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…
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