It’s World Bipolar Day. I’m Millie, and I am usually very open about my bipolar diagnosis. Why? Well, I don’t really have a filter. I’m also not ashamed of it. And most of all, I essentially try to be the person I needed to see. I write what 16 year old me was looking for, and I hopefully will go on to write what I’m looking for now. Do I worry how others will view me? Yeah, sometimes. Doesn’t seem to stop me.
So it’s World Bipolar Day. Something feels odd about that name to me. Almost like I’m envisioning all of us emerging from some sort of hibernation for a day, wreaking havoc, and returning back to obscurity before the sun rises on the next day. We’re just so powerful they had to confine us to one singular day, lest the earth be run wild by crazies and mad ones. I jest, of course. I’m writing this stream of consciousness like piece because something does strike me about the day, the opportunity to speak and have it hold a defined place perhaps. I suppose this is a little insight into what my life as a young person with bipolar can look like. I hope you get something from it.
I am proud to be bipolar. I can’t really explain to you why, but I am. Deeply. Yet it comes with many many challenges, and I’m not really referring to the symptomatic challenges here. Those are more complex than is generally understood, but I find some of the greatest challenges are the ones that emerge aside from (and of course interlace with) the symptoms. For example: I am proud to be bipolar, but I am terrified my life will be defined by illness. Yet I understand that this idea of being defined by illness is in many ways down to me – I have this label, but it is my choice how to use it, and understand it, and it is most certainly my choice to embrace the struggles I have/will face. I made this choice. And I can change my mind.
Of course the world often tries to define you in certain ways. Many different institutions and models of working will not embrace my vision of myself. That is painful in many ways, and something I think must change in the mental health sector. I cannot walk into a psychiatrist’s office and say ‘today I would prefer to talk about my illness through a spiritual lens that opens up the possibility of deeper connection afforded to me. And I would prefer to use the term mad, not bipolar’. I can’t do that. In fact many of the things I think and experience, I would never be able to bring up in a mental health setting because of how they could be viewed through the lens of my illness. And that is deeply upsetting to me. If you are labelled mad, how can you ever convince someone you are sane? You can’t.
I am aware my diagnosis can be weaponized against me, and of the fact that I frequently weaponise it against myself. I fear speaking my own truth in mental health spaces and advocacy because of how deeply ingrained the narrative of what is safe and sane is to me; I never want to cause anyone harm. But the fact is, in my own life I have had deeply spiritual experiences, often continuing from those first afforded to me when manic, that have been life changing. How quickly may they be labelled delusional? Psychotic? My very understanding of reality has been deeply shaken through my experiences that I am able to view as, yes, part of my illness but also something beyond and around that. And that changed understanding has led me to see the world with new openness, love, and curiosity. But I know in the wrong circumstances, that would be labelled symptomatic.
That’s not to say many of my experiences haven’t been troubling and scary. They have, but one of the ways I have found to navigate them is to accept them wholly, moving beyond the idea that they are all this illness that is separate to me, all something to be shunned. Would that work for everybody? Probably not. They’re not me. That’s why I’m not giving a step by step guide on what that looks like, because it’s a strange and beautiful process that has emerged from my personal journey. But I would like to impart the idea that we can maybe view things through different lenses, and in fact view them through more than one lens at the same time. An experience can be troubling, part of my bipolar, and positively affecting all at the same time. I have chosen to make room for that.
Treatment for bipolar is so heavily dependent on medication in psychiatry. The path for therapy is not even slightly clear. The help is inadequate. And I refuse to believe there isn’t a better way. I respect anyone’s choices around medication, whatever they are. There has to be more to discover, more to discuss, more to live. Why aren’t we having the difficult conversations?
Bipolar disorder is a silent, invisible illness. Feels like it most days anyway. No matter how much I talk about it, I know people never seem to grasp it, or even think to look beyond the word at what that experience must really be like on a daily basis. And that’s more than ok, I do the same with a hundred other things. It makes sense. But sometimes I wish people got it more. Wish I could explain it better and more concisely. Because yeah, you’ve got the episodes and they are life changing and life threatening and life disrupting. It can be incredibly unpleasant. But you’ve also got the days in between. And for me that’s almost more difficult. I carry around a silent weight:
Once your understanding of reality, self, and the world has been fundamentally shaken in the way an episode can do, you can never go back. As mentioned above, that can be a beautiful thing. But it’s also… you can never go back. I can never see the world the same way again and there’s a grief that comes with that. There’s a lot of grief in bipolar. And there’s a fear that comes with that too. Or pressure. A drive, to live every moment, grasp life when it comes back to you, a fear it’ll slip away again, a pressure to catch up, get better, make it worth it. Whatever it is, it’s there. And somehow it’s like forever being on a slightly different wavelength to everyone else around me, unnoticeably.
Episodes can be unpredictable. Even when I don’t realise it, I can be living on edge.
I see in colour. I get bored stupidly easily. I am crazy creative and empathetic. Many of these sensations may, yes, originate elsewhere, but they are also intensely interwoven with my experience of bipolar.
Being ok can be boring. Really boring, and itchy, and confusing, and a dangerous time.
The mental health support out there is atrocious. I refuse to lie about it anymore, the mental health system in the UK is completely fucked. If it worked for you, great. It should work for other people too. But hey, shows it’s not impossible to learn how to navigate a serious mental illness using tools outside the expected norm. And in a way, that feels more right for me. I used to want professional help more than anything in the world, and I still do often, it pains me I never got it. But… I’m still here. I’m still me. I was blessed to be surrounded by some truly incredible people, and I wouldn’t be here without them. But now I am here, I’m proudly bipolar, and I’m still struggling, but I’m standing and… what I’m trying to say is that I’m able to be grateful for my path because I see the opportunities it has provided me to see the world and my illness differently.
No one with bipolar is the same. Someone might not even want to use that label if they’re diagnosed! That’s completely fine too. I have many other terms I also use to describe my experience (language, what a wonderful enigma huh?). Just know that in whatever way it may be, living with this often isn’t easy for a million reasons you might not have expected or understood. As far as I’m concerned it’s not a good or a bad thing, it is what it means to each person. It’s just a thing that means something. You don’t have to understand it all – you probably can’t – but maybe just make space for some kindness and acceptance of its complexity, whether that be for you or someone else.
Mills x