Finding the Beauty in Being Bipolar II

Another tragic and high profile suicide happened today – Chris Cornell, the former Soundgarden front man, strangled himself in his hotel room mere hours after posting on social media. While I cannot pretend to know what led to this suicide, one thing I can predict is the momentary uptick in the national conversation about mental illness and the expressions of shock over how something like this could have happened. Suicide is absolutely traumatic and tragic. That is beyond debate. But, is suicide really still shocking? Given the current stigma attached to mental illness and the judgment our society heaps on people seeking mental health treatment, it should not be entirely surprising that we lose people we love to suicide. Furthermore, our own attitudes about suicide speak of our ignorance when it comes to what is going on behind closed doors when someone ultimately chooses to take his or her own life.

Many people regard suicides as an “unnatural” form of death and condemn the victim of the suicide for being “selfish.” But, if you can’t imagine how suicide can be a natural death, then you may not apprehend the depth of pain and suffering a person on the cusp of suicide can experience. And, if you can’t appreciate how intensely badly a person must feel in order to be driven to choose bringing about his or her own demise over a chance at life, then you maybe shouldn’t have an opinion about the nature of suicide and, specifically, whether it is “unnatural” and “selfish” or not. Furthermore, someone who kills himself is not unquestionably “selfish.” Suicide is oftentimes about as selfish as running from a burning building to save your own life. Except with suicide, the burning building is your brain and what is being burned alive is your soul. Who wouldn’t want to escape that? It’s a self-preservation mechanism that is used in situations when life is worse than death, when life is literally killing you.

I am touchy about and have opinions regarding suicide because I know too many people who have killed themselves and because I have seen the way these individuals were judged after they were gone. I also have grappled with my own beast of a mental illness that has, on countless occasions, induced in me my own suicidal ideations. And while I don’t endorse it or wish it upon anyone, I get how suicide can seem like the only option. I get why people do it. And I would never consider it an unnatural or selfish form of death. When you feel so hopelessly fucked up to the point you are suicidal, following through with wanting to die is more natural than continuing to fight. Suicide is about wanting to no longer be in the pain. And, if you find suicide appalling, then it’s about a degree of pain that you clearly cannot fathom or have not experienced. And, if you have not experienced the kind of pain that precipitates suicidal thoughts or actions, please simply consider yourself fortunate rather than qualified to have an opinion on the ethics of suicide.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that bit out, I am going to come down from my soapbox and endeavor to write a normal blog post – a blog post dedicated to talking about mental illness. Even though a high-profile suicide happened just today, I actually have been trying to write this blog post about mental illness for almost two weeks now. I’ve wanted to write about mental illness because May is national mental health awareness month and one way to raise awareness around mental illness is by being forthcoming about your own struggles with mental illness, i.e., not keeping a mental health diagnosis a dirty little secret. Because I feel capable of speaking out about my mental health history, I feel somewhat responsible to do so. But, for about a billion reasons, it’s been incredibly challenging to write a blog post about my own experiences with mental illness.

As an initial matter, I very much wish we had a different way of speaking about mental health and perhaps we do and I just don’t know about it. Using the term “illness” tends to stigmatize those of us who have brain chemistries that fall outside of the bell shaped curve. Furthermore, although technically I have a “mental illness,” in reality, this “illness” plays out as both a handicap and a superpower. So, the term “illness” is incomplete. Nevertheless, because I don’t know how not to use the term “mental illness” when discussing mental health issues, I will use the term “mental illness” throughout this blog post.

As for my specific mental illness, when I was about 27 years old, I was diagnosed with a “mood disorder” called “bipolar II.” The terms “mood disorder,” “bipolar,” and “bipolar II” sound scary to many people. They elicit knee-jerk reactions based in fear and judgment. At least they did for me. I felt like a ginormous freak when I was first diagnosed. The shame was overwhelming and suffocating. Who the fuck is bipolar II? Crazy motherfuckers who no one wants to be around – that’s who. Scary, dangerous, unpredictable, erratic, suspicious, unstable crazy people who are a threat to others – those are the kinds of people who are diagnosed as bipolar II. I wanted to die at the thought of being branded with the scarlet BP II label and, in all honesty, suicide was something I carried around in my back pocket at that time in my life as a secret way out in case things got too grim, anyway.

If I wasn’t so incredibly desperate at the time of my diagnosis and if I hadn’t been in such a dark depression, receiving the diagnosis of bipolar II would have been far worse than anything else I could imagine. But, I was intimately acquainted with depression at that time in my life. In fact, if I could’ve gotten out of bed and stopped crying, I would have been the walking, talking poster-child for depression. Because I was in such a depressed and anxious state in my late twenties, I was brought to my knees in such a way that I was actually open to accepting that I suffered from a “mental illness” called bipolar II. Well, I partly accepted it. Mostly, I begrudgingly took medication because I was desperate for relief and I did everything in my power to keep my diagnosis as my own huge and terrifying and shameful secret.

But, so what exactly is this “mood disorder” called “bipolar II?” First of all, while a mood disorder sounds pretty freakish, mood disorders are actually fairly common. Depression is a mood disorder, as is bipolar. The Mayo Clinic defines mood disorders by simply stating that, “if you have a mood disorder, your general emotional state or mood is distorted or inconsistent with your circumstances.” It basically means that there is an incongruence between how you feel and what is going on in your life. Next, you might be wondering what a “bipolar” mood disorder is. Well, to start, there are two kinds of mood disorders – unipolar disorders and bipolar disorders. Unipolar disorders are those where the underlying chemical imbalance manifests in producing only one altered mood state – the depressive state. The various kinds of depression constitute unipolar mood disorders. With bipolar mood disorders, the underlying chemical imbalance creates two mood states – a depressive state and an elevated state.

Just like there are two general kinds of mood disorders (unipolar and bipolar), there are two kinds of bipolar mood disorders: bipolar I and bipolar II. I am bipolar II, but in the interest of being thorough, I will, in broad strokes, first discuss what bipolar I is. Bipolar I is what most people think of when they hear the term “bipolar.” Bipolar I has also been referred to as “manic depression.” People with bipolar I have alternating “manic” and “depressive” episodes. Mania is an elevated mood state characterized by a feeling of euphoria and superhuman-ness. From what I have read, manias can be downright intoxicating and mind-blowingly amazing. During a manic episode, a person with bipolar I may break from reality or experience a “psychosis,” which is where the person’s perceptions of reality do not correlate with most everyone else’s perceptions of reality at a specific time.

In my opinion, although it is my favorite mental illness, Bipolar II is not nearly as sexy as bipolar I. We never break from reality or experience psychosis. We don’t get the intensely blissful “manic” episodes, either. People with bipolar II will get an elevated mood, yes, but at least for me, it is pretty different from what I have read about the altered state of mania. Instead of getting “manic,” those with bipolar II will experience an elevated mood that is referred to as a “hypomania.” Hypomania is not really much to write home about. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my experience with hypomania is, more than anything, unpleasant. And it’s unpleasant for three main reasons.

First, unlike mania, hypomania does not involve feeling euphoric. For me, when I am in a hypomania, I merely feel a little funnier and wittier than normal, I have a harder time focusing, I am more creative and capable of coming up with good ideas in a shorter amount of time, I am a bit more lively and I have more energy, and I get insomnia. But, even if they were to see me in a hypomania, most people in my life would not necessarily recognize that I was in a hypomania. I register my hypomania because I am finely tuned into my moods. But, to the outside observer, my hypomanias just look like I’m having a really, really good day.

In addition to the fact that they’re just not that exciting, the second reason why hypomanias are unpleasant is because bipolar II’s don’t break from reality. I am acutely aware that I am hypomanic when I am experiencing a hypomania, which means that I am acutely aware of the fact that I’m operating on a different wavelength than the people around me, even if this difference is subtle. Because I am aware of both the reality around me and the reality of my mildly incongruent mood state, I become anxious. I don’t want to be on a slightly sped up wavelength. It is very unsettling.

The third reason hypomanias are unpleasant is the fact that a hypomania does not stand alone. No, a hypomania always comes with strings attached and those strings take the form of a major depressive episode. After I experience a hypomania, I become very, very sad. Life is dark. I am hyperaware that everything and everyone I love will eventually be ripped away from me and this ripping will likely happen very soon from a freak accident or something. I feel utterly alone. I am ashamed of and hate myself for being so sad. I know that if I try to engage in mundane, everyday tasks, something bad will happen and I will die. I shake from anxiety and my hands tremble when I’m in public. And I know, I just know that everyone knows. Everyone knows how fucking depressed and fucked up and anxious and crazy I am. Underneath all of these thoughts and feelings, there is another dark layer of serious and impending doom. I know that the world will soon end, we will all die, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, beyond slow and painful death. As you can see, any fun attached to a hypomanic episode is more than nullified by the awareness that a horrible depression is always lurking right around the corner.

But, for the most part, I am one of the lucky ones. My bipolar II is seasonal. This means that I usually experience just one hypomania a year – every fall when the length of sunlight during the day shortens. This hypomania lasts a few days and is followed by a crippling major depressive episode that can last much longer – usually a few months. But, one might assume that I can white knuckle it through the major mood peaks and valleys, and then have a remaining 9 months of the year when my life is good, right? Wrong. Even though I usually only have one major depressive episode a year, I deal with bouts of grating low-level depression all year. In fact, most of us with bipolar II deal far, far more frequently with depression than we do with hypomania or non-depressive states. Because of its high rate of depression and the fact that bipolar II does not induce full blown euphoric mania, mental health professionals pretty much universally agree that bipolar II’s have a way worse quality of life than bipolar I’s and one of the worst quality of lives associated with any mental illness. Yay!

I take medication. If you are not comfortable with the idea of a person taking medication, I get that. I was once incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of taking psychotropic medication. But while I understand how the idea of meds can be uncomfortable, I do challenge you to examine your beliefs around psychotropic medications. I liken my meds to vitamins for my brain. On my own, my brain does not produce a livable, doable mixture of brain chemicals and substances. I need supplements that can encourage my brain to produce more of certain neurotransmitters and less of others. The meds I take were actually first created for epilepsy patients – they suppress seizures. As it turns out, though, the same medications that work to treat epilepsy also work to prevent in me a cycling of mood states. Even though I really cycle mood states only once a year in the fall and my cycling lasts for a limited period of time, given my chronic low-level depression, I need to treat my bipolar II year round. And I do this in part by taking medication year round – both a mood stabilizer and an anti-depressant or two.

Meds don’t alter my personality or make me emotionless. Quite the opposite, meds make it okay to feel emotions, because I know I won’t die from them or be tempted to consider suicide as my ultimate failsafe option. Meds have helped me to not be handicapped by my mental health circumstances. And I still have plenty of personality and emotions to go around. Meds are simply my ticket to having a chance to be a human, rather than be reduced to a puddle who is constantly wishing she would just not wake up or who fantasizes about driving into oncoming traffic. Meds work to help level the playing field for me.

What I most want people to know is that meds aren’t some sort of magic bullet. Meds give me a chance at being happy, but they certainly don’t ensure my happiness. My happiness is up to me and it’s a full time job. Every single day I have to be acutely aware of my diet, my sleep schedule, and my activities. I have to exercise at least 30 – 60 minutes daily in order to stave off depressive moods. I can’t have erratic sleep patterns or get anything less than 8 hours of sleep a night. I cannot take on too much work or allow my stress to escalate above certain levels. I have to eat a certain balance of protein, vegetables, and carbs, and I have to drink enough water each day. I have to seek balance constantly, which means I have to measure my day out into chunks of work, relaxation, recreation, leisure, socializing, etc. In other words, every single aspect of my life has to be on purpose – deliberate and regimented.

I work really hard to be happy and to have the will to live in the face of my brain chemistry. For this reason, I can’t watch sad movies or listen to sad music very often. I experience deep, deep sadness and overwhelming emotions in the absence of external stimulation. I don’t need to induce a state of artificial sadness in myself by watching or listening to something that will make me sad. I cherish my happiness like you wouldn’t believe, too. I guard my happiness and upbeat attitude, which I am fortunate to have most days, with my life.

But, while being bipolar II is certainly challenging, it is not entirely bad. There are some surprising advantages to being bipolar II. And one reason I think we still have a stigma attached to mental illness is because we never really talk about the benefits that accompany having a different kind of brain chemistry. Failing to talk about the benefits of being bipolar II seems like such a shame to me, because being bipolar II, in many cases, also means being tremendously gifted.

The undeniable truth about bipolar II’s is that we are pretty hilarious, creative, and usually highly intelligent people (clearly, we’re also super humble). We tend to be innovators and out of the box thinkers. Sure, we may start crying at the drop of a hat and have to call in sick to work the next day, but we are pretty damn magical. A lot of the greatest comedians are bipolar II. Many great artists and musicians and literary giants are or were bipolar II. And we bipolar II’s see and experience a broader scope of life and depth of emotion than many other people who do not struggle with navigating the extremes that we do.

Frankly, if given the chance to exchange my bipolar II brain chemistry for a more balanced and “non-mentally ill” brain chemistry, you couldn’t pay me enough to take it. Being bipolar II is a big part of who I am and my unique brain formulation enables me to exercise gifts and talents I would not give up for the world. Yes, life sucks to an unspeakable degree sometimes. But, I am fortunate to be able to say today that I would rather be handicapped by feeling things too extremely and struggling with depression than be anything other than who I am.

It has taken me over a decade to get comfortable with being bipolar II and I’m still not entirely comfortable with it. There is still a huge stigma associated with mental illness in our society. In fact, the stigma attached to mental illness is so strong that even I buy into it and I have a freckin’ mental illness. But, while of course there are some mentally ill people who do fit the mentally ill stereotype, the overwhelming majority of us do not fit the stereotype of being scary and dangerous people. I will be the first to admit that I have many bad qualities – I can be irresponsible, I hate opening my mail, I procrastinate, sometimes I am totally forgetful, I love being a hermit and avoiding people, which makes people upset because I blow off social engagements, etc., etc. Despite the fact that the “bad qualities of Julie” list could go on forever, I can say with 100% confidence that “scary” and “dangerous” are not among the ranks of my shortcomings.

Lastly, I believe very strongly that we can and will eventually change the way we think and talk about mental illness. It’s not a bad, shameful, dirty thing. It’s a mixed bag filled with advantages and disadvantages, struggles and gifts. By acknowledging both how hard and how magical different brain chemistries can be, perhaps we can adopt a new perspective and depth of understanding around mental illness. A perspective in which we see people not as mentally ill, but just as people -who are both incredibly similar to and different from us. It is my hope that in some very, very small way, being open about my mental health issues during my lifetime will help contribute to this change in perspective. As always, thank you so much for reading. <3