Skip to main content

The Worm and The Beast: (my experience of) bipolar disorder and (my hopes for) recovery

Autumn is here!

Good morning folks! Today I wanted to write a little something which is very relevant to my life at the moment. It might be short and sweet (because I'm drugged up to the ears on valium) but I hope you enjoy/find it interesting all the same. We begin with the illness I'll be talking about today: bipolar. I recently came up with what I believe is a pretty relevant metaphor for bipolar: it is a worm, that sits gently behind the ear in hope of weedling its way in without our knowing. Before we know it, the worm is eating away at our sense of wellness, rotting and decaying whatever it can. 

For me, currently the worm is deep within my brain, eating away at my contentment and health. I did not notice its arrival until it was too late. Bipolar is a difficult beast to manage, always in a state of persuasion, hoping you will unshackle it for the promise of creativity, activity and inspiration. It's no secret that both mania and depression can bring about some intense and productive times, but that doesn't justify unleashing the beast. It does not have good intentions. 

New meds...

What can we do about the worm? How can we hold strong against the beast's persuasion? 

We must remain resolute that bipolar is an illness; it is not integral for our identity. Of course, it's a part of us and often a lifelong struggle, but we are still separate from it. It's about building an identity and life individual to us that rings true when we are well and we will be well again. 

Dressing to the 9s always improves my mood!

The ups and downs are to be expected and we must remain vigilant against the entry of the worm: remain on medications that help, keep stressors at bay and treat ourselves with kindness and compassion. That's what I am attempting to do (while also remaining "productive" (I can't rest to save my life)) and I implore that if you too are struggling or think the worm might be wiggling its way in, reach out and remember that you are not your illness. You are (and I am) a valuable human being, and special in so many ways beside having bipolar. 

I'm sending positive vibes to anyone who might be struggling and thank you to anyone who read this out of interest. Sorry for the brevity but have a good day. Much love. 

Who else loves a good turtleneck?

Disclaimer: this is my experience of bipolar and I cannot speak for anyone else, so if you did not agree with something I wrote here, please remember that everyone's experience of mental illness is different. 

Instagram: @jumper.dweller

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not-Dinner-Party-Appropriate: anecdotes from the mental hospital

 I feel like a time traveller. I've awoken in 2021, sleeping through a pandemic and my teenage years, now in my mid-twenties. I have no dinner-party-appropriate anecdotes. Only mental ill-health with bouts of questionable wellness. I have been in four different mental hospitals, which I predict could be four more than most people. No one talks about it, including me. Like, at all.  Whenever someone talks about mental illness, there is this most impenetrable silence, followed by: 'I knew someone who was depressed once.' Or a casual, almost nonchalant change of subject. I mean, we talk about mental health a lot - how to keep it afloat, how to do 'self-care' in a commercially-assisted sense. It's all body butters and face masks.  I don't like it when people reduce preventing mental illness down to looking after yourself or not. That is a large part of it, a whole team of people looked after me at my worst. Most things cannot be made better with a face mask.  It
3 comments
Read more

Imposters: a story about a Capgras delusion

  It's cold. I'm always so cold. My hands quiver blue and wrists bloom purple, after days of bang, bang, banging my wrist on the arm of my chair. I don't think I'm okay, but I don't think I'm not okay either. I think, I think, I think I'm breaking. I am on the children's ward. I have not seen my real parents for months. Some strange people visit sometimes. I hide from them. They are not my parents. They are often nice and I begin to trust them, then they'll do something off-kilter and I shy away again, like a beaten dog.  I had climbed out of a window, bawled through the lane outside the house and taken solace at a friend's home up the road. Gently I was led back to my childhood home and bundled into the car, driven to the hospital and admitted in hopes of finding a way to avoid another inpatient admission. We couldn't find one.  I arrive at the unit, brittle. Last time I was in this position, I had a home, but now I'm adrift. My parents
2 comments
Read more

Section three - a mental hospital anecdote

  There is so much that I can't tell you about my third admission, so much I can't remember. Illness blurs the details and the privacy I owe to my friends erases the daily minutiae of the unit. In short, I had been sectioned - section three, six months. A treatment order, that in retrospect, could probably have been avoided. Or maybe that is just what I like to tell myself when I think about it late at night.  I had found myself in a field, shivering in the early evening sun. It was July, I was in love, but still very, very ill. I had been taken on four occasions to our local accident and emergency department that week. I was, as I read later in my unit-admission report, 'no longer manageable in the community'. I was sad, but determined. I was determined to make an exit any way I could. Instead I was flown to Woking, heavily sedated - so much so that I have no memory of the journey there and was deemed 'unresponsive' in my admission interview.  I digress. So man
Post a Comment
Read more