Over the past 2 months, some of my meds have changed, and if there’s anything to know about psych meds is that it generally takes 4-6 weeks to really take effect. So two different mental health professionals increased two different medications, and they came to fruition together the other week. For once, I wasn’t feeling pure dread or dealing with as much SI (it’s still there, but it isn’t quite as strong). This was a great feeling. But it kept growing and I became scared. Of myself. Of reality. I began to question my core. Am I really Bipolar 1? It’s not something that you can diagnose on your own, so that seemed problematic.
I pondered for a few days.
I realized there are many events in my life that I can’t take away that would clearly qualify me for such a heavy diagnosis.
Yes, I screamed at a _sheriff_ at 2am over a STOP sign (and yes, I was right); I escalated this encounter immediately. Apparently, you’re supposed to stay in the car until they come up to you, but yeah, that didn’t happen.
Yes, I called my DBT program over a weekend non-stop because I didn’t like someone in the group and the DBT voicemail line kept cutting me off… so on Monday when I returned there were nurses there to take me to the inpatient ward. I didn’t remember making the phone calls. Maybe two weeks later, the psychiatrist that I was working with at the time told me my diagnosis. I didn’t really question it at the time, as I was clearly manic.
My diagnosis is not who I am, so I’m not clinging to that to justify everything else that happens to be true.
About a year later, I stopped taking my meds, and less than a week after that I had my first psychotic break: the adults that were monitoring all the kids running around my studio: they were real to me but no one else could see them (they weren’t there it turns out, even if I did cover my coffee table with glasses of water to accommodate them). I went to Stanford hospital this time and the doctors there gave me the same diagnosis.
The suicide attempts. More than half a dozen psychiatrists in total. ECT that only barely worked. Months long inpatient stays. Too many years of therapy and far too much DBT (that I’m still working on). Grandiose and impulsive thoughts and behaviors that I can’t shake.
These things can’t be taken away from me. They really happened.
Sure, I love the feeling of finding the perfect medication cocktail (along with therapy) that works and I get to feel “normal” for a bit of time, but that cocktail only works for a few months at best. This time it just so caught me off guard that I mistook “managed” for “fraudulent.” It was only when it got scary that I knew it was something more. Awareness is the skill I rely on heavily, knowing that it usually comes late, but knowing that it comes is all I can ask for. I missed my PT session on Wednesday because of this fear, though I still went to the appointment, just to quickly explain to my physical therapist that I was having some mental struggles and that I won’t see her until after my surgery next week (torn ACL). I purposely made an appointment the week after surgery to make it harder to just disappear. See, awareness.
Having to take care of the physical self to make sure that the mental self works (this can go either way). It’s a struggle.