The first time I was diagnosed with
Bipolar Disorder, or manic depression, or whatever it is they’ll decide to call
it next year I experienced many of the stages of grief that’d you’d normally
associate with learning of your impending death. Though the first time I was
diagnosed I was going through the depression that often follows a major manic
episode, and so I was desperate. Being desperate meant that I accepted it.
However that original acceptance didn’t last long, and my first diagnosis, and
initial acceptance, was beginning of a long list of diagnoses and the stages of
grief that followed suit. Though it might be difficult for some to understand
the impact of that diagnosis, of what feels like a permanent branding is; I
hope to share my experience with the different stages in the hope of helping
those currently experiencing them, and those friends and family exposed to
them.
Stages of Grieving in Mental illness
- Acceptance-Maybe a bit counter intuitively acceptance was the first stage of grief that I hit. The weeks leading up to my diagnosis had been extreme. I went days without sleeping, I spent every last dollar until my account went negative, and I just couldn’t stop; I couldn’t stop going forward. I was social, and confident, I felt like nothing could touch me, and honestly it felt amazing. Some people thought I was using cocaine, but generally people seemed to like me more. I was invited to more parties, more events, and I seemed to be at the center of everything.
When it
stopped the world came crashing down around me. It took everything in me not to
kill myself; I mixed alcohol and NyQuil hoping I could stop thinking all the
terrible things I was thinking. This led to my first suicide attempt, which
even now I instinctively want to argue was an attempt to get to sleep. I
stopped going to class, stopped taking care of myself, and just generally
stopped... The sudden shift in my behavior increased the perception from
acquaintances that I was abusing some drug, but those who knew me more intimately
knew better, and encouraged me to get help. It was something that I hadn’t
considered in a long time; in high school I had seen school counselors, but
never anything formal, not because nothing was wrong with me, but that by that
time everyone I knew had gotten used to the way I was. When my first
psychiatrist started reading off the list of symptoms I felt like I’d been
blind. She read my entire personality from off a website, and part me resented
being so easily put into a box. I was so desperate to feel better though, for
it all to stop hurting so much, that I accepted I was sick for the first time.
- Bargaining- Even after I accepted I was ill I spent a great deal of time bargaining. I asked a higher power to take it away, to make it so that I was normal. At my lowest points I would spend nights crying in my dorm room, admitting defeat and ready to offer anything in exchange for being struck dead, so that I wouldn’t have the guilt associated with suicide. I bargained with my doctor over prescriptions that I found debilitating, “If I show improvement by next week can I take less?” I asked my girlfriend to hang in there for just a bit longer, assuring her that I would have it all under control soon. I even bargained with my body, asking “Let today be predictable, let me feel good enough to be able to make it to class, or be granted mania for a party.(Treating mania like a sought after drug)
- Depression/Anger-Depending on where I was at the moment these could easily be the same emotion. I was angry with everyone and anyone. I blamed my family for childhood trauma, my doctor for the medication, and just about anyone else. At the end of the day though, when I was left alone I was most angry at myself. I was angry at how pathetic I thought I was. Angry with myself for not being able to change. All of these things encouraged my depression. For manic depressive, who’s facing what one might call “legitimate environmentally induced depression,” and by this I mean something anyone would be depressed about, it can feel catastrophic. It can let you sink so deep you don’t think you’ll ever come out. Though the medical field has come to accept it currently, at the time, no one knew that depression hurt! Hopelessness and despair aren’t just emotional, they can very physical. But together my anger and my depression pushed me deeper and deeper towards the extremes of my illness. My anger fueled my mania, my self hatred, and my depression. I wallowed in them, and felt that there wasn’t any way out.
Coming to Grips with Reality
I wish that this part was easy, or
at least easily explainable, but it isn’t. I heard recently that smart people
learn from their own mistakes, and that wise people are able to learn from the
mistakes of others. I had no wisdom when it came to my disease, and I wasn’t
really all that smart. I made the same mistakes over and over again, and passed
through all of those stages thousands of times.
My final “real,” and by that I mean
most significant acceptance happened with my therapist. For years I had denied
the effectiveness of the “talking cure,” but having found the right therapist
it started to have a very serious effect; maybe part of that was having learned
enough to be open to real therapy. I was in the middle of my then usual spiel
about being broken, not being good at life, and ultimately destined for death
and failure when she brought up trying meds again. So again having been going
through this, for almost a decade at that point, I had a prepared statement. I
started to explain how taking meds would be admitting that I was broken, that I
was diseased and not just different. She was someone that I respected and she
waited for me to fully insert my foot into my mouth when she responded. She
said that that although she didn’t usually share personal information with her
clients, she wanted me to know that she had epilepsy. That is all it took.
Though I’d gone through this a thousand times with a hundred people it hit me
like a sledge hammer. I was sick. I wouldn’t tell an epileptic not to take
their meds, and by then I had more than enough evidence to prove to myself
something was wrong with me.
How much evidence is enough? I was
cutting myself. I was praying for death. When I was manic I could barely
control myself. I would empty my account over and over again. I would take the
house apart; suddenly obsess over tiny things (i.e. cleaning the refrigerator
with a tooth brush for 10 hours). And honestly those weren’t the worse things.
I had episodes of intense delusions, some public nudity that seemed funny at
the time, and is still funny, but a lot sadder in hindsight. However, all that
evidence had been available for years before I was ready to accept that I was
sick, that I wasn’t just “different.” When I did accept it, my life changed.
I began to fight myself every day. I took my medications, saw my therapist,
tried new therapies, slept regularly and believed that like an epileptic, I had
hope at a good life despite my disease. I fought my way through Law school at
Cornell, and I’ve been coming out on top in that fight against myself most
days. I can’t say that the fight disappears, that hasn’t been my experience,
but it’s something that can become manageable. I sincerely believe that those
who feel deeply live deeply and that I’ve been left a better person through
dealing with this disease.
