7. You Can’t Miss What You Don’t Remember Having

Things have been going downhill lately. Since last Wednesday I’ve started sleeping for at least 12 hours a night, I have no energy and my memory is REALLY suffering.

I hadn’t realised before now but for the last 6 to 8 weeks I’ve been on a bit of a high. I’ve felt excited all the time, motivated to work really hard and get lots done and I’ve been achieving loads. I even thought my memory was improving dramatically. Then last week, for some reason, I started to crash.

I went home Wednesday night feeling a little tired, got in around 7pm and by 7.30 I was in bed and asleep. I didn’t think too much of it until the next morning when I noticed that not only did I feel exhausted but I didn’t have the usual jittery feeling I get in my chest when I’m excited and which had been with me the past 2 months. It had disappeared over night and the motivated, go-getting me had been replaced by a teletubby. And did I tell you that my memory is absolutely shot?

I had a meeting with my boss that basically turned into one giant game of charades. I couldn’t remember a thing I was going to talk to him about and my notes from go-getter me weren’t detailed enough to fill in the gaps. I spent the entire hour waving my arms around and making hand gestures (most of them polite). ‘You know the thing you asked me to do last week,’ I say hoping that from the 1000 things he’s working on at present he will pick out the exact thing I’m referring to, because otherwise this conversation is screwed. ‘Er,’ he starts and I scan my notes quickly for clues. ‘The contract work?’ ‘No,’ I say, I think it was another thing. To do with resellers.’ ‘Oh yes,’ he says, setting back into his seat, happy that he has helped. ‘How did you get on?’ ‘Well,’ I say, gesturing wildly, I don’t know why. Perhaps the recesses of my mind have dug up some Derren Brown style trickery and the gesturing is designed to hypnotise him into thinking I know what I’m doing. It doesn’t appear to be working. The whole meeting goes on like this with him guessing whether I’m talking about a book, a film or a contract! By the end of the meeting we’re both exhausted and I feel like I have a lot more sympathy for Lionel Blair. His job was HARD!

Oh, and just one more thing. My memory! Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe how bad it is now!!

6. A Husband's Lot

You know, I often wonder how I managed to get anyone to marry me. My husband doesn’t just have to put up with the usual stuff that a husband puts up with like arguments about the bills, deciding whose job it is to take the rubbish out, or whether there’s likely to be a nuclear fallout if he forgets to empty the cat litter tray on one more occasion. He has to contend with one or two more delights thanks to the personality issues that ensue in our household. I wonder if he would have been so keen to get a ring on my finger had he met me through the ‘Bipolar Dating Ads’.


Elle’s Dating Profile:

Described by some as ‘quirky’ I can be a giant, teary-eyed, ball of energy when I want to be. Always on the receiving end of an arrest warrant, the police just love my sense of humour. If I’m not being the life of the party myself then usually Janice, (she’s the voice in my head – oh she’s a scream), will take over and get things going.

I have developed a close friendship with the ‘c’ word over the years and use it with wild abandon to describe anyone from dictators I see on the news to whoever took the last Twix out of the cupboard. I am willing to give up this friendship for the right man and a lockable storage box.

I have certain ‘toxic’ medications which keep me on an even keel but sometimes I forget to take them. I’m sure you’ll find we have a lot in common if you’ve ever:
• Found yourself balled up in the corner of your bathroom, rocking and crying, because you’ve just discovered you’re down to your last tube of toothpaste.
• Decided that the bus driver who didn’t smile at you this morning when you smiled at him obviously hates you and you must now analyse every aspect of your personality in order to discover what’s fundamentally wrong with you as a human being.
• Decided that the bus driver who DID smile at you this morning when you smiled at him obviously fancies you desperately and you must now analyse every aspect of your life in case making a new life for yourself with said bus driver is an option.

The cat and I have made a pact with the devil. I feel any potential mate should know about this. It’s only fair. We are both going to live forever and love and snuggle with each other every single day. You, however, need to make your own arrangements.

I’m very versatile, able to make the best of any situation. For example, this morning I was on the train and my nose started to run. I reached into my bag for a tissue and it wasn’t until I got the ‘tissue’ to my nose that I realised I was in fact about to blow my nose on a panty liner. A quick scan of the train carriage informed me that no one had noticed and therefore, I can reliably inform you that they ARE as absorbent as the manufacturer states. Versatile. That’s me.

And finally, if you were to date me and decide that you no longer wish to see me but I decide I would like to carry on seeing you, I reserve the right to become obsessed with and/or stalk you. Terms and conditions of stalking can be obtained through written request, however, since I find it impossible to believe that my behaviour constitutes stalking my response will mostly include the words ‘F**K’ and ‘YOU’.

Now who wouldn’t marry that?!

5. Team Talk

Let’s talk work…

...

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God, I’m bored already.



The thing I’ve found with bipolar and never wanting to let on just how difficult things are for me is that I have to be constantly aware of what others around me think. ‘There’s that weird girl that giggles to herself and talks in riddles.’ That’s not the girl I want to be by any means. I work hard NOT to be that person and it can be exhausting. It’s also upsetting to admit that I feel that way, but how many of us can say the words ‘I work hard not to be me’? How many of us are unhappy with our inner thoughts?

You normal people out there aren’t that far from where I am, you know. You’re one stressful period, one depressive episode or one trauma away, in fact. You think I don’t see you all walking around smiling to yourselves? Laughing at the conversations that take place in your heads? I’m just a little more evolved in that I’ve also developed personalities… some with bank accounts of their own.

I try to be someone else so that I can have the life I want, not the life I could end up with if I gave in to this condition. And I think it would be easy to give in some days. Just stay in bed on bad days and dance around the street in wellies, vest and knickers on good days. People would just shake their heads and thank their lucky stars that’s not one of their kids out there making mud pies and talking to the bus.

Anyway, we were talking about work! I’m contracting at the moment which is exciting because you get to learn a lot and you have no commitment. It’s almost the perfect way to be for someone with my condition. As soon as it stops being exciting you move on, kick them to the curb, run away laughing and mooning the office on your way out… ok, so that’s more of a Janice move. But they definitely wouldn’t be getting a Christmas card from me if I left.

Currently I work for an IT firm. It’s fantastic. I always wanted to be a specky four eyes techno geek and now I’m one of the non-technical variety. I never knew when watching ‘The IT Crowd’ that life ACTUALLY is like that in the world of IT. Everyone here has an amazing sense of humour and I’m not sure if it’s because of the fact they were ALL bullied relentlessly in school but they have formed a band of brothers in which jolly japes and tom-foolery abound.

I was recently integrated into this band when the network team presented me with a mug stating ‘I love Spreadsheets’ on my birthday. I’m telling you people, there were tears.

My colleague Noel is very methodical and thorough in his work. His laugh makes me want to double up. Imagine Baloo (from Jungle Book) meets donkey (from Shrek).

Sean is my boss. He’s absolutely lovely but when he gets stressed he starts swearing without swearing. I’ve never heard so many bother’s, frig off’s and fudges in all my life.

Alfy is my third and final colleague. He’s definitely real. I’ve checked. He knows every place to eat around the city (which is quite big for a short person like me). Unfortunately Alfy ISN’T a short person like me. He’s a massive person with long, gangly legs. I felt like I’d run a mini marathon by the end of lunch when he'd shown me round, and I was so hungry I had to buy TWO sandwiches.

There are many traditions where I work. I know not how many of them started but one of my favourites is the ‘Night, Phil,’ gag. This has been running every evening for some years as far as I can make out but recently a new twist was added to an old favourite.

So, to fill you in on the joke, we have a guy named Phil who is responsible for the Domino Server and email accounts. He sits at the very far end of the office. I’m in the middle and then there’s another team further up from me. Every evening Phil gets up, walks through his department and each and every member in turn says ‘Night Phil.’ The first day I was here I didn’t really notice it but it happens every night and now every night it makes me giggle. ‘Night Phil.’ ‘Night Phil.’ ‘Bye Phil…’ (You probably have to be there).

So anyway, this week Phil was leaving and we had the ‘Night Phil,’ routine, when he spotted someone up the other end of the office and headed off up there. Five minutes later one of his colleagues wandered out of his department, spotted Phil and turned to say to his team ‘Hey everyone, Phil’s still here.’ To which they all responded in turn ‘Hi Phil,’ ‘Hi Phil’, ‘Alright Phil’.

It was very funny… I promise you.

4. Vanilla Me, A Second Scoop

I think I must have spent around 2 years hiding my symptoms until it became more and more obvious to me just how debilitating they were becoming. I finally relented and told my psychiatrist. He is a wonderful man who taught me a lot but it still took a lot of courage to tell him. I don’t think I stopped being scared about the repercussions of telling someone until… well, I’m not sure I’m all that secure about it now. I still don’t tell anyone I work with although I do write a letter to personnel stating what my condition is and that it hasn’t affected my work before now if I’m taken on somewhere new. This covers you because if you take a job and later on something about your condition manifests which means you need to go part time or take some time off to treat it, you can’t be accused of withholding anything from your employer. Believe me, I’ve been in that situation before and I was glad I’d written the letter then!


But back to my psychiatrist. He surprised me when I told him. I didn’t tell him everything, of course. Just about the noise in my head and how difficult I was finding things. He knew immediately that it was bipolar and recommended I go on lithium that same day.


I then had to go through blood tests and ECGs to make sure I could take it because of how strong it is. You want to be scared, you just need to take a look at the list of side effects that stuff can cause.


Pretty soon I started taking the lithium and within days my hands had started to shake uncontrollably. I couldn’t read a book because the shaking made each page blur! I also started to drink pints and pints of water every day. I was so thirsty all the time.


And then one day, I was walking along the street thinking about life in general, and someone switched the world’s colour on. Just for a few minutes my surroundings went from black and white, 2D, to 3D, full colour. Things had meaning, people’s faces weren’t flat with nothing behind them, they had souls and personalities and warm, red blood running through their veins giving them a pink, rosy glow. I nearly cried, I was so overwhelmed by this amazing revelation, at this riot of colour and clarity and beauty before me. My head was clear. I could hear my own thoughts and I had no doubt they were correct and being contorted by nothing. I remember it so clearly that even today, two years later, I could tell you where I was and what I was looking at when the world filled out in front of me.


And then it disappeared again. Life returned to 2D, grey, with constant noise in my head and negative thoughts skipping through my brain, skewering anything light and happy that dared pass by in front of them. But I was elated. If this was what was to come then bring it on!


I started to look forward to those moments of clarity which, over the following weeks, grew longer and more intense. It was like I’d been living in a dark, cold dungeon all my life up until then and someone had just unlocked the door to the outside world.


And so here I am. The person I always knew I was supposed to be but who was beaten down by mental illness for years. I still have a lot of days where I don’t feel right, obviously, but for the most part my life is better due to the medication.


Before I forget, I saw a werewolf today. It was cool.

3. Vanilla Me

So my last post introduced you to ‘bipolar’ me. This time I’d like you to get to know ‘me’ me. I’m the rather boring side of the personality Rubik’s cube that is me. I like chocolate and tele and I love my family and my cats and because I’m the boring, neutral, vanilla part of me, I fear the other personalities might gang up on me one day and bury me in the woods somewhere. I think they’re capable. And they know I have no sense of direction so I’d never make it back again.


Since I was a kid I wanted to be Melanie Griffiths in Working Girl. I wanted to wear a suit, work in the city, earn mega bucks, have MASSIVE hair and use big words like ‘infrastructure’ and ‘acquisition’. That was my idea of success. It was so far removed from my world as a child where I had no control over anything. This world of ‘The City’ was where dreams came true and on top of it all you could be rich and loved by Harrison Ford. Who wouldn’t want THAT?


So that’s what I’ve worked for. However, I have the distinct feeling that depression held me back for a loooong old time. Now I’m not making excuses here, don’t get me wrong, but depression is an illness and if you had flu every day for 15 years your career wouldn’t be as perky as a cheer-leaders butt cheeks either.


I had a nervous breakdown at the age of 29, fought my way out of the well of depression that I fell into only to find that at the top of the well wasn’t the home and the family I knew but a hyped up, slightly insane version of the world which shouted in my ears and made me feel as if I was going crazy every day. I think this was when the bipolar started showing itself. Of course, at that time I had no idea what bipolar was or why I was feeling so unable to keep a grasp on reality at times. I started seeing things (which still happens even today). Mostly people lurking in bushes or hiding behind lamp posts, sometimes other things like animals.


I couldn’t follow people’s conversations if there was more than one person talking in front of me. It was like I couldn’t hear them or my brain wasn’t able to react quickly enough to take everything in. I also felt as if I was 2 inches inside myself, if that makes sense. Like I was looking out of my head and not quite part of my own body. Not attached, just, following it around. Have you ever sat in a noisy school canteen where everyone’s talking but you can’t actually make out anything clearly? That was the state of things in my head.


Life was tough and confusing as well as isolating, but I refused to speak to my psychiatrist about any of what I was feeling. I didn’t want to be put in a straightjacket or carted off to hospital. I’d read so many horror stories about those who end up in mental wards and what they go through while they’re there, not to mention what it might do to any career I managed to salvage after all this was over. They even ask you when applying for insurance whether you’ve ever been committed! So I kept quiet, but the feeling of going mad only grew stronger.


To be continued…