This inspirational story from a local lady highlights that episodes of mental illness do not necessarily mean you will experience mental ill health for the rest of your life… for the purpose of this article, the author prefers to remain anonymous…
I had a manic depressive episode in 1985. Nowadays it’s bi-polar and gets lots of coverage and mentions as a number of celebrities also have similar experiences. I don’t know to what extent attitudes have changed towards this condition, it still wasn’t very acceptable then. My father had the tendency, as does my older brother.
How would you have known I was ill? From what I can remember, during the development period, I was aware of feeling paranoid and really high at times. I would have outbursts over fairly unimportant situations, and experience great excitement that was out of context I didn’t realise what was happening to me; it was more obvious to those outside my own head. I may have grown up around it, but it hadn’t increased my awareness of what it was like to have it myself.
When finally I gave in the state was dream-like. I spent a week in a psychiatric hospital. The centre of the mania was myself and everything else reacted around me. Colours were brighter, sounds sharper and watching television I believed they played to my instructions-quite a fascinating sensation! Once I was stabilised with drugs the steady descent into depression began. The drugs slowed me down and the sensation then was endless agitation, wherever I was I wanted to be somewhere else.
About six months after the mania I became quite deeply depressed. This went on for months, and really was most horrible. The climb out of this depression was the beginning of an uphill struggle to rebuild my life and the support from those around me was crucial.
It seems to me, that recovery is organic, rather like life! It’s been on-going. So much about how I approached life needed adjustment for fairly complex reasons, so perhaps recovery is a ‘for life process’. My family and in particular my brother with his own inside knowledge of the condition, gave me a support network that was stable and safe.
It didn’t take away though from the work I had to do for myself. The first bit was long and not that comfortable. Post mania, I was pretty self-absorbed and not so receptive to the feeling of others, therefore not easy to actively live with. I was also hugely resistant to the idea of therapy, in spite of coming from a family who had advocated and used it. I think I saw it as a failure rather than the constructive support it actually was. Eventually, I hit the bottom black line, the depression was physically painful, and suicidal thoughts shocked me enough to reach for help. I was referred by an aunt to a therapist from the then fairly new Westminster Pastoral Foundation (I lived in London by now).
I wasn’t sure what to expect from the therapist and hoped he’d magic away the discomfort I was living with. I learned though, that I was to do all the work, and he’d listen. I gave my thoughts and feelings and we looked at them together. There were long bouts of silence whilst I worked out why I was there and what I could learn from this man. He was kind, astute and helped me to turn things around. I saw him over a period of a year or so (not as much as I’d have liked, it was expensive but he’d take calls too so gave great back-up). The benefits were accumulative; I couldn’t say life suddenly was easier or I felt great. But over time he helped me to see how I reacted to life, and gave me strategies to work with in order to change things at my own pace.
I saw a psychiatrist occasionally, and went back into therapy four years on, when another major life-change was happening; it did keep me from sliding into another episode.
As a constantly anxious personality, I looked for ways to manage this. I took up meditation which I used twice daily for a couple of years and find the technique still has use today. Hypnotherapy although I’m not a great subject, was helpful for relaxing and I came away with tapes to help me switch off.
Breakdowns can leave a person very needy and vulnerable to negative experiences. Sometimes having to deal with a situation such as aggression or criticism I felt as if salt was being rubbed into a wound-there seemed to be no emotional protection. Eventually as I gained confidence this receded.
Many years on and I have not experienced another episode. It was severe at the time, but I went through many different scenarios to come out the other side. As your personality alters to deal with new realities people react differently to you, some can’t cope with it or your altered expectations. I lost and gained friends, some due to my behaviour and some because I no longer fulfilled their expectations. Above all I learned that the friends that stuck around were a life-line, and ones that required nurturing and respect-something I’m not sure I was capable of all the time.
Sometimes when things looked so bad it was words from the kind and wise that helped me the most. A couple of phrases I recall well - ‘one day at a time’- don’t look into the fearful future and when I struggled to crawl out of bed, the phrase that helped me the most was ‘This Too Will Pass’. And it did.
