Referral

Hail,
Bene sent me the address of a blog to look at - 'tis here. It's a woman writing about her experiences with bipolar - the medications, the highs and lows, the whole thing. A lot more open about some of it than I am now. Give it a look.

If you do want to know about the experience, at the moment you'd be better off asking her than me. I am so bloody sick of it I can't express it, sick of talking about it and hearing about it and writing about it and reading about it and utterly, overwhelmingly, eminently, mightily, vastly, probably transcendently sick of having it.

The last six months or so - depending where I want to draw the line I can say this episode started three months ago, when I was hospitalised the first time, or six months ago, when I started to withdraw at work, eat my lunch in my office, not talking to people, maybe two years ago, just before my unsuccessful attempt at the Primary - the last six months have been abysmal. The highs have been absent, the periods of normality few and chemically sustained, the lows have put me in hospital, in secure psychiatric wards or in the ICU. They've cost me a fair slab of my professional reputation, they've damaged important relationships, they've cost time and money, they've put Sarah through hell and only part of the way back.

And the thing is, they are ongoing. I still don't sleep well without antipsychotics. I still respond to stressors with the same damning pattern of thoughts, the same churning, clunking mechanical progression along panic to self-loathing to suicidality. I still feel the guilt, heavy in my heart like a steel plate upon my chest, feel the loathing of those around me, radiating like cold. I still get periods where I eat crap, huddle in my room, won't see anyone.

This is what I'd expect. And I'm doing all the right things - I've managed not to get any fatter on the olanzapine via aggressive diet and exercise. I've got a good relationship with a good psychiatrist, who recently put me back on weekly visits rather than three-weekly, and most importantly I am taking the medications. And I have, the registrar from the medical board says, commendable insight. That side of it is going well.

Still, I am still sick, and things get to me that shouldn't get to me. I like the image of ruts in a country road, deep scores in the pale red earth, down the gravel road or across the paddock. Unless you have a firm hold of the wheel, when you drive that's the way you're going to keep travelling. I imagine deep indentations in the cerebral cortex, strong neuronal linkages, dendrites intermeshing with dendrites. My mind runs easily down the hollows in the road, only with difficulty breaks out into new ground.

But still. The repetitive thoughts are there, the moods, the cognitive stuff. I am not looking forward to seeing Dr Tesla on Wednesday, because I will have to tell him this stuff, and he will perhaps delay my returning to work, and while I can see his point in this, staying home loafing while my wife works to bring sorely needed money into the house only exacerbates the situation. I depserately want to get back to the hospital and do something. One part of depression that I hate is the way it encourages you focus on yourself, even encourages others to focus on you, as if somehow this behaviour should be rewarded.

Anyhow, these are stupid thoughts. It is late, I have to get up early to drive my niece to work. The gym tomorrow, and maybe some boxing, fix my bicycle, build a compost heap. Do something useful with my life.

Thanks for listening, and I promise to be both more interesting and less whiny next time.
John