So I’m Bipolar {and I have moments OK?}

I’m bipolar. After nearly three years it’s out. It feels good, like taking your bra off at the end of the day.

 [break]

 It’s really simple, I was diagnosed in 2008 and it was kinda harsh. The meds made me feel like I’d taken rat sack and I was ever so vulnerable. These days I call that place skinless. The check out girl asks you how you are and you just want to cry. It’s like the normal barrier between you and the world is gone, skinless.

  [break]

I am lucky. Mr Ask is forgiving, patient and becomes distraught when he cannot curb my pain. Mummy Ask is a psych nurse and has always walked beside me, never over riding me on decisions about my care. A Sister like a twin. The Bestie has heard me talk more shit than most people could speak in a lifetime and managed to withhold judgement while dispensing late night advice. They travel with me. They take the days where I scratch and bite at the world along with the days where I am sunshine personified. Both can be rough to live with when everyday life and it’s responsibilities are demanding some attention too.

 [break]

I found a good GP, an excellent psychiatrist and tried a few meds before finding the right mix for me (Lithium & Seroquel).

  [break]

It turned out that working a job really didn’t work for me. I tried very hard, for a long time to keep my job going but I just couldn’t manage. And that’s where Ask Sarah began. It became my job. Retiring (so to speak) at 30 was a massive loss to my sense of self. I still don’t know what to say when people casually enquire about my field of employ in social situations. These days I may say – blogger or lady who lunches. Somehow, saying I’m bipolar and can’t work is conversation killer.

 [break]

I’m not going to detail my whole journey. With 1 in 5 people experiencing mental illness at some point in their lives, you may be pretty familiar with this stuff. I’m pretty sure some of you reading this are bipolar too. To give you some idea or reference point about my real life, I will post this lovely piece of prose, authored by Mummy Ask, along with a promise to answer any questions you have with honesty.

 [break]

A Mother Living with Mania.

[break]

In the morning when the sun is fully in the sky, I start to drink champagne.

It’s been a long time since I slept, she is fully manic again.

[break]

Sometime in the long dreadful nite she accuses me of things, ravages my short comings, curls into a ball on the carpet, and paces up and down while she tells me a story. She sings to me and makes me laugh and cry. We fight and I accuse her of not holding herself down, but she’s manic and can’t.

[break]

For someone who just couldn’t stay that last long minute, I find her suddenly sitting at my feet…we’re watching the dawn. We take particular note of the birds.

[break]

She tries for a long time to tell me in order to build a bridge; we are a long way from home now. Honesty so difficult in bipolar, the gift, the undercover guise. It’s only a way of returning. It’s how she comes back, I know.

[break]

Then I can cry for her illness and then she will tell me Mum it’s really nothing. Something’s wrong, something will always be wrong. We’ll do this the rest of our lives.

[break]

I can hardly keep staring at the sunlight hitting the carport roof. Compelling and blinding. I too am trying to come down. I am devastated and rebuilt all at once as again I come to understand.

I hear people driving off to work, taking routine care of life, busying themselves in a perfectly acceptable day. Not a life like that here.

[break]

Sister is sleeping in my bed upstairs. She stayed with us as long as she could.

There is a circle where everyone holds hands and waves them abstractedly in the air.

Then I turn to myself as I often have and cry deeply for the sheer event of our peace and love.