Bipolar Lives

The last 2 months has seen a massive amount of new thought and insight on my primary technical and Web performance blog, Newest Industry. Writing on advertising, Web performance, branding, and the importance of reputation.

Then in the last ten days, writing something new on these topics, on that blog, has become impossible. My mind is in a fog. Simply opening the Wordpress edit screen is enough to make me want to initiate flight (as in fight or flight) mode.

It is the fear of irrelevance. The fear that what I have to say, on any topic, is not good enough. That I have no new ideas. That the actual process of writing causes me intense, physical pain.

The edit screen causes me to tense my jaw. Clench my fists. Bury my head in my hands and stare at the screen in horror.

I now know what writer’s block is. It is the compulsive need to create perfection. And when this is mixed with the lows of a neurochemical, bipolar cycle, it is fatal to a person who lives by communicating ideas.

So I withdraw. SInce my writing isn’t good enough, my ideas aren’t good enough, what part of me is.

The cycle is a feedback loop.

People who say Snap out of it! have never felt that crushing weight of the fear. The paranoia that the world has discovered you’re a sham. That the world is a stage and you have beeb relegated to managing drinks in the chorus dressing room.

Cycling through my mind is not a pleasant trip through the French countryside. It is more like Manhattan at rush hour with some ice on the roads - congested, noisy, full of danger, and impossible to understand.

Tags: bipolar, Bipolar Disorders, bipolar I, cycling, failure, fear, Paranoia, Web performance, Web performance blog, writer's block

The last week has been a horrendous ride for me. I feel trapped, lost.

Like many bipolars, I am actually suffering physical symptoms of depression - hot flushes, joint pain, cold-like symptoms. They aren’t a cold, just the extreme manifestation of the chemical storm that is flooding my brain.

Paranoia, fear, and a desire to escape rule my days. I am trying to control these feelings, but the bottom of the trough is never a great place to be. The shorter days aren’t helping. The odd thing about my depression is that is is deeply affected by shorter days, but not longer nights. At night I thrive. It’s when I do my best work, feel my greatest power.

I wish I could bring the power of the night into my days.

Tags: bipolar, Bipolar Disorders, bipolar I, chemical storm, depression, joint pain, Paranoia

The current financial meltdown has caused something very bizarre to fire off in my mind - a rush of happy drugs.

How can one of the worst financial crises in modern history cause me to spike on a manic high? Am I a perverse and twisted individual?

In some ways, the answer to that is yes, but not for the usual reasons.

When you have bipolar, one of the things you crave is the rush of adrenaline that brings you over the top, fuels the excitement, pounds on the neurons with “more! MORE!”.

And radical, sudden, wrenching change is one of the things that does this for me. Other bipolars suffer from this. They are the ones who do crazy things, dangerous things, irrational things, just to have the figh or flight mechanism kick in. The natural rush that comes from adrenaline is far more powerful than any of the medications we take.

Adrenaline, in my case, sharpens then mind - in the wrong direction.

It brings about life changes that have often taken 4-5 years to recover from.

It has destroyed relationships, friendships, jobs.

The rush of panic, fear, chaos, rapid and incredible change is addicting.

I find myself being upset when the Dow rises, because it means that things aren’t broken enough.

Without a radical and disastrous change, I don’t get my fix.

But, I take a deep breath and move on.

Some people never overcome the need for fear, change, chaos. And those are the most successful, or the worst off, depending on the luck they have fallen into with their unpredictable, irrational, and impulsive desires.

Tags: adrenaline, bipolar, change, chaos, failure, rush, success

My children, as children are wont to do, ask question that either infuriate me, or need to be answered in a way that would far outrun their attention spans. In these instances, I lean on one of two answers:

1. 20 minutes
2. Drink more tea

One is from some people we used to know when we lived in the Bay Area. The second is the response of a Zen Master to the deep and meaningless questions of his students.

In many ways, in order to get through the days, to function and be productive with bipolar, you have to adopt a Zen-like attitude. YOu have to try and strip out the complexities of life and expose what is important, what is real.

Sleep when your body tells you to

This is the hardest thing for modern man to do. Lights extend our days. Work extends into our lives. Our lives are more complex, interconnected with a web of responsibilities and demands that two generations ago were unheard of.

What is hard for people to accept is that when the mind and body say they need rest, this is not the sign that we are weak or soft. Being tired is not the indication that it is time for yet another stimulant to get us through the day. The mind and body indicate sleep because they need sleep to recover and recuperate from the stresses we place on them.

A nap is not a sign of weakness or laziness. A nap is a way to revive.

When you are tired, sleep.

Work when your body tells you to

One of the hardest things to accept for people who regularly deal with bipolar people is the seeming inconsistency of their efforts. They seem to throw everything they have into one project, and a bare quarter effort into another. Or the bipolar person seems unfocused when there is guided project to work on.

For me, learning and recovery come in many forms. After a run of intense effort, I come down hard, and require some time to rest my mind. What do I do during those periods? Well, Google calls it as “20% time”. I work on whatever can keep my brain ticking over. I read. I learn. I deverlop new skills.

What is seen by some people as wasting time is far from it. I got to where I am today because of what I learned wasting time.

Summary

Live is more complicated for people with bipolar, as within the natural rhythm of life, they have to fight the ebbing and flowing of their own neuro-chemical tide. And often the inner tide is greatly at odd with the flow of the life around you.

So, when the fight is hard and the mind is thrashing, take a moment to step back.

Drink more tea.

Tags: acceptance, bipolar, cycle, Google, life, neuro-chemical tide, recover, rest, sleep, stimulant, work, Zen Master

Last night, as I lay in bed trying to sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I needed to do tomorrow.

While this is a normal thing for many people, when it takes hold in a bipolar, it is like pouring gasoline on the mania fire. You spend so much time trying to figure out what to do, that you might as well get up and do it. And thus the cycle begins.

I have developed many skills over the years to push myself in the direction of sleep. My wife has been good at forcing me to see when my mania has taken hold and that I need to start using these skills to slow my mind down.

One that has been most effective is the falling game. In my head, I picture myself falling down toward something, I know not what. All I know is that it is not scary, and that the deeper I go, the more relaxed I become. In effect, it is a self-hypnosis technique.

For others, there may be techniques that work better. But for me, the falling game reels in the racing mind, and helps remind me of what is important - sleep.

Tags: bipolar, hypnosis, mania, manic, relax, self-hypnosis

Living with bipolar requires certain strategies in order to get through the day. The one that my mind leans on most heavily is the daily pattern or routine. I need to know where I will be, when I will be there, and what I am going to do when I am there in order to feel at ease, like my world is not going to fall apart on me.

I don’t like sudden changes to occur to my daily routine; they cause me untold amounts of stress and discomfort. When they occur, I fret, stew, gnash, and often find excuses from the explicable to the unbelievable to escape the change in my routine.

Now, this need for order and routine can be broken as long as I know that an event or appointment is occurring a substantial amount of time in advance so that I can plan for it. Map the location. Discover multiple transportation (escape?) routes. And now exactly what I am to do when I am there.

This need for planning and routine is swept away, drowned out when I am in the manic phase of my cycle.

When I am manic, I seem to enjoy disruption and chaos, randomness and unpredictability. I like saying “Why not go to Florida for the weekend?” [NB: I have never been to Florida]. I thrive on random events and find the unpredictable drives me to face new challenges in unexpected ways, exposing knowledge and insights that I didn’t know existed in my mind

I often wonder why the brain thrives on order in one mode, and chaos in the other. I believe it is due to the difference in the brain chemistry between the depressive, normal, and manic phases of my cycle. The pattern-demanding chemistry that exists in my normal and depressive phases is completely overwhelmed by the need for the new and exciting in the manic phase.

It is just extremely frustrated to be limited, constrained by the need for order on one end of the see-saw, and the need to throw it all away to thrive on the rush of a new adventure at the other end.

In the end, as with many bipolars, I admire those who stand closer to the middle of the see-saw, and who can balance the conflict between order and chaos better than I can.

Tags: chaos, cycle, depressive, Florida, manic, normal, obsession, obsessive, order, patterns, predictability

Anyone who suffers from Bipolar, or any psychiatric or brain chemistry disorder, should find and watch The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive hosted by Stephen Fry. In his open, intelligent and witty way, Fry tackles the topic of Bipolar Disorders (oh yes, there are more than one), including his own. If you can find it (you will have to try all of the usual channels to get it in North America), watch it.

A question I am often asked is: Why are you openly discussing the fact that you are Bipolar in a public forum?

Why would I confess to the world, to people who have not yet met me, who may be considering hiring me, that I am bipolar?

It’s simple. A long time, I wrote that if you were going to hire me based on what I had done in the past, or what school I went to, I most likely wouldn’t want to work for your company anyway. The same applies to this illness, this condition I suffer from. If you or your company won’t hire me because I suffer from an illness that is beyond my control, that I will have for the rest of my life, why would I work for your firm?

I have had Bipolar for a long time. I can track the behaviours that identify the condition back into my childhood, through my teens, through until today. Normally, the cycling that I go through is benign, punctuated by periods of utter and complete hyperfocus.

The manic side does have its pitfalls. My mania usually results in buying and spending sprees that have often endangered my financial stability. One example of this is my recently recognized and tamed maniacal acquisition of stationery supplies, pen, notebooks and books.

When I recognized the problem I had with stationery, I cleaned out my desk and aggregated all of the writing instruments I have purchased over the last 12 months. When I was done, I had filled a 1-gallon Zip-Lock baggie with pens, pencils, highlighters and Sharpies.

In my lifetime, I could never use them all.

I fanatically acquire notebooks. Rhodia, Moleskine, Rite-in-the-Rain, anything. How many of them have I written in? Well, lets just say that my kids will be using my blank notebook collection for many years after I have departed this world.

The spending sprees, the intense desire for the acquisition of things, is my most noticeable manifestation of manic behaviour. In most instances, the manic process starts to wind down after a while. In a few instances, it continues upward. It continues upward until my rational mind dissipates, and I start ranting and raving, making irrational and potentially destructive choices in my life. Choices that have (or could have) affected the course of my life.

I suffer from a small subset of the condition, Bipolar I. What differentiates this group from the standard “manic-depressive” or Bipolar diagnosis is that is more MANIC-depressive, with a sustained emphasis on the manic episodes. Depressive episodes occur, don’t get me wrong; but it is the intense and unstoppable mania that has shaped me more than the depression.

However, this condition is not “curable” in the standard way. It also doesn’t manifest any physical symptoms. So in most cases, people just say that I need to get a grip and get on with my life. I am grateful that I have an understanding and (in some cases) forgiving wife who is intent on helping me control and regulate my behaviour. I am also extremely lucky that my current manager understands this part of me, and gives me the freedom I need to ebb and flow with the condition.

To wrap this up (I hate long postings), I leave you with this thought. In his programme, Fry asks his interview subjects the following question (and I paraphrase it here):

If there was a button you could push, a button that cured you of this condition, and gave you a normal mind, would you press it?

Only one of the interview subjects said yes. Everyone else said that despite the pain and suffering that accompanies the condition, there is no way that they would be willing to give back the state of mind that allowed them to achieve what they had achieved.

We are not in our right mind. And I am proud of that.

Tags: Bipolar Disorders, depression, hyperfocus, mania, North America, Stephen Fry, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive

For a 39-year old man with no outward symptoms of a physical ailment, my daily drug/supplement regimen is one that would leave many of my peers stunned. The problem is, that like most people who are bipolar, I take a cocktail to try and balance out the variety and multitude of symptoms and effects I encounter on a daily or hourly basis.

The current melange I am using is:

• 900mg of Trileptal (600mg in the morning and 300mg in the evening)
• 300mg of Bupropion/Wellbutrin (150mg twice daily)
• 200 mg of Bupropion/Wellbutrin
• 20mg of paroxetine/Seroxat/Paxil (10mg twice daily) I am FREE of this nightmare drug!
• 20mg of Celexa/Citalopram

As a side-discussion, which will likely show up in the comments for this blog either from its victims or from the spammers, is the destructive power of Paxil/Seroxat/paroxetine. For anyone who has ever been prescribed Paxil/Seroxat/paroxetine, I’m sorry.

This medication is prescribed much less freely now than it was when I was first given it in 1999 to serve as a bridge mechanism during my first major depressive episode. The side-effects of the medication can be stunning and as dangerous as the condition they are supposed to assist with.

I tried multiple times to take paroxetine out of my “diet”. Unfortunately, I immediately slipped into SSRI discontinuation syndrome — aggressive behaviour, irritability, and a host of other issues. It took a concerted effort and a well-planned transition effort to get me off Paxil/Seroxat/paroxetine and on to Celexa/citolapram.

I need Citolapram to help control my occasional manic obsessive moments. It is mild. For most bipolars, an SSRI is unecessary. But, as I have said throughout this post, we are all different.

In addition to the presecribed medications, my daily dose of pills includes a number of supplements.

• Omega-3 oils
• Ginkgo Biloba
• Vitamin B
• Vitamin D

I also adjust my dosages (most notably of trileptal) depending on how the cycle is progressing. In fact, my psychiatrist has recommended that I do this, as I am the best one to play with and adjust my own treatment regimen to cope with what I feel.

Most high-functioning Bipolars seem to enjoy tweaking and turning the knobs in most things anyway, so why not in our medications.

This is the regimen that works for me. Every person is different. As a part of accepting and discovering your own bipolar, you have to be willing to

• Question your psychiatrist. Knowledge is a powerful thing. A medical degree and a psychiatric specialty doesn’t provide a license to dispense without explanation
• Listen to your own body and mind. You know you the best. If you feel weird, out of touch, or are behaving in a way that scares you, contact your psychiatrist immediately
• Listen to the people around you. If the people closest to you are starting to say that you are different and difficult to be around, then perhaps you haven’t been listening to your body. the people who are closes to you want to help you get better
• Explore other options. Supplements, meditation, therapy, triathalons, etc. are all acceptable ways for you to generate the happy brain chemicals without resorting to the destructive behaviours that are so common among bipolars.

Each bipolar individual is unique, special. Use your knowledge of yourself to make your journey a little easier.

[The reference in the title is from a Star Trek, Original Series episode. You know how to use Google; you find out what it means.]

Tags: bipolar, bupropion, celexa, citolapram, discontinuation syndrome, happy brain chemicals, individual, meditation, paroxetine, paxil, psychiatrist, seroxat, supplements, trileptal, unique, Vitamin D, wellbutrin

This morning, I woke up and decided I need to separate my bipolar thoughts from my other blog. This seems like a simple thought.

It has eaten and absorbed my morning. Not in a good way.

Hyperfocus is one of the spectres that travels with me in the bipolar caravan. Ideas consume me. New discoveries make me lose my perspective on the world around me. A single thought can make my family, my house, my job, everything fade away.

It is an extremely potent force, one that has allowed me to absorb, understand, and share massive amounts of information is a short amount of time. It has also plagued me, as it disconnects me from the world around me, leaving me open, exposed, seemingly aloof.

This blog is a testament to that focus. And the difficulty I have controlling it.

Tags: bipolar, hyperfocus, obsession

One of the lengthy conversations I had with my wife as I worked my way through understanding my bipolar and the effect it has on my life focused on how I think and see the world.

Everyday, I have to come to terms with the fact that the way I filter and process the world is radically different from most of the people around me. Realizing this was a breakthrough for me, as I assumed that everyone saw the world as I did and do.

This is not to say that I “see things” or “hear things”. When data enters my system, it is handled in a manner that is strange to most people, and occasionally produces output from me that amplifies my already unique perspective.

Genetics plays a substantial role in where my bipolar originated. Both sides of my family are rife with bipolar and schizophrenia. My mother has it; my father had it to a lesser degree. Because of this interplay of genetics, to a lot of the world our family was unusual. Not dysfunctional, just differently functional.

My brother (I am 1 of 3, he is 2 of 3) once said that I got the full effect of the bad genes in this area. In some respects, this has shaped my life in an extremely negative way. But it is has also provided me with some substantial gifts that I would never think to give up, no matter what the benefit to my mental health would be.

When the world gets band, I filter the world through the chaos of a G8 Meeting anarchist riot. Crowds running everywhere, throwing rocks, Molotov cocktails, screaming. Troops in vehicles rushing through, spraying water cannons. But occasionally, one side or the other gathers enough strength to achieve a small tactical victory, push the other side back a little.

Some examples include:

• Breaking into (modified) song lyrics. I do this almost instantly upon someone saying a triggering phrase. I can make up lyrics and find song quotes faster in casual conversation than I can tell you my phone number
• Matching table settings. Now, for man, this one is odd. I am in charge of setting the table for dinner, and the curse I carry is that it has to be set in a pattern. #1 son has to be orange (napkin and drink glass), #2 son has to be green (napkin and drink glass), and SJE and I have to match. Makes SJE nuts.
• The dishes. When I do the dishes, I have my way of doing them. No one can do them with me or I get angry or upset. I have an order in which things are done, and it must be done this way.

These are, of course, the tame, safe, and almost humorous things that affect my daily grind. There are other things that are far more difficult to manage than obsessions over table settings. But these are three of the weird things that show how I have to process and interact with my world in order for it to make sense to me.

When you hear that someone has bipolar, step back and remember to look at them, and their view of the world, with respect. We see our world very differently. We take the same input and produce vastly different interpretations on how to behave, react.

Realize that occasionally, letting the occasional madness into your world will make you a more understanding person when you encounter it someone else.

Tags: bipolar, filters, obsessions, openess, predjudice, schizophrenia