SYMPTOMS AND BEHAVIOR CONTINUED

SYMPTOMS AND BEHAVIOR CONTINUED 

So from where I left off in my last blog...

I gave up smoking cannabis at 17.  I abused it that much that it just started making me paranoid and making my anxiety worse, which it does if abused I believe. I think now at this point everyone put my mood swings down to using cannabis. I was still left diagnosed due to this.
Not long after I gave up cannabis I found alcohol another bad substance for bipolar. I have struggled with this one for many years. I have only just realized what bad impact it has had on my life. I sometimes sit here and think some of the things I have done while being drunk, I am surprised I'm still here. Have you had thoughts like that?

They say with bipolar you only drink when you are manic but I disagree strongly with that. I drink when I was depressed also. I became alcohol dependent to take away my symptoms. Being drunk was the person I wanted to be fearless, confident, happy.


When I was manic it just helped me get even higher. I wanted to drink, I wanted to socialize, talk the night away to anyone that would listen. What I talked about I could never remember.
When I manic and drunk I would put myself into dangerous positions. I would go back with men i never knew for sex.
I do believe a manic episode turns you sex mad!! I didn't care with or who I just did. How I never ended up with infections, I'll never know, I never used protection.



So I ask myself how can this illness make you do these things? A lot of people without this illness will say “you're in control of your own mind so take responsibility for your reckless actions?” But can we? I'll explain what happens to me when I'm manic. I know I shouldn't. I really know I should but I can't stop myself.



Sometimes I don't even know I'm manic until a few days/months after them and think what have I done. Is this illness that powerful, that it shuts off everything we have been taught by our elders, that's wrong and we just do it??


They always write about manics, symptoms and that it's just chemical imbalances. We know right from wrong other then this manic episode times though?  I find this illness very hard to work out and maybe I just overthink things.



I’d like to know exactly what causes this don't you?? We just have to accept that it's an illness, they don't know how to cure or why it really happens.. It just has symptoms and its bipolar. Is that really good enough? To be put on medication that is so powerful and it changes your life again..

Maybe I haven't yet got used to the fact I'm bipolar or actually believe they are right. That's why I question all this. But I suppose most of you went through similar things, even if you knew the diagnosis changes your life. You are now labelled, but i'll come back to that word label...

The relationship is another big one, I have had so many of them also. People just couldn't put up with me, my drinking, my starting things and not completing them.. My moods, they never understood me. All thought I was mental, they were right. I just went from relationship to relationship getting heartbroken. Every Time thus leading back to depression episodes, but it was put down to relationship breakdown not the fact I couldn't deal with change.

I also can't deal with being abandoned that's been a trigger for my episodes. That's why I think I got depressed after relationship breakdowns, even if I didn't really want them they just left me..


At the age of 20 I started self harming, the depression episodes were getting worse. The Manics, I was doing more reckless things, now I was taking drugs when drunk. My whole life was just a mess and something need to save me, But what? I was still getting diagnosed s.a.d and acute anxiety. Antidepressants for 6 weeks, back to not taking them.
I carried on this life for 4 years. Then I met my partner of 7 years still until now... I got pregnant. I had a little girl,  pregnancy saved me. I stopped drinking and drugs.

My daughter is now 4. I felt my best and more stable than I ever really did being pregnant. After I had her, I fell back into depression and terrible anxiety. I wouldn't let people have her, I wouldn't leave the house. That black cloud came back.

Postnatal depression, they said, back on antidepressants. I went back to the drinking, but my manic weren't as bad I was a mum. I started gambling instead of going out like before. I’d gamble any spare money we had. Sometimes even more.

 I went manic in this time and wanted another baby. I got caught in the first month. The same happened fine during pregnancy I had my first son, crashed after, back on antidepressants.


I split with my partner when my son was 8 months due to the gambling, drinking and moods.
I came of the antidepressants in this time.  Me and my partner got back together, but lived apart for a while I got pregnant again. This time with twins. I had two boys 10 months ago. It all happened again. Postnatal depression. Antidepressants and drinking. .My partner and me at each other all the time, he leaves and keeps coming back..

I finally went to the doctors and explained everything, I actually did an online test for bipolar I came back 80 percent chance. That's how I got diagnosed.


I look back and think of all the projects I wanted to do. I never achieve any of it. ~I wanted to be a chef, a singer, a lawyer, a mp, I have applied to college countless times.
I have written poems, then never do anything with them, I wanted to get married, planed it all never did it, it does make me laugh, but it’s all part of bipolar eh? The list is just endless.

My next blog, I will start writing about medication, everyday life.  Bipolar being a mum and labels. This was just a run down of how I got here today with this illness.  More insight to my life.

Thanks for reading guys :)