There is a lot of backstory to this. It's hard to know where to start. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 56 years old. With hindsight, there were a lot of clues that could have led to a much earlier diagnosis. But I am really not sure about whether I had the illness all my life, or if I developed it in my fifties as a result of some deep spiritual awakenings. The consultant Psychiatrist I saw years after my initial diagnosis thought I had been cycling with it most of my life and not realised it was happening because I had never known any different. That is probably right, but I am still not sure. Some intense things happened in my fifties.
I am a compulsive gambler and an alcoholic. I am in recovery from both of these addictions for many years now. But gambling is a big pointer, and sixty per cent of people with Bipolar are substance addicts. Or so they say. I got clean from gambling and sober from alcohol and drugs in my mid-forties. But something was still wrong. I knew it, but could not put my finger on it. It was mainly that I felt terrible a lot of the time.
Life does not have to be very good to be better than life as an alcoholic gambler. So I coasted on that for many years in early recovery. But I did not get the shiny feeling that other people in recovery talked about. Actually, I did, but only for relatively short periods, after which my mood would crash. My sponsor at the time commented on how one day I would be all gloom and despair and a week later I would be fine.
My moods descended into depression, sometimes, for weeks and months. But I did not call it depression. My feelings around the perceived weakness of my father, and his long-term "Clinical Depression", stopped me from using this label on myself.
So I battled on through my low moods turning up at work every dayand not taking my sick leave. I did not really know there was anything wrong with me, although I suspected I might have burnout. Other ideas I had included the possibility of chronic fatigue syndrome or glandular fever. But nothing really fit. I did not get much further than speculation.
When my long service leave came due in my early fifties I decided to take it, plus another few months I had accrued as holiday pay, in one big go. I felt like I needed a big break from work; that six months of doing nothing would refresh me. The long service leave is not the story, so I will keep it very brief. I headed off on a spiritual journey to Port Hedland Western Australia. I wanted to make a general amends to the people and area for my out-of-control behaviour there years before. I had a psychotic episode halfway across the Nullabor plain that lasted more than a week. That should have been a big pointer too. But I did not know it was a psychotic episode. The only similar experiences I had were during marijuana use when my mood would crash uncontrollably. I was baffled because I had not used drugs for more than ten years. This was the first of what I call my spiritual experiences.
I did not seek any medical assistance and turned around and limped back to Sydney. I spent what was left of my leave crippled by depression. But this was not when I got diagnosed with bipolar.
I went back to work at the end of my leave. I was not well but had no vocabulary to express my feelings. At earlier times in my life, when I had felt low and told my parents I was told two things. The first was you keep it to yourself because other people will use it against you. The second was that I was not as badly off as my father because he had "clinical depression". Or maybe I just thought the second thing.
So I went back to work feeling terrible and struggling from one day to the next. I was sleeping twelve and thirteen hours each night and waking up feeling exhausted. It all came to ahead when an intense court case I was involved in got adjourned to the next day. On the next day, I started crying downstairs from work. I could not face going up to the office, collecting my brief, and going to court. One of my colleagues saw me and helped me ring up my boss and get organised so that I could go home.
The relief was enormous, but so was the guilt and shame. I sat in a coffee shop and tearfully rang my sponsor in AA. We decided I would seek help in a psych hospital well known to people in recovery. I made the call, and after a few days, I was admitted. I saw a psychiatrist while I was there, but I was still not diagnosed with bipolar. But for the first time in my life, I was diagnosed with a mental health condition Unfortunately, the diagnosis was "Major Depression". I was despondent. This was so similar to my Dad's diagnosis of clinical depression. I saw myself as weak, just like I saw my father.
So I started taking anti-depressants, SSRIs. They are very dangerous for anyone with Bipolar, but we did not know I had it then. They made a difference but not a great one. I still felt depressed. I continued to see my psychiatrist, and I also saw a therapist who had been recommended to me by the psych hospital.
About 18 months after my first spell in the Psych hospital I started to feel depressed in a major way again. I spent months struggling with it. I was continuing to see my therapist weekly and on one occasion we finally agreed I would take some time off. I felt an immediate sense of relief
I had been chatting online with a transgender woman in the Philippines. I immediately decided to book a flight and go and see her as soon as possible. My therapist tried to talk me out of going, but I ignored her. I think that is when my hypomania began. I left for the Philippines the next day. I felt that sense of freedom from the everyday concerns I have in Australia. It is almost as if the vast weight of the continent presses down on me all the time. Then miraculously, it is gone.
My time with Sophia was incredibly happy. She scammed me, undeniably, but I was in an exultant mood and didn't care. One of the scams was the classic one of needing an urgent operation. I paid $1000 for that one.
We stayed in a chaotic slum area, just out of Manila, and for the first time in many years, I began to feel happy.
We did nothing much every day. Just sex, and trips to the shops for her to buy makeup. We also spent time hanging out with her friends, and just being together. I was in love. My mood seemed stable-ish but I was certainly having a good time. In. hindsight, the early signs were there, but the hypomania had not hit fully yet.
One of the things I have read about hypomania is that it is sometimes triggered by intense spiritual experiences. Well, transgender women were an intense spiritual experience for me. I had been attracted for as long as I could remember but I repressed it fiercely. I had grown up in an environment where anything that even hinted at homosexuality was scorned and was often met with violence. Still, to this day, I struggle with my feelings around trans-women. But I have enough self-knowledge now not to repress it. I just go with the flow.
But back then, it was a deep, dark, secret. Because I had been in psych hospital with my "major depression" I had access to a course called "The Daring Heart". It was a Brene Brown-inspired course. The idea was to identify what your heart truly desired and to go after it with passion. During the course, I wrote these words: "if you had a chance for happiness; then you would throw everything at it".
So on my trip to the Philippines, to meet my trans friend, I was obeying the deepest longings of my heart. It was not easy to overcome my fear. There were layers of it built up over years.
One of the times I hit my wife was when I had been unbearably attracted to a man dressed up in women's clothes at a pub in Canberra. I was so frightened by my attraction I needed to run away, so I forced my wife to come home with me. When we got home we had an angry fight, she had not wanted to leave the hotel. I hit her, then rang lifeline in despair. Of course, I did not tell lifeline what was at the heart of my despair.
You may be able to understand the depth of my relief when I wrote those words, "if you had a chance for happiness, then would throw everything at it". Up until then, I thought my desires were forbidden to me. Then I allowed myself the possibility of it. And the trip to the Philippines was the fulfilment of the possibility.
It was not until I got home from the Philippines that it fully hit me. I woke up super early one Sunday morning. It was about 3 am. I didn't go back to bed. I decided to just ride with my early start. And after my first cup of coffee, it hit. I suddenly felt as high as I had ever felt. Breathing began to feel wonderful. I had this overwhelming feeling that everything was going to be all right. I felt in love with my friend in the Philippines. The answer to everything seemed to be to sell up and go and live with her.
A few days later I met with a friend. I was still feeling buoyant. I told her about how I was in love. She had the opportunity to observe me for several hours. She finally said to me, "when are you going to see your therapist?". "Thursday", I said. "You better tell her you're in love, cause otherwise, she is going to think you are manic".
Sure enough, on Thursday, I bounced into the therapist's office and said "I am cured, I am not depressed anymore". After a few minutes the therapist said to me, "It's unprofessional to take a panadol during a therapy session, but I am going to break the rules. You are so manic you have given me a headache".
At her suggestion, I organised an urgent appointment with my psychiatrist.
And that is how I was diagnosed with Bipolar.
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