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My story so far...

I have been diagnosed as having Bipolar Affective Disorder. most people know it as manic depression, thats the old name for it apparantly, but the shrinks like to rename things to make it sound fancy i guess.

I wanted to add a section for bipolar into pinkwings because its a big part of my life, a lot of the time its misunderstood, wrongly labelled or avoided. if you've got this far through the pinkwings site, im sure by now you can see im not a freak or a complete loony, right?!
Im not, but i have my moments :)

So i suppose this is where i put a short biography of my and my mind - as thats what this section is called, and i owe you that for reading this far.

At around 9 years old i started having brief psychotic episodes. i became obsessed with death, getting old and the nothingness that dying would bring. my brain would slip into some sort of 'mode' where everything would be blinded by the terror of nothingness.
i used to spend hours in this mode, trying to figure out what it would be like to see nothing forever. 'what does nothing look like daddy?' ... the thoughts escalated more and more until i drove myself round the twist and i was terrified of everything. i remember trying to physically picture what the whole universe looked like in my brain. 'what does infinate look like daddy?' 'how big is forever? can i see it?'
needless to say when you are 9 years old and having these absorbing thoughts and literally disappearing into your own mind, its odd to say the least, but, none the less; it was normal to me.
My dad has handfulls of letters that i wrote to him from this time, all about death & nothingness.
I guess they should have known that something was amiss when this started happening, i mean i was only 10.
i suppose they thought it was jut a phase or something, and who can blame them? i mean, kids do strange things right?
Anyway, by the time i hit 14 im having regular psychotic episodes & awful disassociation periods. i have also been treated twice already for severe depression at the local hospital, they put me on anti-depressants. 20mg, 40mg, 60mg, 80? not helping? more. more. more.
Anorexia takes over my life at this point. I spend more time at home in bed, crying, screaming, cutting myself, wanting to die. my head is hell, i hate waking up.
surprisingly, i manage to pull it together enough to leave school with some brilliant exam grades, i also become a very good liar. i lie my way out of medicine, therapy & shrinks. i leave home at 16 & i go wild.
funnily enough, i quit the anti-depressants & start drinking excessively - alcohol is great for people like me, it gets you out of your head so you dont have to deal with the problems. it stops your brain hurting you even more.
I screw up at college & leave, so i drink even more.
I am an alcoholic.
Back to the therapy room i go, im clean, im ok, im back on my medicines. im fine mom, honest.
'liar, liar, pants on fire!'
The hospital made the grave mistake of giving me a prescription for a central nervous system depressant to help me sleep - Limovan.
'Limovan is perfectly safe, it's non addictive - you'll be fine'.
within 6 weeks im hooked. im buying the stuff in bulk off the internet because the doctors dont give me enough. i need MORE.
I was taking so much of the stuff i was knocking myself into a light coma.
Somewhere in this period i become pregnant.
I was thrown a safety line by god (?), whoever - im glad they threw it otherwise im sure id be dead.
Ben came along, i cleaned up. for a while.
I put on weight, i thought id gotten rid of anorexia. i was taking my medicines like a good girl, i got a job & went back to college. i was behaving normally for once.
I suddenly decide it would be a good idea to become a glamour model. so i did.
re-enter anorexia & bring along bulimia with you this time! here comes the alcohol, the sex, and the drugs - join the party!
I partially clean up after i get kicked out of my house & nearly loose everything - including my son.
I dont really remember what happened then, its a blur. I know things didn't get any worse financially, maybe mentally they did but i didnt punish myself as much.
I decided that i did have a problem and i did need help, so i researched my ass off. I wanted to know what could be wrong, why i felt so bad & crazed all the time.
I managed to find myself a really, really good psychiatrist & doctor; and after 11 years of self punishment & instability they managed to give me a diagnosis and a battalion of medicine that helps, after 2 years of poking, prodding and questioning me.

Its taken 11 years of psychiatric treatment for professionals & myself to realise my brain chemistry is not okay.
in that 11 years i could have done so much with my life, but i was too sick & intent on suicide that i didnt see it - i thought that was the way life was.

There is no happy ending, i doubt there ever is with mental disorders.
Im here, i am alive (still). i have lost many braincells & intelligence due to years of psychotropic drugs, but i can still write.
i have problems with eating disorders, anxiety attacks, and i still cut myself occasionally.
I know i cant touch alcohol or else i will start another downward spiral of self destruction, and i still get depressed - who doesnt?
The thing thats changed is i got older. my therapy has taught me a few critical ways in which i can stop self destruction before it starts. Im still attending Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, and probably will for a while yet.
the right medication helped things along too, im on a combination of anti-depressants, anti-psychotics & mood stabilizers. i have blood tests every 6 weeks to monitor the levels of drugs in my blood to make sure they aren't killing my liver.

Thats it really. thats my biography - or 'hanging out my dirty laundry'. whatever you choose to call it.
things are never going to be 'okay' for me, they can only ever be 'managed'. that is something i still have to learn to understand.

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