22. Bipolar Super Powers

I’ve been preparing a blog on superheroes lately and it got me thinking. What is your bipolar super-power?

I sometimes think that with all the weird and wonderful symptoms that bipolar gives us, how are we supposed to know which character traits can be attributed to the condition and which are truly us?

I know one thing I’ve worried about losing due to the ups and downs of bipolar is my humour. I think I’m funnier when I’m going through a hypomanic episode but I’m also more anxious with it, making me doubt myself and my ability to be funny. Like I might over-use my funny bone and wear it away.

But what if it’s actually the other way around and I’m only funny during these episodes? Am I living on borrowed funny during the down times? I know when I’m depressed I can’t write for toffee. The words are stunted, they don’t flow and to read my writing back is painful.

I started writing a novel during my worst and longest period of depression. I suffered with depression for years and years to various degrees (before I was being treated with lithium). The novel was about life in limbo, about a woman who works in admin processing people’s applications into heaven. I struggled on with this novel because I thought it had a lot of potential but nothing I did made it flow or made the funny drip out onto the page. I realised after many years of trying and retrying that actually there was no point in trying to be creative during that time. That the reason I could only write about dead people is because I was feeling dead inside. They say ‘write what you know’ but I didn’t realise just how much I was taking that sentiment to heart.

If you asked superman, 'What would life be like if you lost your ability to fly?' The first thing he’d think of would be that he wouldn’t be able to save people, and that would be disastrous for a man with so much responsibility on his shoulders. Then he’d probably wonder how he’d get around quickly during rush hour and finally he might think ‘wouldn’t that be nice?’ To be normal for a while. To lose the pressure of responsibility that flying brings.

So is my Bipolar superpower my humour? Does it get me through the highs with flair? I don’t know. Maybe I was born to want to make people snigger but equally, if you were to take away the bipolar in me, what else would I lose that I cherish? That being said, I’m sure that relying on Christmas cracker jokes to make up my repertoire in exchange for a normal, calm life wouldn’t be the worst fate either!