Mother's Day and World Bipolar Day

So everyone knows that it is Mother’s Day today. Apparently it’s also World Bipolar Day (who knew?). I thought that this would be a great time to write about my Mum and how she has helped me during times of my bipolar flare ups.Not everyone is lucky enough to have a supportive parent so I am really grateful.

My Mum has always been the strong one in my family. She holds everyone together. The rest of us always joke that her catchphrase is: ‘I just want everyone to be happy’. Her happiness seems to be completely tied up with how everyone else is in the family. It is very noble of her but also it worries me that she doesn’t look after herself enough.

It’s a shame that so many mothers put such little emphasis on themselves. Society expects them to be constantly selfless and maternal. Mother’s aren’t expected to be individuals with their own personalities, desires and needs. Of course they are just human like the rest of us. They deserve to be treated with respect every day of the year, not just Mother’s Day.

My Mum is a really interesting person. She is shy and introverted but at the same time full of personality. She is very logical and analytical and one of the most intelligent people I know. However, at the same time she manages to be completely daft and silly. She is one of a kind and deserves to be recognised for more than just her role as a carer.

Unfortunately my Mum has often ended up taking the carer role. She has always been there for me during times of crisis. When I was first having mental health problems as a teenager, I was fighting a lot with people in my family. I was irritable and depressed and taking it out on everyone. Within the family, it was my Mum who tried to keep the peace. She was the first to recognise that I was ill and not just being difficult. She was the one who pushed me to get help.

Over the last thirteen years of having mental health problems my Mum has been my main source of comfort. I am very thankful for the other people in my life who have also supported me but it is my Mum who manages to be the most patient.

When I am depressed she doesn’t get irritated but encourages to get up, get ready and exercise. She forces me on walks and makes me leave the house, even if it is just for a coffee. The rest of my family often get frustrated and down over my lethargy and low mood. This makes me feel really guilty. However my Mum almost always remains cheerful which helps bring my mood up, if only a little bit.

When I am manic, my partner and my Dad find it really difficult to deal with. I can completely understand why. I wouldn’t cope very well with someone running around the house, screaming and laughing and trying to play fight with me. It can be funny sometimes but often I am the only one laughing. Everyone around me is a bit creeped out! My Dad’s response is to get angry when gets matched with explosive rage on my part. My partner’s reaction is to get really sad and upset which doesn’t help. These are both natural reactions and so I don’t judge them for it. My Mum’s reaction is the most beneficial to me though. She tries to keep relaxed and just goes with the flow.

Mixed episodes are the hardest for everyone to deal with: the endless pacing around, the wailing, the psychomotor agitation, the screaming in terror, the paranoia, the desire to inflict violence on myself. I shudder to remember these things. My Mum sits with me as I pace around, just to make sure I am safe. She doesn’t try and stop my from moving or try and reason with me. She knows that these won’t help.

What my Mum does for me is amazing. She watches my moods closely, spends hours talking to me, often daily, and she organises my life to try and keep me in a routine. What is even more amazing is that she manages to keep on being her lovely self. She doesn’t let the bipolar drag her down, although it obviously affects her deeply.

I try to remember that she is not just my Mum and my carer. She is my friend and a really interesting person. I am grateful to have her in my life.

What's in a face?

I used to think I could tell a lot about someone from their face. But I was wrong.

Obviously someone’s basic physical appearance doesn’t tell you anything about that person. However, I used to think you could read a lot about someone’s personality, thoughts and feelings through other physical cues which show up on their face and body. 

For example, body posture could indicate a number of things. If someone is strutting around you may infer that they are confident or, perhaps less kindly, arrogant. If someone is walking around in a less purposeful manner, stooping their shoulders and darting their eyes around, this could indicate that they are anxious and insecure.

The face is often thought to expose even more about a person’s personality. Perhaps if someone is smiling all the time you think of them as happy go lucky. If someone always furrows their brow you may think that they have a nervous or contemplative personality. 

The face may also expose someone’s thoughts and feelings at any one time. You look to the face to see how someone is responding to what you are saying. How they tense their mouth, move their eyebrows, where they fix their gaze and whether or not they laugh may all indicate what that person is thinking and feeling.

What I have realised over the years is that just as people lie in what they say, they are capable of performing non-verbal deceptions too. And I now strongly believe that these non-verbal deceptions are not the exception to the rule. People hide how they feel ALL THE TIME. The person who struts around is often just trying to hide their true feelings of insecurity. The person that always smiles may be covering up a deeper, darker personality. The person who never looks irritated at the controversial things you are saying may be seething underneath. 

The face that people show to the outside world may mask all sorts of thoughts and feelings. We constantly modify our facial expressions in to those that we deem socially acceptable. We want to make sure our face is responding in the ‘right’ way so that we are communicating what we want to be communicated about us.

This brings me to the topic of mental illness. Because of the stigma surrounding mental illness, those with mental illness may have a vested interest on hiding any negative or ‘strange’ thoughts and feelings. I often believe that it in my best interest to keep my condition hidden from others. This is why I blog anonymously. It is also why I modify my facial expressions to mask my inner turmoil. 

I want people to see me as a functioning, social person, capable of taking care of myself and others. I want them to see that I am engaged with what they are saying to me (even though I am often drifting off in to my own distressing thoughts). I want them to see someone who is capable of having fun and laughing along with everyone else. 

I often think that I must be giving off all sorts of signs in my facial expressions which indicate that I am feeling mentally distressed. The feelings which I have are so intense that I wonder how it is possible for other people not to notice. But they don’t. Not most of the time anyway. I must be some sort of facial disguising expert!

How much can you really tell about a person through their face? I would say: not as much as we would like to think. People lie about how they feel all the time and this extends to their facial expressions. 

Should we be pleased that we can hide our true feelings from our face? Yes and no. Obviously it would lead to quite a lot of social discord to always have people be able to read our thoughts and feelings from our face. We think lots of fleeting negative thoughts about others which may be best kept hidden. However, if you always hide your true feelings from your face, you can end up feeling very alone.

Many people with mental illness are having to perform a daily facial disguise operation. Society doesn’t exactly make it easy to feel okay with showing your distress to others. The pressure to conform is huge but the isolating feelings which come with conforming can be hard to bear too. I really hope that as time goes on it becomes easier to talk about mental illness. Then we can finally let our faces just relax for a little bit!

Bipolar versus anxiety

I have both bipolar disorder and a general anxiety disorder. Most people think that the bipolar disorder is the more serious mental illness and in some ways this is true.

When my mood is manic or mixed I can become very paranoid, hyperactive, restless and distressed. I exhibit more typically abnormal ‘crazy’ behaviour like running around in circles, speaking incoherently and screaming. This makes socialising, work and normal day to day activities impossible.

The thing about mania though is it only happens in episodes. It may last for a few months but thankfully it ends. It is the same with depression. The episodes are horrific and completely take the life out of me. However, because they are acute in some way I can cope with them. I know they will end eventually.

Anxiety is a different story. It is there with me all the time. I am anxious about any kind of socialising, being seen in public and random other stuff like being stabbed when I am walking around outside. I can’t function when I am manic or depressed but anxiety cripples me every day.

The problem I have been having over the past couple of months is that the anxiety has reached a level where it is just as invasive as the bipolar episodes. I feel a sense of dread all the time. I get waves of nausea. I find it hard to breathe and my chest feels really tight. I am dizzy and I feel tired all the time. I keep getting panicked that I have some kind of physical illness but these symptoms are all consistent with anxiety.

But I feel like I am DYING. Like at any moment I could drop dead from lack of air. I am trying so hard to remain calm but I can’t. Everything in my body feels wrong. I keep over thinking things and noticing weird stuff. Like how big my tongue feels in my mouth. And how weird it is when I shut my eyes and I can see the darkness. And how often I swallow during the day. All of these normal things suddenly seem completely abnormal. I try and fall asleep at night but just as I drift off, I feel a sudden jolting pain in my chest and wake up in a panic. I am now afraid to go to bed. I make my partner stay up next to me and wait for me to fall to sleep just in case.

I wonder if I might stop breathing at any moment. I don’t want to die. Death terrifies me. But I don’t want to live like this either. The strange thing is that I don’t have anything to feel anxious about. I am worried about being off ill from my PhD and losing my funding but I am not thinking about it constantly and it doesn’t seem to coincide with the anxiety attacks. In fact the thing I am most anxious about is feeling anxious. It’s a vicious circle.

The only thing that keeps me going is writing and the internet. They are so engaging that I am briefly distracted from the anxiety. However it all comes rushing back as soon as I stop. Perhaps I should just be online all day!

People don’t take anxiety disorders seriously enough. They sit up notice when you say that you have bipolar disorder. Of course with this comes all sorts of judgements about how scary and dangerous you are. However, with anxiety it is like people don’t see you as having a real problem at all. Because everyone gets some feelings of anxiety occasionally they think they know what having an anxiety disorder is all about. But they don’t. They haven’t had to deal with it day in and day out and at such an extreme level.

Depression, mania and anxiety have all taken their toll and it is near impossible to say which is the worst. i tend to think whatever mood state I am currently experiencing is the most difficult one.

I am tired. So tired of being this wound up. My body can only take so much. I don’t know when the anxiety will subside but it feels like it will go on forever. I am mentally and physically exhausted.

Am i feeling manic or depressed?

When you have bipolar disorder it can be really hard to identify the mood you are in.  When I experience a depressive episode it's often quite easy to identify it as such. My whole body shuts down and I feel like I can’t do anything. The feelings of despair are overwhelming and the negative voices just won’t leave me alone. I know that I'm depressed but I can't do anything about it.

However, when I'm not depressed it can be really difficult for me to tell what mood I am in. The problem is identifying the difference between just feeling ‘normal’ again and experiencing a swing towards a manic episode. Throw in the possibility of a mixed episode, where you experience mania and depression at the same time, and things get really complicated. 

I went through a stage of obsessive blogging just recently. In hindsight I think it was because I was on the manic side. Only I didn’t recognise it as such because the frenetic drive was tainted by a low mood. In other words I was having a mixed episode.

I thought that my drive was just because I was back to feeling more normal again. I thought now that the fog of despair was lifting, I was back to feeling inspired again. I had all these ideas for blogging and for my creative writing. I finally felt like I had a purpose. The lack of working or studying meant that I had been feeling particularly worthless and this was giving me some sort of self-esteem boost.

My inspiration of the past two months collapsed about a week ago. I suddenly felt drained and all written out. I look back at what I wrote and I see all the mistakes. I realised that my sudden feelings of being inspired were misplaced. It was just mood related and didn’t lead to anything amazing. No one cared anyway! I was caught up in the whirlwind of manic excitement and now it has all collapsed around me.

I don’t even know what mood I'm in now. I feel pathetic and hopeless. I have to email my university department today to tell them I'm not coming back for another term at least. This may mean they cut my funding and so I'll never be able to complete my PhD. Part of me would feel relieved in the sense that I wouldn’t have to go through the stress. However, a much bigger part of me would feel like a real failure and like I've completely wasted the last few years. 

Sounds like I am depressed from that description. However I still feel WIRED. I feel like my brain is buzzing away at me incoherently and like I can’t turn the switch off. I'm ignoring everyone around me because I don’t know what to say or how to describe my mood. I ' just attached to my computer in the hopeless task of distracting my brain from itself. It's doing something nasty and I don’t like it one bit. 

Usually my posts have some kind of point or message but I'm not sure this one does. I guess I mainly wanted to say that I feel all over the place. I'm not manic but I am not exactly depressed either. I guess I'm distressed and confused by this mood state. I just hope it doesn’t last too long.

Let's talk about suicide

There is a huge stigma surrounding suicide and it is rarely a topic deemed suitable to talk about. However, it is important to acknowledge the existence of suicidal thoughts and actions and bring the topic in to the open. Many people with mental illness suffer from suicidal thoughts and allowing sufferers to talk about these thoughts may prevent suicides from occurring in the future. 

There are a lot of negative judgements surrounding suicidal thoughts and actions. To most people just the word ‘suicide’ is rather shocking. If someone has attempted or died from suicide, the word is often avoided altogether. Just recently I heard of a young man who appears to have taken his own life but the word ‘suicide’ was not attached to his tragic death. Instead it was referred to as an ‘accidental death’. Everyone knew what had really happened but it was seen as such a terrible and possibly also a shameful thing that people couldn’t bring themselves to use the word. Perhaps they hoped it would bring some comfort to the family to interpret the situation as an accident. However, this does highlight that people feel a lot of discomfort surrounding suicide. They see a suicide as a different kind of death than those caused by physical illness or injury.

One place that you do hear about suicide is on the train. A number of times I have been informed, along with the other commuters, that there will be delays to the train service due to a person jumping in front of another train. Whenever I hear this, my heart skips a beat and I feel terrible sadness and empathy with that person. They must have been in a lot of pain to see suicide as their only option. Unfortunately not everyone sees the situation like this. I sometimes hear groans of fellow passengers who are both annoyed with the delay and disapproving of the suicide. The reaction is always more extreme when the delay is caused by a suicide rather than, say, a signal failure.

Another rare time you will hear people talk about suicide is when someone in the public arena has killed themselves. People will often talk about how terrible it must be for the family. The family will obviously be devastated by the death of their loved one. Often this will be accompanied by feelings of guilt that they should have been able to help more. Most people realise the turmoil that the family must be going through. However, they often don’t extend their feelings of sympathy to the person who has died by suicide. They may express how selfish the individual may have been to leave his/her family and friends behind. This disapproval is especially strong if the person had children.

These common sentiments highlight that there is a huge stigma surrounding suicidal thoughts and actions. Often people will not understand how someone could ever become suicidal. They find it very hard to put themselves in the suicidal person’s shoes. They may judge those who have thought about suicide, attempted suicide or completed suicide as weak, irresponsible, reckless and selfish.

It is because of these kinds of judgements that people will often hide their suicidal thoughts. They end up suffering in silence. People have suicidal thoughts because they are in mental turmoil and they feel like they can no longer live with this pain. Often it may not that they particularly want to die. It is more a case of wanting the pain to go away and death seems like the only option available which will guarantee a relief from this unbearable pain. 

Suicidal thoughts and actions do not make a person weak. Dealing with clinical depression and other mental illnesses is exceptionally hard. Sufferers will have been strong just to battle through their intense mental pain for so long. People who have suicidal thoughts or suicidal intentions should not just be viewed as a selfish either. Sufferers may be unable to think of others when they are contemplating suicide because they can only focus on the intense and chronic pain they are experiencing. Depression has a way of distorting your view of yourself and the world and so the effect of your suicidal actions on yourself and others becomes confused. Sufferers may feel like their family and friends would be better off without them.

I myself have experienced suicidal thoughts although I am lucky in the sense that I have never tried to kill myself or made any detailed suicidal plans. I have a very open and understanding family and so I feel like I can tell them about my suicidal thoughts (to some degree anyway) without being judged. They are able to talk me through my suicidal thoughts and highlight all the reasons why suicide is not a good solution to the problem. However, for many people, there isn’t someone they can turn to. For many the response of others to their suicidal thoughts will be of shock, irritation, confusion and anger. Therefore the suicidal person feels like they cannot open up. There is no one there to help them work through these distressing thoughts and prevent them making a rash and fatal decision. 

Suicidal thoughts are more common than we would like to think. The stigma surrounding suicide means that people feel like they cannot open up about their suicidal thoughts. The problem is that there will be no one there to help this person analyse their thoughts and put them in to context. We need to work together to end the stigma surrounding suicide and allow people to open up about their distressing thoughts. We can then work towards helping these individuals and prevent more suicides in the future. 

If you do feel suicidal please talk to someone. If you don’t feel able to open up to someone that you know please see your GP or call someone at the Samaritans open 24 hours a day on 08457 90 90 90. There is always someone who can help you if you let them in.