There are two types of writing I do about bipolar. The first type talk about being bipolar, what it's like, information around it, and so on. It's generally not overly emotional. The second type is written from the point of view of my bipolar, period. It's not therapied or controlled or softened.
And that second type really bothers people.
It has happened many times over the years that people have come onto my blog and gotten upset at my very "real" writing. Often bipolars tell me that it expresses exactly how they were feeling and they are grateful. Others though complain that I'm illogical, need help, and am just generally crazy. They want to yell at me, for expressing the sickness.
Now I'm not a doctor, in fact, I don't even play one on TV, but I wanted to share a little about me and how I'm handling getting off of Pristiq.
I've been talking Pristiq for months and it doesn't seem to be doing much, but honestly, the withdrawal is so bad I didn't want to attempt getting off of it. As you might know, Pristiq is a metabolite of Effexor and Effexor is also a nightmare to get off of. If I would miss a Pristiq dose by even a few hours I would become suicidally depressed. Really. No joke.
So getting off of it wasn't on my short list. There is no taper strategy for this drug as it only comes in 50 and 100mg tablets and you cannot cut them. But I seem to be successfully getting off of it with minimal impact and withdrawal. Here's how:
1. I started taking half the Pristiq (I was on 2 - 50mg pills) later and later in the day, one hour at a time. This takes a long time, but the withdrawal was so bad I was prepared to take as long as necessary to try to reduce/get off safely.
2. I started taking some Welbutrin which is a similar type of antidepressant (a serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, SNRI).
3. Eventually, I was taking one tablet in the morning, and one at night, so I just stopped taking the one at night. This meant the worst of the withdrawal would happen at night, when I was asleep.
4. Now I'm taking the second pill later and later in the day until I can eventually get off that one too.
Now, no doctor suggested this to me, I simply used my knowledge of psychopharmacology to do it. This means, it is in no way recommended. You should talk to your doctor. But I wanted to share, for anyone who has lived the hell I did trying to get off of this medication before.
Yes, I know, I'm supposed to be better than that. Yes, I know, I'm supposed to raise above that. Yes, I know that isn't fair or particularly true. But I feel it anyway.
What do you want? Chocolate cake? Sex? Sun? A promotion? A child? A new car? More friends? To lose weight? To not get a divorce? To nap? To write? To laugh? To watch the latest episode of Top Chef?
I hate you.
I only want the one thing: to die. The thing I can't have. Or rather I can have it, any time, but others swear I shouldn't have it, and if I have it, it'll be the last thing I ever have.
I hate everyone else for getting to want something else. I hate everyone for not writing a suicide note. I hate everyone for not having to take 6 seemingly-ineffectual meds. I hate everyone who wants to live. You are all lucky. And blessed. And I hate you.
I've never really felt the need to put my writing into context. I've never felt the need to discuss my history, my bipolar diagnosis, and the tremors of treatment. But now that I have a public audience it seems that they need more context. The people who have been commenting here and there seem to think I have a lack of hope and am lacking in positivity. I don't agree, naturally, but I think a little background might help my readers and I get to know each other so this week on HealthyPlace I'm discussing my bipolar history and diagnosis of Natasha Tracy. I'll be discussing the first doctor who incorrectly diagnosed me, the first one who gave up on me, and my general initial ignorance.
Bipolar disorder is defined as the cycling of moods between a depression and a mania, or hypomania. It is not characterized by being cut off in traffic and then being depressed about it.
Depression Happens. Bipolar Doesn’t Need a Reason.
I do understand the confusion. For a normal person, emotions have causes. I say something hurtful to you, and you might feel hurt. Someone hits your car and runs, you might feel mad. You break up with your other, you might feel sad. I get that. They taught us the feeling faces in elementary school.
The problem is that for most people few emotions fall outside this cause and effect. It’s true that people may not always be able to pinpoint the cause, but generally one exists. The only feelings falling outside of this paradigm are things like bad hair days...more at Breaking Bipolar blog.
Last night I watched Crazy for Love a very bad movie wherein a man, Max, is put into a mental hospital for attempting suicide for the tenth time. When he’s there, he glimpses a very ill, schizophrenic, Grace, whereupon he instantaneously falls in love with her. She too is determined to kill herself. His life’s mission then is to “make her better”. To “make her happy”. Having found his new mission in life, he no longer wants to kill himself.
Well, pin a rose on his nose.
The White Knight Syndrome
The white knight syndrome typically occurs in men and is characterized by being attracted to, and needing to save, someone in distress. This is not so bad if it leads to someone helping you pick up your groceries after the paper bag broke, but in mental illness circles, it’s very bad news indeed. More at the Breaking Bipolar blog.
You would be proud of me. I'm leaving the house. I'm leaving the house to "got out". I'm leaving the house to go out and meet people. I'm leaving the house to go out and meet people that I don't know.
It's pretty much a miracle.
I am, of course, as ever, lonely. I cry into my Lean Cuisine meal-for-one, the picture of perfect pathos. I can't leave because I feel so terrible all the time. But maybe if I left there would be a moment when I didn't. That is the cruel pervasive irony of mental illness.
But I've RSVP'd to meet with a bunch of people who apparently meet, because they want to meet people. Social lubricants are applied, and meeting happens. Odd, but true.
And so I lay down on my bed naked, as I'm prone to do, mid-day, as I rest away from my computer screen. And all I can think of is devouring the nearest "meet" that I have. The person to my left. The person to my right. Devour. Without a name or place. Devour. Bite without permission or conversation. Just meet and eat.
It's a fantasy. I know. I won't do this. I know. It's the Welbutrin. I know. But I wish, for once, I could just act like the predator I know I am. I wish, just once, it was like a movie, or TV. Where thing are simple. And people beautiful. And screams loud. And after the slippery mess, it's all tidy. Like it didn't happen. Prey devoured. Hunter sated. Act two.
I am crazy. I tell this to people in my personal life. It’s not a secret. I figure there’s no point in trying to cover it up; it’ll come out eventually. The approximately 20 scars on my forearms rather give away that something is wrong.
But people really don’t like the word “crazy”. In fact, most often, what people say to me is, “no, you’re not!”. Well, actually, I am. I’m bipolar and I’m crazy.
Tomorrow I'm doing an interview with the HealthyPlace Mental Health TV Show. Um, it's not on TV. But they call it that. Not sure why. It's at 1 pm Pacific Standard Time. Drop by. Have a watch. Participate in the conversation. Don't worry if you miss it, it will also be available on-demand. The conversation probably won't be, though.
It's a 20 minute interview, and I have say, I'm stony scared. A bit terrified, you might say. Twenty whole minutes of holding it together while talking about all my little dirty secrets and thoughts. I don't know if that's even possible.
While I've written this blog now for 7 years, I've always written on my own time, when I felt like it, if I felt like it, and on whatever topic I deemed interesting at that moment. Because, let's face it, this stuff is dirty, messy, complicated, contradictory, bloody stuff I talk about here. It isn't for the faint of heart.
And I often get upset when I write. I actually cry at my keyboard. Just writing things down seems to jab at my heart.
But that's OK. I choose that. I choose that pain and the occasional catharsis that comes with it. I feel driven to it. But I can walk away any time I choose. That's the great thing about writing. The world isn't watching you hit the delete key.
And it's the not-so-great thing about being interviewed. Being live, being recorded, people can see you stumble and fumble for words. They can see the saline droplets gather at the corners of your eyes. They can see on a human face how painful it is. I can't hide behind pretty prose produced pictures. I have to actually be there. On camera. With a voice.
And see, the thing is, I'm not very stable. Like really. Not very. Stable. Just doing my About Natasha video almost made me cry. I suppose because it made me think about my life. And the bipolar highlight reel isn't so pretty to see. It isn't so pleasant to contemplate. It's much more pleasant to ignore. To compartmentalize. To be someone else, when someone asks me a question.
So I don't know how it's going to go. As I mentioned, I find the very thought terrifying. But there it is. A public interview. If I'm ever successful, there will be many, I know.I'll have to deal with it. But still. That doesn't make the fear stick any less in my throat.
Go to the ocean. The ocean may have been calling or I might have simply been talking to myself. But somewhere in my head a voice said, “go to the ocean.”
I went because I thought the warm sun might feel good on exposed skin. Skin that hadn’t felt a breath in weeks.
The beaches here aren’t like the postcard-perfect vistas of Hawaii, they don’t have imported, pea-size gravel, like those of Monaco, and they don’t have the azure water and latte froth sands of Venezuela; but I like them just fine.
Beautiful West Coast beach photo provided by Chris Lawes.
Here we have navy and teal water butted up against fist-sized rocks, sun-bleached and strengthened driftwood, framed by often slimy kelp. Every surface is difficult to walk on and inevitably I fall. Someone’s wet dog always seems to find me irresistible.
But I like it just fine. It’s a West Coast beach. It’s where I come from. It’s who I am.
A Life With Bipolar Disorder Is Lonely
I am the only person here alone. I am always the only person alone. People have brought friends, lovers, children, and dogs, but I, as ever, have no one to bring. I sit with stones digging into me and kelp’s slime drying onto my sleeve, to watch the people. The people with lives. I don’t have a life. I can only watch life pass by. Observe it. Like a specimen in a lab... more at Being Bipolar and Alone Isn't Poetic or Romantic on the Breaking Bipolar blog
I asked the nice folks at HealthyPlace.com if they were happy with the initial response to my writing. It had been five whole days, after all.
My contact said everything was fine and she didn't want me to worry about it.
Is that good, or is that bad?
Honestly, judging by the number of comments I have been receiving compared with the number of comments other s there receive, I seem to be doing well. But I don't know. I don't have access to hit counts. All I know is the number of people who "share" me on FaceBook or Twitter and those numbers are quite low.
Now, I have never cared about drawing an audience before. I have never promoted my writing. I do watch the numbers, but I've never really done anything purposefully to affect them.
But now I'm public.
Now people are watching. And really, I'd prefer that they watch a success.
I'm feeling a certain amount of pressure blogging there. Will Breaking Bipolar have sufficient page rank? Will Breaking Bipolar come up when someone searches for bipolar blog? Will my articles be good enough to keep people coming back? Am I too depressing? Am I writing the right kind of article? am I coming off in a way that people will find positive in the bipolar community?
Arrrrrg.
You see the swirling mass of questions.
Next week HealthyPlace is doing an interview with me for the web channel. A 20 minute interview around the misconceptions of bipolar and how that has affected my life. I don't mind talking about this, but I really want to talk about it well. Something that will actually make people like me and want to read my stuff.
Well, really I don't care if they like me, I just want them to want to read my stuff. Because at the end of all this, I would like to make a living as a writer - not just as technical manual writer, but as someone who is paid to write about what I'm interested in - bipolar and its affects on people. I'd like to do fiction too, but one thing at a time, if you please.
So yes, I feel pressure. Not from the HealthyPlace folks, they seem very easy going, but just from my own mind. Which is just like me. Keep up the pressure until I pop.
After my last post, where I commented on my fear around being bipolar in public, a discussion came about regarding attitudes, and how I’m the same as everyone else.
Well, I beg to disagree. I’m crazy. And the implications of that are undeniable.
In a world of education, political correctness, and tolerance, it seems like the fact that I’m sick shouldn’t rob pieces of me, pieces of my life. It shouldn’t affect my work. It shouldn’t affect my friendships. It shouldn’t affect my lovers. But that, of course, is falderal. Bipolar Disorder slips into everything, even when you’re watching and you think you’ve got everything covered, it still manages to steal....more at Breaking Bipolar
