As the end of this year has come to a close I feel like I should write something profound about what I have learned and blah blah blah. I don’t think I’m going to do that. I’m not sorry to see this year go. I’m not sorry when I say that I’ve been selfish this year. It’s come at the expense of certain friendships but if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve had to focus on myself and my family’s well being so be it.
I nearly lost my father last spring due to mental illness. Mental illness is something that there is no way to avoid in my immediate and extended family. From my grandparents on back it has been an uphill battle as old as time. There are some things that you can’t unsee and the sight of my dad surrounded by paramedics and police officers and they carted him down our stairs after he took a handful of pills is not something that I can soon forget.
I wasn’t able to visit him when he was in the ICU because I was fighting a wicked flu and couldn’t risk anyone’s infection, and laying here in my bed not always knowing what was happening nearly undid me. Although I am not close to him, I know all too well the long hours of laying there thinking about what you did and how close you came to ending your life. You battle between relief and frustration that it didn’t work.
I’ve been under the care of my own psychiatrist since 2007. I’ve been handed any number of various pills that are supposed to stabilize me. The wait as the drugs work through your system until they get to the point that they hopefully actually do some good is agonizing. Getting up and out of bed is a huge hurdle to tackle. I’ve gone through periods of time that they actually seem to work but this year was not that case. You would think what had happened to my dad would be a wakeup call for me. Sadly it set of a chain reaction and my symptoms got worse. Much worse. It was very shortly afterward that I had symptoms that were unlike anything I had experienced. It was then that my psychiatrist gave me the label that I have been struggling with for months. I was and am now bipolar. Somehow after I got the diagnosis of depression way back when I was sixteen I could somehow deal with it. Lots of people were depressed. It could go away over time. I wouldn’t always have to be on medicine. I could conquer this. Somehow. But the big B word was too much for me. This wasn’t going to go away. The pills that I take every morning and every night weren’t going to go away. I was in this for life. I get sort of obsessed with things and I have to research them ad nauseum. So I downloaded book after book on my kindle and dove straight in. I was in for a wake up call. Were they writing about my life? It certainly seemed that way. What I learned is that I’m textbook. I flatter myself that I’m some sort of unique person but reading page after page, I learned that no, in fact I am like thousands of others.
2010 was so good for me. I had busted my ass in school and I was in control. How had it come down to this? I guess when I really think about it I am sort of ashamed at how much of the year I spent feeling bad for myself. A hospital stay, weeks of outpatient therapy, and days spent staring at my ceiling later, I’m allowing myself a fresh start for the new year. In 10 days time I will be back to school, back to having a schedule instead of spending my days in pajamas, and back to being in control. Come midterm I’ll probably be pulling my hair out wondering how I’m going to juggle everything. But that’s OK. I will welcome the insanity because I know I can make it through.
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