31 days of bipolar: 6

What have you done for meme lately? Ooh ooh ooh yeah!

6.. What do you wish you’d known when you were diagnosed?

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A bipolar meds first aid kit would have been nice actually. Nausea meds, diarrhoea, headache, rashes … those sorts of remedies. I was ok for a bit, and then a lithium hike caused me to erupt from both ends for a month. And I really, really wish I’d been warned about the cognitive dissonance and dulling.

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I didn’t tell people right away, but I’d like to have been told to wait a bit longer, that while I was fumbling towards understanding, every man jack would start informing me of their allegedly thorough knowledge. Eeeeeeritating. And maybe something like people are going to write off the neurotoxic aspects as bad science and tell you to heal thyself by chanting, yoga, eating fish … grumble.

Act cool always, because there will be some people who watch fearfully, waiting for your head to explode and you to get instant St Vitus dance and scream like a banshee. It’s highly unlikely guys … though I may as well reserve the option just in case. One time, the poison pygmy neighbours had a loud argument and my other neighbour came rushing to my house because she thought it was me freaking out. Mildly mortifying.

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But on the whole it’s all fine. I got my diagnosis, sat fairly stunned with it for 24 hours, cried for another 24 hours and then started reading voraciously. I think that’s pretty decent. I was really fucking scared initially, I’m not now. I mean, who is ever prepared for shit like this anyway?

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blahpolar

battlescarred, bright, bewildered, bent, blue & bipolar

24 thoughts on “31 days of bipolar: 6”

  1. This reminded me of my diagnosis. I was in the hospital and when they said “bipolar” I though, Okay, I’ve never heard of that but… and then they gave me a booklet to read. When I discovered that what I was was also called “manic depression”. That was the illness of a guy I one knew who peed in a coke bottle and left it in the hallway of his apartment building. I DIDN’T WANT TO HAVE THAT!!!!

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      2. I guess they changed the name of manic-depression to avoid the negative perception, but stigma follows. Now I quite like the term manic-depression because it describes how I experience the illness, but we are subject to those clinical classifications.

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        1. Eh, even if it was called Albert or Jello Squid, or anything at all, the stigma would follow cos we are all woooo scary unstable etc. Apparently. I like the m-d term better too; it is at least a little more lyrical.

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          1. I don’t know, for myself the emphasis is on the upswing but it is not a positive, or rather it is as long as I can manage the work of three people and save my agency money, not so much when I go crazy. I actually usually just say I have a mood disorder and leave a little mystery. More romantic that way. :)

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  2. You’ve really touched a nerve with this post. I was and am scared. I don’t like dealing with that. I don’t know how to deal with it… the very first booklet given to me by the shrink who first diagnosed me started with ”Bipolar Disorder is a serious mental illness, blah blah blah” Didn’t make it past the first sentence for quite a while.
    Oh, and I love your suggestion of a beginners medical kit! LOL so many meds trials and tribulations. UGH!

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    1. Ah sorry to have touched that nerve. I often think I don’t really deal with stuff a lot of the time. Just sorta stumble around reading instead of thinking.

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  3. I wish I’d have known that being bipolar would mean having company like you ;-*

    Seriously, I felt so alone when I was diagnosed. I was at the end of the world, scrolling through my sane phone contacts…

    But yes phenergen should come with the dx. And a receptacle that destroys all of your alcohol (in my and many other cases).

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  4. Boy, am I grateful that my first diagnosis (autism) was something I knew a lot about already when diagnosed. Then when I had to be admitted to the hospital, my diagnosis wasn’t serious (I was seriously ill, but it wasn’t like I had this awe-inspiring diagnosis). When I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder though, I was quite scared because of the stigma. I had quite a lot of knowledge of psychiatric disorders by this time so knew technically what it was, but I was scared of the stigma of attention-seeking, manipulative, etc.

    As for medication side effects, I was never told about any but only had side effects with my first antipsychotic. Then no-one would take me seriously because the side effect was fairly rare.

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    1. P.S. would you like to be part of the Recovery Bloggers Network. It’s a blog network basically that connects bloggers who write about mental health. It’s at http://recoverybloggers.wordpress.com/. Sorry if you already know (I see some of the members are liking your posts so one of them might’ve told you about it already) and if you areen’t interested, don’t worry, I won’t keep bothering you.

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        1. I’m glad I wasn’t being a bother. If you want to join there’s a form you can fill out with your contact info (will not be displayed pubicly, only fo rme to contact you should I need to), your blog info, etc. and I’ll add you to the members’ page so that the other members will be able to easily find you. We also feature a member once a month (starting in Feb cause the network was just launched a few days back) so you can get extra visitors to your blog. I know a few of our current members already know you but a few may not.

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      1. Racing heart. I didn’t measure it so don’t know whether i actually had a higher heartrate but it felt that way. Arrythmias are a known side effect of antipsychotics but it’s a rare side effect, and no doctor would take me seriously since the symptom didn’t happen right at my first dose.

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        1. Doctors can be so foolish … I think my oddest side effect so far was my ears ringing and going like they do at altitude, for no reason.

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  5. I wish I had know beside stigmas. I thought my entire life, every bad decision was all based on my diagnosis. Turns out you can just make stupid decisions. You can LIVE with bipolar.

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