Hospital was scary. I had never been admitted to a public psych ward before and was used to the luxury of my own room. I was tired and didn’t want to get out of bed but the nurses insisted I did, much to my ire. On the first morning I was there I missed breakfast and expressed my anger at this by throwing the whole metal breakfast trolley down the hallway with a smash.
‘Get out and talk to the other patients,’ I was told. I looked around at the bunch of freaks and nutters around me. ‘I don’t belong here,’ I thought. After a week or so the medication kicked in and I was sleeping normally again while the Lithium calmed my frazzled nerves. Forced to interact and attend craft classes and the like I slowly emerged from my angry shell to communicate with my fellow inmates. Most of them were also bipolar, with a few schizophrenics and a couple of drug-induced psychoses thrown in, too.
I discovered something amazing: I overcame my initial prejudices and got to know these people, as they too overcome their fear and attempted to connect with me. They shared their stories, their struggles and their triumphs. They told me what had got them through, how the system worked, how to make it work for me. But mainly they taught me that compassion and understanding were the greatest gifts we could offer another human being, and they showed me by example. I swear that I was healed more, and cared for better and learned more from that bunch of crazies than I did from any of the medical staff while I was in hospital.I am forever grateful for that opportunity, and to them, wherever they are now.
I obviously do have bipolar disorder, but that’s not what makes me who I am, the person I would hope you’d sooner take the time to get to know rather than to dismiss due to some incorrect perception of what a certain label means.How my brain reacts under pressure may influence how I feel, how I perceive, how I react and how I relate, but that is not what makes meuniquely me. Or is it? This diagnosis raises more questions than answers I have found. Although I can, and often do, use bipolar disorder as an explanation for my behaviour and reactions, I am aware that it is not an excuse. Even though I am aware of being totally out of control whilst in the throes of what I have come to call my “wobblies” — those extreme ends of mood scale tantrums — I still believe it is my responsibility, to a certain extent, to control the effects these have on others around me. I usually have a lot of explaining to do afterwards. It has taught me a lot about humility.
I always say that after the shit hits the fan, I have to clean it off the walls. I’m getting used to it now, and I’m getting better at it. It usually requires a lot of “I’m sorrys” and tail-between-the-legs crawling, along with an attempt to explain what exactly it was all about and why it happened. Do I say it is because of my bipolar disorder or not? If I do disclose this information to those I meet I risk being rejected as insane, being lumped into the too hard basket, more trouble than I’m worth. If I choose not to tell others of my mental illness I risk the possibility of rejection just because I seem a bit odd, eccentric or outright “crazy”, and that is seen as a character flaw. I risk rejection every day just for being the way I am, and I find it really hard to control that.
