My Life With Bipolar

Hello everyone.

I would just like to introduce myself, and give a little of my back story.

I am diagnosed as bipolar type 2. My diagnosis followed a path that many people with bipolar will more than likely find familiar - initially I was diagnosed with depression. This often results because we tend to seek treatment when we are feeling bad, but hardly ever seek treatment when we are feeling fantastic and in a hypomanic or manic high.

I have struggled with depression and overthinking for just about as long as I can remember. When I was 8 years old, my parents and I emigrated to Australia from Denmark. It was an exceedingly traumatic time for me. I could not speak a word of English, and within 2 weeks, I was cast adrift in 3rd class in a rough and tumble suburb with lots of kids who taught me how cruel children can be to each other, especially if anyone shows signs of being different from the norm.

I quickly learned to speak English, and within a few short years I lost my accent. However, the bullying never stopped. For 10 long years throughout high school, I was bashed, beaten, teased, terrorised and (perhaps worst of all) ignored by nearly all of my fellow students. I retreated within myself, and built walls that would put any medieval castle to shame.

The breaking down of those walls has been my life's labour, swinging the wrecking ball to let light and love back into my life. Every time that I think all of the walls are gone, I come face to face with more brickwork. Nobody said that personal evolution was easy, though, and so I just continue on in my life journey, ever trying to improve myself and better understand this thing called life.

My parents, way too busy with multiple jobs, trying to establish us in a new country, had very little time left over for me. I was very good at mask wearing and pretending that everything was okay, so as far as they were concerned, things were just fine.

But things were most definitely not fine. Bit by bit, life was teaching me that the only person I could rely upon was myself. Self sufficiency is a wonderful trait, but not when it becomes ingrained to such an extent. It becomes detrimental, and for decades it stopped me from asking for help when I needed it.

After university, I worked as an eletrical engineer. The hours were very long, and the stress was often very high. It was both a curse and a blessing that I was so good at coping with it all for long stretches. I would work at unsustainable levels for about 2 years, then fall into a major depression for about 6 months (usually). I continued this pattern in ignorance of what was truly going on.

When my marriage of 10 years fell apart (largely due to a major 2-year long depression I had been in ruining the chances of my then wife realising her dreams of having children), I fell to my very lowest level in the deepest darkest pits of depression. Finally, after years of (kind of) coping in ignorance by myself, I sought help from a psychologist.

I was diagnosed with depression in 2011. By then, I was 40 years old. I kind of knew years earlier that I suffered from depressoin, but didn't really think too much about it. It was just something that I struggled with within myself. I assumed everyone experienced similar depths of misery from time to time. That I would spend months unable to function, hiding away in a darkened bedroom, afraid to answer the door or pick up the phone, never really hit home.

The diagnosis helped greatly, as did talk therapy with my psych. I joined a mental health forum called BlueBoard, and went about connecting with as many fellow mental health consumers as possible, trying to learn as much as I could about depression, how it was triggered within me, what I could do to improve my coping mechanisms and wellness strategies, and generally trying to ensure that I didn't keep repeating the patterns of a lifetime - 2 years on, 6 months off.

About 2 years after my depression diagnosis, I had a major argument with my father, and it triggered a period of rapid cycling of my moods and energy levels. I would go through multiple major mood swings per day, unsure at any moment where this wild ride was taking me. This lasted for about 3 weeks. It was hell.

Once again, I sought out a psychologist for help, and was diagnosed with bipolar 2. Further talk therapy helped me greatly at the time, and I once again "hit the books", learning all that I could about my particular condition, what my triggers were, and how I could avoid the worst of bipolar whilst still being able to pick the low hanging fruit that was the best of bipolar...

It has been a wild ride, there's no denying that. So far, I have managed to navigate my life journey without the use of psych meds. I am lucky in one respect - despite the hugely debilitating nature of my particular flavour of bipolar 2, I am mostly highly functioning for a large part of the time. I tend to reside primarily in the hypomanic part of the spectrum - from 6 to 8 out of 10 on my scale.

Having said that, my bipolar is deadly serious stuff. I estimate that it has cost me in excess of half a million dollars in lost earnings over my career. I have attempted suicide. I have inadvertently hurt those around me with wild mood swings and risky behaviour. I have abused alcohol and marijuana in attempts to self medicate.

But when all is said and done, I am still here, and I am still trying to improve myself and evolve, to learn more about my conditions (bipolar 2, anxiety, ObSeSsIvE cOmPuLsIvE dIsOrDeR, the tendency to overthink), and to understand how to navigate my life in a more balanced way.

The support and knowledge of fellow mental health consumers on forums and in the Really Real has been a wonderful gift that keeps on giving. It has helped me to be who I am now - which is much better than the ignorant lad who used to bounce around in life, causing such terrible collateral damage to self and others in the process.

I hope that by sharing my own experiences I can help others in their own life journeys. We each are responsible for the steps we take and the paths that we choose, but we needn't walk alone.

Hugs and happy vibes beaming to you all...

Oh, and sorry for the long post. I'm a writer, and really can't help myself a lot of the time... hahaha...