WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE BIPOLAR
19 OCTOBER 2021 (15 MIN READ)
Disclaimer: These are only my personal experiences. As you will see, I am a crazy motherfucker, so please do not do what I am writing about without consulting a professional.
I’m bipolar. Yup, I’m saying it openly and I don’t give a fuck what you think about it. Label me as “crazy,” or do whatever you wish. However, I challenge you to hold on to those labels by the end of this article. My intention here is to viscerally share what it’s like to be bipolar—to allow people to have a realistic understanding and assessment of the brain condition. I also do not need your sympathy or pity; I am to be treated equally as everyone else and held to the same standards. Whatever I fail to accomplish is not a reflection of bipolarity and it never will be; it’s a failure of my own willpower and execution. Nevertheless, as you will notice, a level of compassion has to exist within myself to take care of the immense pain I feel on a regular basis. The more I forget this self-care element of being bipolar, the more I fall behind and end up becoming mentally challenged. If I want to ride with the best of them, I know I have to train twice as hard, and that’s something I’ve learned to be ok with. I want to prove to the world that being bipolar will never stop me from working my ass off and accomplishing my dreams. My desire is to hold every beautiful soul diagnosed with bipolar disorder and tell them they can still do whatever they want in life. It will be harder for you, but that only means victory will be twice as sweet.
When I got diagnosed with bipolar type II disorder, I felt a sigh of relief and a big smile washed over my face. For the record, this is far from an ordinary reaction to a stigmatized and shocking diagnosis. However, for years, I had always known there was something wrong with me that no doctor could pin down. I had been through about twelve different psychiatric medications in two years—all while attempting to make it through one of the hardest colleges in the world. My brain chemistry was changing on a weekly basis, all while I was trying to figure out who I wanted to be in this life. At the end of most nights, I would shove my face into my pillow and aggressively sob in confusion, as my mind would feel like scrambled eggs and I started to dissociate. Once I got so suicidal that I put a knife to the edge of my wrist, but what stopped me was this powerful thought: “Let’s give this one more try.” So, I switched doctors, and thank God I found the right match. If he had not diagnosed me with the disorder and worked with me to find the correct treatment plan, I would have killed myself. Thus, that sigh of relief ultimately came down to, “I am going to live another day.” But what I did not realize was the severity of the disease, which requires constant awareness and emotional investment.
After the wave of euphoria washed over me, the stigma surrounding bipolarity, which I’ve possessed my whole life—punched me in the face. I grew up constantly hearing stories of my “crazy” grandma abusing her children and being locked up in looney bins for being bipolar. “Poor grandma,” I always thought. “I will never end up like her, thank God.” In that moment, it hit me, I became my grandma. The odds fucked me and I am the only one in my extended family who ended up with the gene. Reminiscing on the horror stories my mother told me, I thought to myself, “Will I become that monster?” That potential reality ate me alive every day, but I eventually found hope. I thankfully realized that I cannot change what happened to me, but I can change my perspective on it. So, I settled on the idea that I will become the most successful bipolar person in the world. Whatever my grandma could not accomplish, I will accomplish for her. Whatever bipolar person is stuck in a victim mentality of, “I cannot do anything,” I will show them that they can accomplish whatever the fuck they want. I will use this disease to push myself to inspire the others who have to live with it. This shit is my superpower.
Unfortunately, what still gets me down is the idea of having kids. Although I have a positive mindset, I do not know for certain if I will eventually become like my grandmother in the future, traumatizing my children if my disease suddenly becomes worse. Even more painful, my children have a high chance of inheriting my bipolar gene, and I do not wish for anyone to live with this condition.
LIFE AS UNDIAGNOSED
Growing up, there were always two sides of me: loving, kind Lucas and that devilish fucker you needed to socially distance from. As a young child, my family would always comment on this quality and laugh it off—as a moody, mean child can be rationalized as “cute.” Unfortunately, after a while, once I entered my teenage years, it stopped being cute and became a nuisance to deal with. I would get home and scoff at my mother, refusing to engage with my parents who I saw as losers. Then, all of a sudden, some days I would wake up ecstatic to see them and engage playfully. This constant flip-flop would dictate my life. Once I got to college, I realized that I needed to wear a mask to seduce people into becoming my friends. And since my mood was so unpredictable, I had to force myself to stay stable through putting on a consistently cheerful appearance. This strategy worked and ended up creating a lot of friends for me; however, I felt incredibly lonely. I could never express who I really was because I was deathly afraid of that motherfucker. I repressed my shadow and kept forcing myself to be someone I was not. To wake up morbidly depressed every day for a month and not be able to express it—is a horrible pain that no one should have to go through. But then, at the snap of my fingers, I was enthusiastic and upbeat. I knew this feeling would fade at a certain point and I would be catapulted towards darkness. This painful reality made happiness terrifying for me. I knew that every time joy entered my body, I would be paying a price. And that price was hating myself and seeing black for months at a time. I kept this to myself and just passed it off as life. I never thought to just ask my friends, “What do you guys feel like on a weekly basis?” That simple question would have saved me from this next part.
After a while, I stopped being able to put on my “happy” mask as easily—due to my depressive bouts becoming stronger and lasting longer. So, I started reaching for drugs. Like any toxic habit, it started off innocently. I started drinking more caffeine throughout the day to snap me out of my depressive funk, and as soon as my day was done, I would roll up a fat joint and bathe in relaxation. If I woke up with too much energy and mania, I would just smoke all day. And if any social interaction required me to snap out of my depression, I would just down a couple glasses of whiskey. It felt like I had finally cracked the code: whiskey, weed, and coffee. Who would’ve thought it would be this easy? Like any good storyteller would predict, I developed a pretty heinous dependency. If my work sessions went into the night, I would shake and cry in the library bathroom needing a hit of my bong. If I was going out on a date, I would take five shots before leaving. And the morning after, I would drink four espressos to bring my brain back online. The worst part of it all, I had no clue I was addicted and thought I was living the normal life of a college student. My addictions got so bad that I started to get suicidal whenever I tried to quit. And whatever relationship I found myself in got ruined by my emotional turmoil and need to constantly self-medicate. So, I took my ass to a shrink, which ended up fucking up my life even more.
After just one hour with this doctor, she told me I had depression, anxiety, and severe ADHD. I walked out with a bag of Adderall, Xanax, and antidepressants. “Awesome,” I naively thought, “I’m finally going to start feeling better.” Holy shit was I wrong. The doctor did not catch that I was bipolar which, with my understanding now, was pretty easy to realize. To make matters worse, Adderall paired with SSRIs are probably the worst pills you can give someone with bipolar disorder—it makes their condition far worse. Thus, my mania got even crazier and my depressive episodes got even more severe. This made me an absolute nightmare with women. One day, I would be saying, “I love you, we are made for each other,” to the next week feeling like I was absolutely disgusted by them. This was due to my own internal state. The happier and more loving I was with myself during my manic state, the more loving and accepting I was with others, especially romantic partners. On the flip side, when I despised myself and wanted to kill myself, I also hated everything else around me. This constant flip-flop confused the shit out of me. Imagine one day thinking you met the love of your life, and the next week realizing you want nothing to do with them. And then having that happen over and over again. When I told my psychiatrist I was feeling worse than ever and incredibly confused all the time, she doubled my Adderall and antidepressant dosages, which she said would cure everything. A couple days later, I woke up doing everything I possibly could to not kill myself. Eventually, it took more effort trying not to kill myself than it did to do anything in life. All day for months, I had to ask myself, “How can I live through today?” All the while trying to graduate college and navigate a complex social life.
Thankfully, Corona hit and I shipped myself out to Hawaii with my whole family. There was no fucking hiding there and the deepest of my depths came flying out. I had never seen my mother so concerned in her life. The look in her eyes, knowing her son could leave this earth at any second, was something no mother should ever have to possess. The more I familiarized myself with this stare, the more I realized I had to give myself one last chance. And as described in the introduction, that chance saved my life. It’s crazy to me that so many people can live with some of the experiences listed here and not realize they need help. I’m here to change that pattern. In the next section, I will discuss how much one moment of reaching a hand out can make a difference.
DIAGNOSED
After only a day of talking with my new doctor, he immediately diagnosed me with bipolar type II disorder, and was pretty shocked that the other doctor did not catch it. Although both of us saw the new diagnosis as a breath of fresh air, I had no clue what was in store for me in terms of rehabilitation. My past psychiatrist put me on eight different medications, all addictive and habit-forming. I had to get off all of them, but my doctor gave me some options. He recommended I slowly wean off each medication and take some time with the process. In response, I asked him when I would properly start feeling better and like myself again. He said, “Once you’re off all the drugs.” My cocky ass took that as a necessary invitation to bite the bullet and put myself through hell for a better tomorrow. So, I told him I was going to quit all the drugs cold turkey. He did not want me going down this road, but I was adamant. His hesitancy was justified because what ended up ensuing was the worst month of my life.
For the first week, I was sweating and shaking profusely, along with constantly thinking about killing myself. I could not leave my bed and when I did, I forced myself to exercise—due to it being the only way I could feel any remnant of positive emotion. What kept me going was the light at the end of the tunnel: a promise of a fresh start and discovering who I really was beyond the drugs. No matter how dark and disgusting it got in my head, if I managed to shift my attention to the light, I found energy to keep fucking going. Although I am in a much better mentality now, I still believe it’s necessary to carry a similar light wherever you go. Mine now has become: I trust God’s plan and whatever lessons He needs to throw my way for me to become a better man.
Each week got easier and I eventually made it through the withdrawal period. My vision of a better future finally became reality. I started to really see who I was beneath all the mania, drugs, and dark depression. I felt stable and like I could finally experience joy. My brain also started to work again, after all my dopamine and norepinephrine levels began to stabilize. Until this moment, I never really understood the hype surrounding redemption. But as soon as I stepped into it, I realized it’s the most powerful feeling in the world. Coming from being inches away from being another suicide statistic to in a month experiencing real joy to be in this world—I had never experienced such intense emotion. I cried for days straight out of the sheer absurdity of the whole situation. And then the biggest gift jumped onto my lap: finding my purpose.
It wasn’t a coincidence that all of this happened to me as a young man. We are facing a mental health crisis like never before and a surge of toxic masculinity. And the more intense anxiety gets worldwide, the harder it gets to keep the tough guy act up, leading men to kill themselves at the highest rate (about 80% of suicide deaths in America). By saying all men are “bad” and should “die,” you are literally killing them. The amount of shame men are feeling at this time is unprecedented. Thus, they need more love and support than ever. By empowering and believing in men to improve, you are reducing their need to live in their shadow. The male shadow is where aggression and dominance lies. If men start getting vulnerable and supporting other men, and women start believing in men to be better, the shadow will reduce in intensity and the less problematic masculinity will become. Everyone has to encourage men to take off the mask and step into their power: vulnerability. In my eyes, the more vulnerable a man is able to get, the more courageous he is. Helping to facilitate this process is what I believe I was put here to do: to empower individuals to take off their masks and lead with their hearts. However, as you’ve noticed, arriving at this process was no walk in the park. Life had to shake me up like a fucking snowball before I could find any meaning. If you want to find your purpose, then you are going to need to allow life to shake you up a little bit. And that’s because you can only know yourself once you’ve investigated every dark crevice in your psyche.
SOMEWHAT HEALED
Like any mental illness, you can never really entirely heal yourself from it. Rather, you have to learn to live with it. And over time, that becomes a lot easier with the lessons you learn. Figuring out how to live with bipolar disorder, and also thrive with it, was no walk in the park. And I’m still thinking about how to improve even more. My number one tool for dealing with it is discipline. In terms of medication, I wanted to be as lowly dosed as possible in order to feel my feelings as much as I possibly could without becoming suicidal. So, I am now on a low dose of Lithium bicarbonate, which feels more like a supplement than a pharmaceutical. Since I’m on a lower dosage, I can still experience mania and depression, but it’s more manageable. This is where discipline comes in. Since my mood is so unpredictable, I have to show up every day and promise to do the things I planned on doing, regardless of how I feel. Some days are easier than others, but I fight tooth and nail to be as disciplined as possible. Again, I want to be living proof that this mental disability will not stop me from accomplishing my dreams. By doing that, I will inspire others to have the same mentality. If you are reading this and you suffer from bipolar disorder or clinical depression, you can still accomplish anything you want to. And I do mean anything. Dream big and allow yourself to believe you can do it. But you will need discipline. Learn to not give your feelings so much power. Allow yourself to tolerate and make friends with them, but do not let them get in the way of your dreams. There are weeks where I feel incredibly down and it feels like I’m pushing a boulder up a mountain, but I will still never stop. Whatever obstacles come my way, I will keep jumping over them to make my dreams come true. You can do the same, I promise.
Another big part of my healing process is wearing the bipolar badge with genuine pride. If someone asks me about the disorder, I will openly tell them. If somebody makes fun of me for being bipolar, which has happened many times, I don’t let it get to me. If you let microaggression constantly take you away from your center, you’re going to have a really hard life (catcalling and racial/homophobic comments are notable exceptions). This is rooted in the fact that once a big storm comes, you will get completely crushed. I know this because I used to let little snarky comments get in my way constantly. And the more I got frustrated by these little things, the more I shut down and got suicidal once life sent legitimately hard tests my way. The way to get out of this bad habit is by having radical ownership of who you are. If you feel ashamed of any part of you, then you cannot healthily show yourself to the real world. You will end up overcompensating and putting on a performance to hide away that insecurity. So, own who you are and don’t be afraid to speak what’s on your mind. The moment someone makes fun of you and tries to ridicule you, you will know you are doing something right. Rather than questioning who you are, own that feeling of having spoken your truth. People cannot handle the truth; it fucking scares them. So, the more truthful you are, the more people you are going to scare. Own that fear with pride. Allow yourself to access that king or queen inside of you.
