper sticker that said “Let it be” for about a km half laughing half crying and just as I turned into the street that my work is located on the song “Closing Time” started randomly playing on my iPod. I shouted “REALLY!?!?” and then two guys ran across the road in front of my car and I had to hit the brakes. Hang on a minute…

TOM? WTF!!!??? This random long haired man running across a street in an industrial part of the city at 8am was bit not only a friend of mine (was also friends with the crackhead in high school) but was my best friend through my formative years whom I have been thinking about a lot lately, he lives 400km away and has this really bizarre habit of appearing to me like some sort of muso busker guardian angel in really odd locations at odd times just as I need him.

At that moment I honestly didn’t know if I had hallucinated him up or it was real. I kept driving repeating ‘keep it together, keep it together’ I pulled up at work and got out of the car ‘keep it together…’ I sent Tom a text asking if I had just nearly run him over. My boss opened the door to let me in, it was him alright. I took one look at my boss and burst into tears.

My boss is like a second mother to me and she just hugged me and let me cry on her shoulder without explanation for a while. I apologised and started trying to explain without looking completely bonkers, I told her about M.R dying and she said I should have stayed home, obviously I couldn’t explain that I NEEDED to be there because it might be my last shift as I didn’t know if I would go crazy and kill myself on Friday, and signs of going crazy were increasing by the minute.

After I calmed down a bit I busied myself doing routine work stuff and then checked my phone quickly, there was a reply, it was Tom that had run in front of my car. Part of me had half convinced myself in my sleepless mildly psychotic state the previous night that I along with crackhead friend ‘A’ and Tom had all actually died back in high school and like the final episode of lost had to come back together to set each other free from limbo. So the fact that it actually WAS him was even more disturbing in my current state than if he had been a hallucination.

My other colleague arrived and I managed to blurt out some garbled explanation about M.R and the fact that we are closing as she noticed my mascara stained cheeks. She hugged me too and then smiled and said “I brought chocolate, I think you need it.” I am so lucky to have worked with people who just accept me, crazy blubbering and all.

I think I managed to pull myself together for the most part and survived the day, I ate half the family sized block of chocolate in the process though wondering if I would actually return on Saturday or not as I walked out the door despite the chocolate which would normally simply have not happened or resulted in severe punishment, but there was still no word from Bel, I figured at this point she’s either dead or saving up ammunition.  

By the time I got home my thoughts were on fire, I was suddenly feeling deeply suicidal and I was shaking again and while I was desperately trying to cover it up, I couldn’t even talk to the kids or hubby without yelling at them unreasonably, I went for a run which didn’t really help the way it normally does. I have been off all of my meds since I made the “deal with the devil” but that night I decided to take the antipsychotic. It’s a fast acting one used to bring down acute mania and psychosis and as much as it hurt to admit it, at that moment I knew I needed it.

Being Bipolar in the Workplace

I often get asked the question “your kids are all at school now, why don’t you go back to work full time?” and it always leaves me floundering a bit. I haven’t had a major hospital requiring episode for nearly 2 years and the truth is I am scared to, scared I will over commit and become unwell again. 

Every single time I have worked ‘full time’ hours, as in 9am-5pm  5 days per week, I have had an episode resulting in having to cut down hours. One or two full days a week seems to fit well for me, it gives me something productive to do and a social outlet but it doesn’t cause the stress build up that can trigger my illness.

“But lots of people with chronic depression work full time jobs.” 

Yes, yes they do. My hat goes off to them because I honestly don’t know how they do it. I have tried to work while depressed and had mixed results. If the depression at the time is relatively mild and not accompanied by anxiety, then I am able to plaster on a fake smile and make small talk in all the right places for 8 hours and then collapse into a heap afterwards. It exhausts me and gives me no energy reserves. My children and husband suffer because they have to deal with a wife and mother who can’t participate in family life, cries uncontrollably, yells too much and stays in bed all weekend.

When I am severely depressed most of my journey to work is spent convincing myself not to drive into oncoming traffic, work itself becomes pointless as I am unable to remember anything, concentrate or communicate effectively with colleagues, my inner dialogue chastises every thought and every thought’s, thought. I am useless, hopeless and I think about my pre constructed suicide plans at least 30 times per hour.

My anxiety spikes because I am aware of how completely awful my work performance has become and I become paranoid that I will be fired at any moment. The anxiety causes my hands and legs shake until I can no longer use a keyboard or construct a basic sentence, I am terrified somebody will realise I am not ‘ok’ and if someone actually asks how I am I am likely to burst into tears.

I literally attempted suicide in the carpark outside an office building I worked in once because I couldn’t face going up there again.

“But hypomania makes you super productive and an asset to a business, right?”

Ha! Yes, and no. Mild hypomania can be wonderful, everything seems crystal clear as though you have cleaned a dirty window or put on glasses for the first time. Your energy levels are up, you are exercising more, dressing for success, getting involved in more social events, and not needing as much sleep as usual to wake up refreshed. Work has suddenly become much easier, words and ideas flow in conversations and meetings, you enthusiastically take on more and more projects, everybody notices your excellent work ethic and bubbly attitude and are a sure thing for that next promotion.

The trouble with hypomania is it usually either fizzles out before you have finished all those new project submissions, or it increases in intensity. Intense hypomania is where everything becomes very, very fast. All those wonderful ideas are still coming only they are happening so quickly that little part of your brain that filters out the plausible from the outlandish takes a little holiday.

You are energetic and excited and EVERYONE needs to hear your AMAZING ideas so that they can be implemented as soon as possible! You are talking fast, really fast; your bosses boss whom you have approached directly to save valuable time and company resources, is having to get you to repeat yourself two or three times so she can understand your words.

To prove to your employer how your brilliant idea will best suit the company you have spent the last three nights at home awake until 5am on the computer researching patents, emailing CEOs in China and creating business plans, brochures and designing logo’s and buying websites.

Despite you feeling like a million dollars, at this point your family has probably realised that something isn’t right and are hopefully enacting some sort of pre organised action plan, if you are in therapy your therapist will have advised you not to go to work and sent you to a psychiatrist for a med review.

If you ignore this advice and carry on in your quest for glory, one of two things will happen. Either the intense hypomania stops dead in its tracks leaving you fatigued and in way over your head paving the way for a depressive episode or it escalates further into full blown mania.

Full blown mania at work isn’t fun anymore, you stop looking like a brilliant all be it slightly eccentric up and comer and start to look just plain crazy. You can’t remember the last time you had more than two hours sleep or ate something that wasn’t put directly into your hand. Your hair and make-up aren’t quite right anymore, you accidently wore your sneakers with your dress because you were too busy that morning writing long lists of famous people to pitch your life changing ideas to and got distracted.

Your mind is whirling so quickly that it can’t keep up with itself, ideas don’t even make sense to you anymore because they have all moshed together, hallucinations begin. You need to tell your boss that you have to go home, he says that’s fine so you head out to the car. Why are you still sitting at your desk? Didn’t you leave? Did you imagine that? Oh you are in your car. No its your desk? You can’t even tell what is real anymore.

You half come to your senses and realise you are in the sick room, your manager and team leader are both with you discussing whether or not to call an ambulance, the room is spinning. You try to talk, to explain, but the words come out too fast and too jumbled to make any sense. Someone comes to pick you up and all your colleagues stare at you in disbelief as you are walked out of the office.

“But now that you are on a medication regime, you should be able to work full time like everyone else, shouldn’t you?”

Unfortunately, it’s not that cut and dry. Medications certainly save many people’s lives but they can often feel like a deal with the devil, you get to keep your sanity but not without serious side effects. Insomnia, fatigue, weight gain, tremors, cognitive and memory issues just to name a few; these can be quite disabling. Many people spend years trying to find a medication where the challenges of the side effects don’t outweigh the issues caused by bipolar in the first place. 

“So how can we support people with bipolar in the work place?”

That plaster cast on your broken leg is a visible reminder that you are unable to run at the moment. Mental illness is invisible, it is understandably hard for people to remember that someone may be struggling when they don’t have a visual representation of illness to remind them all the time. 

Having bipolar disorder does not make you a bad or lazy person, it doesn’t mean people need to tiptoe around you or fuss over you constantly either. While we don’t want to be singled out from our peers and colleagues we ask that you understand that living with this illness can be extremely challenging and working full time hours is simply not a viable option for many of us. 

What we do ask for:

• Increased awareness, ie your time to listen and learn a little bit about our condition.

• Be willing to express concern if you feel our moods are intensifying but don’t assume every scowl or sad expression means we are about to have an episode. People with bipolar have normal feelings of happiness, frustration and sadness each day just like you do.

•  Flexibility, we have doctor appointments, therapy appointments, specialist appointments that we must attend and these are often only available during work hours. We can become unwell suddenly and may require time off without warning at inopportune moments. We don’t mean to be difficult, but having one or two days off now can prevent several months off and severe productivity losses later on.

• Respect for our privacy, if we want to tell colleagues about our condition or give you details about our recent visit to the psych ward we will, but otherwise we would appreciate you keeping these things on the down low.

• Patience, some of us might be taking several different medications that make us unable to function very well before 10am or after 3pm. Our memories might also be affected and we may require a little more prompting than other staff do.

So please understand, while you can’t see my mental illness, it is something that affects my life every single day. I enjoy working part time and challenging myself with new projects and my decision not to work full time has not been made because I am lazy or out for a free ride in life, but because it is the best one for myself and my family.