What does Jim Carey, Stephen Fry, Axl Rose and me have in common?

We all have Bi Polar Dis-order!

I don’t think I’ve ever posted on non running/fitness stuff before in this blog but here is the exception. The aim of this post is to re-visit what happened on holiday as I realise anyone who doesn’t really know me, I imagine will be a bit confused. Explaining what happened to people I know find it confusing enough! I mean saying “I burst in tears on the slopes” then needing to go to the doctor and psychiatrist seems a bit extreme. Saying that was more in the hope people from work might read it as they know what I have been through before rather than being aimed at runners and so people at work would understand why I was off.

I’ve decided to finally blog about it. 

A) I’m not ashamed/embarrassed by what happened or who I am, 

B) I have a very small audience (which I am grateful for and the way I like it) so it is not like I am telling everyone. 

C) I am going to try and summarise it as much as I can because the full story would take a full book. 

D) This feels like part of my recovery documenting my thoughts.

In 2008 I experienced the most difficult period of my life. In a build up over 6 months reaching a climax in July. A lot of stuff happened to me which to anyone else, people would just say are coincidences. But it got to the point where everything just felt like a coincidence. Things people say or do, TV shows, songs on the radio (relate to lyrics), signs, hearing voices. I could go on but I’ll give you two examples. In June 2008 my friends took me to see a film called “Wanted” which was about a guy who got stressed out over his job and was battling his demons. It is one of the few films I watched the whole year. At the time this is what I was going through at work too. Another example was when I went out for a walk in July and saw a sign outside a house up for sale by company called “King Sturge” who I had never heard of. But what did my mind focus in on? -  “Stu”. Now I am sure the company have been going for years but this was the first time I had heard of them. This is 2 examples of coincidences which on their own are totally innocent but this kind of thing was happening all the time in a 3 week or so period end of June/July 2008. There are some other things which happened which led to getting help but they are long stories in themselves.

 They all seemed to link in with my life and it still is the most horrible thing I have ever experienced and I don’t wish it to happen to anyone. My Dad always said if you start thinking like this to treat it as an irrational thought which is what I tried to do.  I didn’t know what was going to happen, I feared for my life on several occasions which is why I had to move to my parents for a good 2 months. I was really scared by what was happening and was extremely paranoid. It wasn’t easy for my family either seeing me go through this and I know I put them through a lot. But what I was going through I felt I had no control over. 

In July 2008 I started seeing the doctor, psychiatrist and I was a assigned a key worker from Esteem and was off work for 3 months. I was put on a 2 year program with Esteem where I saw my key worker once a month which was eventually reduced to every 3 months. I was diagnosed initially with short term psychosis. Now I hate the name because if I told people I had psychosis and they didn't know what it was, people would think I’m a psycho. This is so far from the truth it is unbelievable. I wouldn’t harm a fly. Psychosis is where you lose touch with reality and where you feel like you’re in your own wee world. Now to me everything I saw, heard etc, was my reality. But it wasn’t normal and my thought processes were not my normal self. One of the triggers to my irrational thinking seems to be a lack of sleep. 

After going through pretty much my life history with my key worker I was diagnosed with Bi Polar Disorder which I much preferred to psychosis.  My past seems to make so much more sense now.  As the name suggests Bi-polar is where your mood can go to extremes – happy to depression, nervous to excitement. I have had this my whole life it has just never been diagnosed till 2008 where things all seemed to go wrong. The thing is it works both ways. I have been so high on life people would think I’m on drugs. The irony is I have been prescribed drugs for the last 2 years which stabalises my mood and make me appear normal, if that’s possible, ha!  And they worked for the last 2 half years as I have had the best times in my whole life and I'm not just talking about my running times :-) – at work, with family and friends too.  I certainly can’t remember any bad times till recently. I put this down to running as well as I honestly think that running has a stabilising effect on my mood. Take a look at my Clyde stride video for instance. That was me when I was taking drugs and after 4 miles  I was talking about my nervous/excitement levels. The video shows at this point that I’m still full of excitement. Can you imagine what I was like at the start?!

Just before I went away on holiday, I saw some signs of the psychosis starting again but I just took my Dad’s advice and laughed it off as an irrational thought. That is how I have dealt with Bi polar. I like making jokes about it, eg -  like it has its ups and downs.  I also realise I am lucky to have a disorder that has positive effects too.  This time everything came on a lot more suddenly and it felt like the drugs were all of a sudden not working. I have spoken to my line manager at work about the week before I went away and he noticed I was acting a little different but I felt totally fine. The first half of the holiday I could feel it happening but again I just laughed it off and put it down as an irrational thought. That was until it just got too much and that is where I broke down in tears. My tactic of dealing with it this time was that if I see any signs or messages through tv, radio etc I would either turn it off or go up to my room which is where I spent a lot of the remainder of the holiday just resting and chilling out as much as possible. My head goes through a lot when this happens so rest is so important.  This time was different to last time as last time I was going into the unknown and I really had no clue how things were going to end up. Of course this time I still don’t know how things will unfold. But from experience I have dealt with it so much better. I got help immediately, I tried to get back to normal as quickly as possible, they changed my medication which seems to be working and I kept running.  Also I got through it last time so I knew I could get through it again. 

It’s times like this I truly appreciate good friends and family for getting me through this tough time and I really feel now I am close to being back to my normal self which is a 3 week recovery as oppose to 3 months. They are the reasons why I wanted to get through this as quickly as possible. I could say thank you to everyone who has helped me. But what’s the best way to thank them? Not with words but to get back to my normal self and see me happy again and making other people happy. That’s the aim.