Why You Always in a Mood? Because I’m Bipolar.

It’s not really that fun to be different. Especially for something like your mental health status. Different in a way that can make you be perceived as someone dangerous or unstable or untrustworthy.

I mean yes, we are all unique and wonderfully created. It’s true that none of us are alone – there is always someone out there who can empathize with our situation or that lives some version of it.

But personally speaking, a generally accepted stigma about who you are can make your life extremely difficult. More than it already was.

We have come a very long way to understanding mental health, all of the conditions people experience and what it means to deal with them.

We know about the crippling effects of anxiety. That it literally feels like you’re dying during an anxiety attack. We understand depression because we all know someone who has or is currently experiencing it. If these things don’t effect us in our personal life, we see enough commercials or celebrity personalities explaining these conditions, that we can at least imagine.

We know a little bit less about other scary mental illnesses like Bipolar and we just can’t seem to talk about them.

At a time not long ago, there were seemingly good and kind families that would hide entire people from the world because of how it would make them look on the outside. We’ve come further to smash the stigma associated with mental health disorders since then, but people still hide. There are whole parts of themselves people hide away.

Talk about shame.

I am constantly worrying about if what I am doing is “normal.” Evaluating every thought and decision to determine if they are acceptable.

Am I being positive and productive, or am I moving into a hypomanic state that could spiral out of control? Did I take my meds today? Is this latest combination working? Am I enraged/lethargic/snappy because it’s that time of the month or because depression or mania is lurking around the corner? Am I this happy because I am experiencing genuine joy or because I am flooded with serotonin for no reason?

Some of it is funny. I’m the first to admit that yea, it kinda is. Like stupid funny. Ha ha ha. I mean asking myself if my moods, reactions and general thought processes are in line with generally acceptable standards… constantly…it’s a hoot. All kidding aside, 99% of the time it just sucks. I’m always wondering if other people think what I’m doing, saying, feeling is “normal”.

Normal. I hate that word.

First of all, there is no such thing. We are variations of physical attributes, beliefs, histories, experiences and opportunities. The people that try to constitute what is “normal” – styles, attitudes, behavior, etc. are not talking about trying to categorize a standard to ensure that everyone is safe. They have been conditioned to try and control what is outside of themselves to ensure that they and their loved ones are comfortable.

Through shame.

I digress. Maybe another day for the shame topic. It is one of my favorites.

As for me, I am Bipolar. So I have a lot to say about shame.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar I in 2017 after a very scary manic episode and subsequent hospitalization. I was away from my very small kids and shell-shocked husband for 8 days straight after psychosis and suicidal ideation almost took my life.

The progression of my illness, looking back after the wreckage, built up over years of undiagnosed swings and lack of medication. The funny thing is I always thought I was “special” and that I had something to offer other people didn’t. Boy, was that true. Except for the other 46 million people in the world. I wasn’t special per se. I was on an out of control rollercoaster that stopped for no one and nothing until the wheels fell completely off .

Looking back, I had obvious manic and depressive episodes that lasted weeks or months at a time, since I was in high school. For a decade it went by undetected.

Some of these episodes allowed me to experience extreme productivity and lots of fun. It’s one reason I got an MBA before I was 30, while working full time and having 2 babies under two. It’s one reason I was able to drink anyone I knew under the table and go without sleep, all while staying upbeat, for days. At times I was the life of the party.

I habitually engaged in poor decision making. I got agitated and distracted, moving at lightening speed from one obsession to another. I found myself in really questionable situations that put me and my loved ones in unnecessary danger. At times I made really rash, poor decisions. I self medicated a lot.

Other chunks of my adult life were spent in bed. Days in bed. Sometimes the only way my kids got to see me that day is if they came into my pitch black bedroom and laid next to me in the bed while I slept or cried. The number of tears, days without showering, disappearing and ghosting friends and family are countless.

Thinking about all of those days, all of the really bad days on both sides of the spectrum, makes me sad. It makes me mad. I guess enraged is the better word.

And what can I do with all of that?

I can choose the easier path. I can choose to sit in the unfairness of it all. The rage and fear and sadness that this is something I will have to deal with and take medications for – for the rest of my life.

I can choose the path where I pretend this isn’t really a huge part of who I am, what I’m constantly struggling with and why I need so much support. I can choose to be ashamed and to hide.

Or maybe I have another choice.

See I can’t change the facts that I will most likely be challenged daily, monthly, forever… on significant swings in my mood. Being medicated doesn’t prevent the uncertainty of life from happening. Triggers, stress and significant change can throw anyone with this condition onto a dangerous path.

They will happen and I will likely become sad, energetic, euphoric, enraged for no reason and more often than the next person. I will have to adjust something in my medication or therapy until I am healthy again.

But that doesn’t mean I have to be ashamed of myself. It doesn’t mean I have to hide who I am.

Honesty is an ideal we all think we have figured out. But it is so hard to do in real life.

Bravery and authenticity is not a natural state. We are built to protect, conform and to make as little noise as possible. We have believed those people who said there was a “normal” and forced us to doubt if we fit in.

When I got up the courage, 4 years after I was diagnosed, to be comfortably identified as a person with Bipolar, it was because I was living as a partial person. I was tired of hiding. It was exhausting trying to figure out who I was in that moment, what I could talk about, depending on who I was speaking to and the environment I was in.

I would be role playing with my therapist one moment, doing deeply difficult work breaking through the trauma of my manic episode, and the next hour I’m politely smiling with a close friend at lunch who really has no idea what the hell I’ve been through.

So I decided to post about it, revealing my experience and my story. It seemed easier behind the keyboard and bonus – I didn’t have to have the conversation and talk through my story a hundred times. It just became another part of the intricate and full person I was willing to share.

The result was complete freedom.

There were people I had known my whole life, people I’d worked with or known for 10 years or more, who reached out and told me thank you for telling my story and for being brave.

My revelation broke down barriers and gave permission for us to be our true selves together. We started having real discussions with each other that we’ve been afraid to do all that time. People I’ve known my whole life. I had been hiding this from them.

Honesty for me looks like owning up to irrational and embarrassing reactions I allow myself to indulge. I am lightening quick to react to something that is said or a situation I don’t like being in. Especially in my marriage or with my kids where I am least likely to be on my best behavior. They don’t always see my best self. This isn’t just “having a mom day.” It’s painful for them to be on the other side of.

Honesty for me is apologizing for completely ignoring calls, texts and ghosting people out of nowhere when depression rolls in like a never-ending fog. I completely shut down. I don’t want to talk about what I’m going through and I spiral down until I can’t do anything else but ask for help.

When I get out of these states, or actively catch myself allowing my mood disrupt my life or my relationships, I have to have the courage to go do damage control and repair what I’ve done. I have to address head on that I have Bipolar, I hurt someone, and then I ask for forgiveness.

Deep and vulnerable conversation and relationships have begun to take hold since I’ve been honest enough to tell my story. I found out who the people who truly cared for me deeply and completely were. My circle grew smaller, but much, much richer. I searched for communities of people who I could connect with that shared this condition and have found amazing support systems I never knew existed for people like me.

I have never looked back.

You may not be dealing with a serious life-altering condition, but I have a bet that there are things about you that is hard for you to unapologetically accept and share as part of who you are. We are all the same in this: we are complete and wonderful and intricate humans that are vastly different from each other, and most of the time we are afraid to show just what that is.

We need to live as a whole and complete person. Exactly who we were created to be with all of the warts and failures and weirdness. Our friends and families want to have relationships with who we actually are – not the scrubbed version of it.

Be Honest: No matter what we are dealing with, there is someone else out there that knows exactly what we feel.

Be Kind: Those people need us to come out of the darkness so that they can be brave too.