You Are Not Alone

I have a lifetime of struggling with the mental disorder, bipolar.  It wasn’t much of a shock to me when I was first diagnosed with the condition about ten years ago.  I remember I was incarcerated for distributing narcotics or either a probation violation from the distributing narcotics charge.  I was young and had so much going on that I never thought that I had a mental disorder and refused to take it seriously.  I was normal, to the people around me, I was normal, to my friends, I was normal.  They have known me to be like this all my life.  I, had learned to accept the way I was and if anyone didn’t like it, then it was their problem.   In my social circle, I was crazy fun and overly excited all the time.  Which may be true when I am around people, however, when alone or it’s quiet, my thoughts could sometimes take over.   My thoughts could change my moods in extreme measures and give me anxiety that will almost feel as if I was having panic attacks.

     I had never taken the time to educate myself about the disorder nor have I taken the steps to try to to live better and make better decisions during my episodes.   Recently, I went to see my family physician and expressed to him the issues that I was having.  Irritability, bad financial management, binge drinking regularly, impatience, attitude and unusual screaming at people.  I was going days without sleep and some weeks I would only sleep.  I was having a hard time organizing, keeping up with responsibilities, spending a lot of time alone and shutting people out of my life.

     No one wanted to be around me and I wanted to change that.  I didn’t want to lose my job, friends or family and I felt that I was on my way to do that.  Some would suggest that I shut down.  I didn’t want to do anything and felt as if my life was pointless and I wasn’t doing anything to change that.  I would be extremely hard to get out of bed, take a shower, or answer the phone.  I would also feel as though the world was full of opportunity and that I was famous and everyone loved me.  I was extremely motivated to do everything and anything that I could think of.  I wouldn’t sleep for days and when I did it would only be for a couple of hours.  My body would not even be tired.  I couldn’t slow down.  I would even talk extremely fast and not notice the change in my moods.  I would go from one extreme to the next and lose focus or be too focused at any time.

This started to affect my social, family and work life.  Living through past struggles and losing many opportunities in the past, I didn’t want to make the same mistakes and lose everything that I have worked for.

For those very reasons, I decided to write this blog.  I want others, living with this disorder, have someone they could relate too.  I wanted to give to the community suggestions that I have tried and an understanding of the outcome of decisions that I have made when manic.  I struggle with many phases of my life and I want to share them with others and solutions that could help me with my struggles.  I hope that we can share ideas and that you get the most out of my blog.  My goal is to help others to live with this disorder, mainly financially.