I went on the meds initially to cope with becoming a step mom to two challenging kids, fully intending to get off them after a period of time, which ended up being 19 years. Over time they make you very sick, physically, and of course in mind and spirit. What the psych meds did was erase my ability to access my memory, and separate me from my soul.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An 'art' which is not practiced, just natural. I knew something was 'not right' (now defined as simply, "different") in my head, so I learned to keep to myself as much as I could. Not as easy when manic, but first nature otherwise.
It's often seen as being snobbish, but on the contrary it's felt as the overwhelming compulsion to get away. To hide. Predominantly driven by fear. I had panic attacks - my heart raced mad, but they didn't have nomer for it then. It wasn't in the lexicon. That recent bipolar child study, (amazing they have such things now) where the kids 'misinterpret' neutral faces as being hostile. I felt that so extremely as a child, but was quite alone with it back then.
By 7 or 8, it was obvious the earth was being slowly destroyed by man. So no matter how sweet a face was, all us people were a threat. I literally was afraid to be human. To live in abject fear of people, of being a person, of going to school, facing a walk on the street, the simplest of errands...everything was a huge struggle to get through. Agony at the desecration of the earth, never mind deciding what you wanted to be when you grew up. What was the point? If the mushroom cloud blew, it would be gone. It was literally painful to look people in the eye. They had the capability I had - to look one in the eye and see (too) deeply inside them. In a superficial world that didn't fit. Too much information. With this ability I thought everyone else also had, they'd find out i was manic depressive (md) which I had been instructed by what was 'help' back then, had to be kept a secret.
I started to believe I was an alien by ten.
I was diagnosed at 17 in the late seventies and they're still a long way from home now, but they were abysmal then. This was not so long after lobotomies as a standard treatment. Lifelong forced psychiatric (like penal) hospital stays. Institutionalization. Lobotomy by medication. At 17 I was tiny, 90 something lbs. and they rx'd 900 mg. of lithium which immediately made me extremely ill. I only took it in the hospital, along with all the lovely antipsychotics at similarly extreme doses. The month went by gone. I feared hospitals this stubborn one would never be back and it's been over 30 years. None of the doctors could 'help' me. They didn't even treat the depression. Now I hear of a local ivy league ho$pital is a good place if you have to go. My mind is changing about things, softening, and I can look people in the eye once I get to know them.
Nobody knew about childhood mental illnesses back then.
The experience of Memory is largely emotional, which of course changes everything. The very core of your essence is your cognition, your experience of who you are. One thing that puzzles me is how celebrities can be such a thing - one who celebrates oneself. That one would actually like their being was a foreign concept to me - I absolutely hated being myself. Sort of like allergy to yourself. Dealings with people I was obviously 'not right'. All the time, embarrassed. My face flushing, heart racing, always waiting for a time to be alone. Because of the pain. The voices in my head putting me down constantly. It was always there, the ball and chain. When it's around your neck it cuts off the circulation to the brain. I slept for endless years, losing 10 years by 30.
Then tricyclic antidepressants came along. Wow was that a change. I could start to see the sun behind all the black clouds angrily swirling around everywhere, with people just oblivious. It took years to heal. I still live a life imprinted mostly solitary. But that was temporary.
I hope any other kids diagnosed with bipolar can successfully avoid the struggles kids like me had with drugs and alcohol, with no known therapy or psychiatric drug help that actually helps. They shouldn't have to suffer. Bp can be managed. Sure shit happens and can be out of your hands. Yet symptoms can be ameliorated, creatively. Whatever works for the individual.
For me, yoga and exercise, cats, garden, a powerful will to live, a beautiful area. True peace to be found. The true solitude in the pines I always craved. A long road healing. Gratitude. A growing desire to share knowledge.
