I know the feeling. I’ve lived with suicidal depression for all of my adult life. Here is the story of how I live with my suicidal thoughts that come from bipolar depression. This article was originally published in Bp Magazine. The magazine website is a great resource on the tough days.
So Sick with Bipolar You Feel You Can’t Go On?
When bipolar depression symptoms are overwhelming, finding the strength to do even a small task can help you make it through the awful days.
by Julie A. Fast
I often have days when the bipolar is so intense, I feel I’m going to spontaneously combust. This is when the illness is as physical as it is mental. I am either stuck to a chair eating ice cream or I think about getting drunk in order to feel better. Before I was diagnosed and learned to manage this illness, I ate the ice cream and drank unil I passed out.
Learning to manage bipolar successfully doesn’t mean that I don’t get sick. It means that I at least recognize the mood swing for what it is and know that the ice cream and booze are not an actual solution to my mood swing pain.
Instead, I have taught myself to talk to the real me when I get sick so that I can salvage my day and still have a life despite having a serious mental illness. I’m not going to lie to you about bipolar disorder. It doesn’t serve any of us to hear statements such as: “It gets better!” or “You can survive!” without also explaining what it takes for this to happen.
If you’re reading this right now and your illness is raging…..and you feel like you can’t do anything about it, you’re not alone. I’m feeling this as I write.
And just like me, you can learn to live through these awful days when the bipolar makes you want to rip off your skin and run screaming down the street just to at least FEEL something.
I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1995 at age 31. It helped to know what was going on, but took years for me to stop the black out drunks, the manic sex that made me feel AWFUL and the lost days of not getting out of bed.
I still get sick a lot. Medications have never taken away all of my symptoms. They rarely do. They help and believe me, I take my meds, but management is up to me and it’s a daily process.
Right now, it’s sunny and warm. I’m sitting outside at a cafe writing this blog. It took me HOURS to get out of my room. I was STUCK in a mood swing. It’s OK. That is my illness. I remind myself that if I didn’t have bipolar, I wouldn’t get sick this way.
Please expect to get sick when you have bipolar and have a plan in place like the one in Get it Done When You’re Depressed or the WRAP program or anything that you will actually use. This webpage is filled with excellent advice from people who have the illness.
I am a happy person. Bipolar is an illness that often makes me feel like I can’t go on. I don’t trust this feeling. I can go on. I wrote this blog.
