The Big Bad Bipolar
Finally sharing the draft I've kept to myself for months.
I lived for 26 years without a proper diagnosis. My experience is not unique, the typical age of onset is 25. I was familiar with depression, the dark void that can overtake your brain seemingly out of nowhere. My earliest memories of depressive episodes are from high school. I would come straight home from school, take a nap until dinnertime, eat dinner, and go back to sleep. There were some mornings I woke up and couldn’t fathom facing another day. Sometimes I felt worthless and like the worst person in the entire world. Sometimes I still do.
I knew I struggled with mental health but I didn’t know the diagnosis. I figured it was just depression and anxiety, as I was told when I was 16 being prescribed antidepressants for the first time.
I truly thought I was just a silly goofy gal who felt overwhelmingly sad sometimes.
I never knew, in part, because nobody talks about bipolar. The only time I’d ever heard about it was on TV and in movies, where characters acted erratically or violently during manic episodes or periods of psychosis. No individual experience with bipolar is the same, but as those with mental health struggles already know, it’s rarely like it’s portrayed in the media.
Ironically, it was a piece of media that helped me put the pieces together. In the summer of 2023, I read An Unquiet Mind by Kay Jamison. It had been on my list of books to read for months and I do not remember how it got on the list in the first place. But the hold I’d placed at the library a while ago became available so I decided to give it a read.
In the book, written before I was born, Jamison referred to it by its official name at the time: manic depressive disorder. I think the simple difference in language allowed me to look at it with less stigma than bipolar disorder. The way Jamison articulated her experience living with it deeply resonated with me.
“There is a particular kind of pain, elation, loneliness, and terror involved in this kind of madness. When you're high it's tremendous. The ideas and feelings are fast and frequent like shooting stars, and you follow them until you find better and brighter ones. Shyness goes, the right words and gestures are suddenly there, the power to captivate others a felt certainty. There are interests found in uninteresting people. Sensuality is pervasive and the desire to seduce and be seduced irresistible. Feelings of ease, intensity, power, well-being, financial omnipotence, and euphoria pervade one's marrow.
But, somewhere, this changes. The fast ideas are far too fast, and there are far too many; overwhelming confusion replaces clarity. Memory goes. Humor and absorption on friends' faces are replaced by fear and concern. Everything previously moving with the grain is now against-- you are irritable, angry, frightened, uncontrollable, and enmeshed totally in the blackest caves of the mind. You never knew those caves were there. It will never end, for madness carves its own reality.”
-Kay Jamison, An Unquiet Mind
I devoured the 227-page book in less than two days. At this point I was in the van in Australia, essentially hanging out all day and having the time of my life. There were so many times throughout the book where I stopped to think, “she’s taken the thoughts out of my own head and put them into words.”
“Which of my feelings are real? Which of the me's is me? The wild, impulsive, chaotic, energetic, and crazy one? Or the shy, withdrawn, desperate, suicidal, doomed, and tired one? Probably a bit of both, hopefully much that is neither.”
-Kay Jamison, An Unquiet Mind
In the following weeks, I found myself saying things like “I feel the coolest and hottest I have ever felt,” and beginning to write a book of stories, essays, and anecdotes I hope to publish someday. In fact, I wrote most of the New Zealand and Australia chapters during this time and edited them later.
There were other signs too. I had a moment with a work client where I was unable to hold my tongue, effectively ending my working relationship with them. I slept with strangers because, well, why not? I felt cool and hot. I put myself in situations that potentially could have been dangerous. I posted constantly on social media. And most importantly, I was on top of the fucking world.
It truly was an act of divine intervention that I happened to read that very specific book in the middle of a manic episode.
Although there’s no distinguishable start and end dates, that particular episode lasted a a few months. The depression snuck up on me, but once I was jobless in a foreign country, spending all my time alone on a farm, it hit me. And it really hit me once I was back in America, still jobless, adjusting to the culture shock, living with my parents, revisiting a breakup I’d conveniently ignored for over a year, and feeling completely lost.
A few days after I got back, I saw my psychiatrist for the first time in over a year. The intention was to get a refill on the antidepressants she’d prescribed me a year and a half earlier. I also mentioned that I’d recently noticed some manic behavior in myself. Obviously I was familiar with the depression, that’s what we were already attempting to treat, but I’d never really considered the possibility of mania as well.
She went through the bipolar screening, asking me questions about “periods of time where you were not your usual self and…” you felt more confident, slept more, slept less, had more ideas, tried risky things, had racing thoughts, felt feelings of worthlessness . . .
“Yeah, your answers align with a bipolar two diagnosis,” she said at the end of the hour long appointment. We discussed medication options and set our next check-in for a few weeks.
“I’d like to recommend a book,” she said before I left. “It’s called An Unquiet Mind.”
Whether I knew it or not, bipolar has affected my emotions and decision-making for most of my life. I try to not let it define me, but I think it’s important to consider the nuances of both the human experience and mental illness while sharing my stories. I try to show myself grace and not dwell on past mistakes, but it’s really hard. I’ve hurt a lot of people along the way and feel deep remorse for that.
But the truth is, I probably wouldn’t be writing like this without it. I probably wouldn’t have had all the wild, funny, adventurous, and challenging times I’ve had. I probably wouldn’t be able to feel the full spectrum of human emotions like I do. It’s a blessing and a curse.
I hope that by sharing my experience living with bipolar disorder it inspires you to live your fullest life regardless of the challenges that come your way. I’ve found myself sharing this essay with a few friends who are exploring their own mental health, whether that’s brand new diagnoses or simply trying to figure out how to navigate the world with such a heavy weight on our shoulders. So I figured it was time that I share this with the world with the hopes that it makes you feel a little less alone with whatever plagues your mind, too.
💛 CJK
Enjoy this newsletter? Please share with anyone you think might enjoy it too :)