What a difference a day makes.

What a difference a day makes….

Just 24 little hours:  that’s sometimes the difference for someone struggling with bi-polar between being on a swing and coming down or up from one!  The last few weeks have been hard, but after a good session with my Doc she’s tweaked my meds and I don’t feel so bad today at all.  They are obviously kicking in!  I’ve also had a good nights’ sleep and I had a great night out with friends last night that really helped lift my spirits.   This event was a press event and to be honest as Wednesday morning rolled around I wasn’t sure I would go.  It was a Gatsby themed Casino night so it entailed dressing up in 1920’s gear.   The thoughts of dressing up in anything other than my baggies, given my mood of the last few weeks, was a bit off-putting, but you know what, I made the effort.  It was a gargantuan endeavour; I’ve spent the last few weeks locking myself away from everyone and everything and the thought of socialising was really really daunting.  But with press events, you can’t really turn them down, not once you’ve accepted an invitation and they’ve organized overnight accommodation for you!!; the next invite might be not so forthcoming, so I got myself a flapper dress, a feather head piece, a boa and a long slim cigarette holder and plastered on my makeup.   The progeny shouted up the stairs “where’s the dinner”, “what are you doing”, where are you going”…. “what’s that on your head Ma”… to which I suitably answered, ‘dunno’, ‘nuthin’, ‘out’ and ‘do I not look okay then?’  My daughter very blasé said ‘Mam you always look lovely’…  Well I could have cried and crushed her in a hug, but I did neither, I scampered out the door in my flapper dress, went to the event, met up with some media contacts and had an absolute ball.  So what a difference a day makes…  Today is a Good Day!

My soul sours, but only for a time,

 

 

My soul sours, but only for a time,

Happiness and contentment is never mine

For long; I never know when depression will come

And my soul withers with songs unsung.

 

How is it that those of us who suffer from bi-polar can know what it is that is wrong with us and how it affects us, but are so hopelessly inadequate in realising when we are not well until things are really bad.  For the past week, I have been so down, I can’t remember the last time I felt this bad.  I have used all my energies to tell people I am well, ‘wonderful’, ‘yeah life is great’; except at home where I can hide away!  I can let how I feel seep out of my very pores.   I have no energy to hide any more at home.  I have no strength left after a working day to keep up the pretence at home.  And at home, I don’t need to hide.  Truth be told, I don’t really hide that well in work either…  Everyone I work with is aware I have bi-polar.  It makes my swings easier to handle for them.  It makes them realise that when my office door is closed, perhaps it’s not the best idea to open it.  But that’s not fair; to them or to me.  I work with a great bunch of people but when I swing, I don’t think they are great.  Every little foible of their personality becomes a source of huge annoyance to me when I am manic.  I have this anger barely contained beneath the surface and one wrong phrase will set me off.  By the same token, when I feel depressed like I do now, I feel isolated, apart, separated from that which normally roots me to the reality of my life.  I feel unwanted, unloved, unworthy of any sort of positive human interaction. I feel dejected and really really sad.  At times I have thought about what the world would be like if I wasn’t here anymore.  I have imagined my own funeral more than a few times.  I’ve often wondered would anyone turn up, would those in my life be suitably upset or would my passing be marked only by a handful of people attending a cold church and a cold ceremony?  It’s almost like wallowing in self-pity, but it’s also not!  I can’t control how I feel.  I try to shake off these feelings but they’re pervasive, persistent, damaging and distressing.  Distressing to my family, to those around me and to me!    I know that when I am this wretched, I isolate myself; I close the door on people, both metaphorically and literally.  I have to shut people out.  I don’t want them to see the depths of my depression.  I don’t acknowledge it myself until I just want to stay in bed and not do anything.  I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to get out, I don’t want to work, I don’t want to be with anyone;  I just want to be on my own.  On my own, I can just feel what I’m feeling and not feel bad about it.  Putting up a front is exhausting and it takes a huge toll on my psyche.

I often wonder would it be better not to work at all.  I often wonder how much of the day to day stress I feel is created and sustained by my work.  I often wonder would I be better in myself for longer periods if I didn’t have the added pressure of my working environment.  I’d find things to do if I didn’t have work to go to, but it would be what I want to do, not something I had to do to bring in the money to help with the household.  At times I feel very resentful that this is the case.  I get angry when I think that life is so short and that so much of my time is time away from my children (mind you they are half reared at this point) time away from things I want to do, things I want to achieve have to be put on hold and then when I get home from work, I’m too mentally exhausted to do any of those things. I often fantasise about winning the lottery and have often said I’d give up work in a heartbeat, to which my other half is aghast.  He is a workaholic and couldn’t imagine doing anything different.  I just can’t match his intensity at the best of times, never mind when I’m not well.  He is normally very compassionate, very understanding and since he is the boss of where I work, it is a blessing in disguise that he feels this way.  If I’m having a really bad day, I can leave…  But I want to leave all the time!  I want to just disengage myself from anything that causes stress and tension and my job is a huge factor in that.  My soul is not soaring at the moment.  It has plummeted to the very depths of a place I don’t want to be and all I want to do is scream…….

There’s a knot in the pit of my stomach.

 

There’s a knot in the pit of my stomach.

Another overcast Summer day in Ireland dawns and as I look out expecting to see bright sunshine, I am greeted by a cloud of oppressive grey, dampening not only the whole country, but my mood too…  Dreary days like this do something to the psyche, leaving you foggy and heavy before the day even starts.  At least that’s how I feel.  All the plans I had in my head for what I wanted to do today start to evaporate in a cloud of apathy and all I want to do is nothing; worse than nothing, just crawl back to bed and put my head under the covers staying there until the sun comes out.  Were I to do that, it would just be giving in.   Life is all about facing challenges head on, but who said it had to be huge challenges every time.  For some people just getting up in the morning is a trial; a battle of wills but against your very self.  I’ve struggled with bi-polar over half my life and there are days, sometimes weeks on end when I’d rather not engage with the world at all.  I want to stay in my own bubble of misery and sadness because it’s just too hard to appear ‘normal’. Its not about ‘giving in’ to those feelings as has often been suggested, because for me I do not have that type of control over how I feel.  If I had a euro for the amount of times I’ve been told to ‘pull myself together and snap out of it,’ I’d be a rich woman.  But it’s not as simple as that.  When you suffer from depression, there is no magic switch that can be thrown so that those around you don’t have to ‘put up’ with your misery. It’s not like waking up, as some of us do from time to time, on the ‘wrong side of the bed’ as my mother used to say.  Some of us just get up in a bad mood for some reason and that bad mood can pervade the rest of your day.  When I am in a depressive cycle, I am, most of the time, not even aware of how bad things are, how bad I am until I’ve started to come out the other side.  Depression affects every corner of your life; it changes your view of not only your life, but of the lives of those nearest to you.  Everything becomes dark, miserable and hopeless.  Your self-esteem bombs and for me I feel undeserving of everything in my life.

 

It is extensive, omnipresent and persistent. 

 

If it had an actual physical characteristic, I would call it a malevolent body snatcher; that somehow it had crawled inside my body and taken over my very personality and all I could do from the inside is watch as this ‘entity’ destroyed everything and everyone around me while I stood there silently screaming but completely helpless.

The flipside of the depression of course is the elation.  There are times I actually think this is the more dangerous and damaging side of bi-polar.  For me, I can be very happy for a while, but that almost blissfulness, that ‘I can do anything’ arrogance escalates to pure anger, becoming a blistering white ball of destruction that flattens everyone in its path but especially me.  I’ve never been physical or violent, just enraged, out of control verbally, seething!

 

When that anger will bubble to the surface, I never know; for me that’s the true danger and destruction of bi-polar. 

 

The past few days have not been good.  I don’t do stress well….  In fact I don’t do stress at all.  The first psychiatrist I had said that with each episode brought on by stress, each new episode can be brought on by less stress than the last.  Its almost like the brains’ resistance to stress gets less and less, therefore it takes less and less to trigger an episode.  Medication helps of course, but for me, I never feel quite ‘normal’.  In fact I’ve been ill so long, I don’t even know what normal is.  I do know that for the last few weeks I’ve not been feeling like myself.  My motivation is seeping out of me, my ability to work hard is disappearing as I simply shuffle papers from one side of my desk to the other. And yesterday, I exploded after a colleague made a simple comment to which I responded like a volcano erupting and spitting fire; reigning destruction downwards.  Luckily for me, this person knows I’m bi-polar and while they were not too understanding yesterday, today they are forgiving – after my tearful apology!  I’ve read blogs about how difficult it is to live with someone struggling with bi-polar.  Believe me its nothing compared to how you feel if you suffer from it.  Today I can’t eat… except cigarettes and I’m on my second pack of the day so far.  I’m confused, hurt angry very upset and for the life of me I don’t really know why; well that’s not true; I’m bi-polar, there’s no other reason needed! I’ve gone through half a box of tissues wiping away the tears that just keep coming despite my efforts to stop them.  If you live with someone who has bi-polar, when you leave their presence, you get a break from it:  we don’t!  I’m not being callous, unthinking or trying to be cruel here, but this illness is with me every moment of every day.  There is no cure, just management, but even that leaves me open to swings albeit of a shallower nature than if I was not medicated at all, but life with bi-polar is no bed of roses; on that you can be sure!  Today is not a good day!!

 

I am Not Leader Material..

I’m not leader material.

It is a courageous person who states categorically what their strengths and weaknesses are without even a modicum of doubt.  I think the epitome of being human is to have doubts about some aspect of your life or indeed yourself.  I am a believer that doubt and fear can keep us on our toes, perhaps make some of us more cautious and some of us more daring.  So am I being angst-ridden or courageous when I say I’m not leader material?  I don’t yet know the answer to that!  I may do, by the time I have finished putting my thoughts on paper, but as yet I am not sure.  For the moment I know with utter certainty, I am not leader material.  I am good at what I do, I am professional, quick, talented (to a degree – and I’m not just blowing my own trumpet here) there is no shame in stating all of this – but I am not a good leader. I have very little patience for people who don’t work the way I work; hard and consistent!  I have very little patience for people who pretend to be dimmer than they actually are, in the hope of sliding through their work day or making someone else pick up their slack.  I also have no tolerance for those who believe they are better than everyone else and act as ‘bullies’ wanting always to take the best of everything on offer.  I would say I am a team player, but I also know at times I don’t play well with others.  That is the real dichotomy of my personality; I’m no leader, nor do I have any aspiration to be a follower.  My intolerance of others at times means I am not a good motivator.  I don’t have time for those who constantly need to get a ‘pat on the back’ to do their jobs.  I also know that to use yet another analogy, a carrot works much better than a stick, but my impatience is hard to disguise sometimes. So indeed I can de-motivate people very quickly purely by opening my mouth and saying exactly what is on my mind.  At times I am a good persuader, at times I can inspire and encourage, but for the most part I call it as I see it and that unfortunately is not the way to activate other peoples desires to do better, or work harder.

The contrasting side of this is that I am not really too good a follower either!  I’ve been in my particular business for close on two decades now and while I don’t know everything there is to know, I know a lot.  I am savvy and confident in my abilities and I don’t like taking ‘orders’.  I’m being very blunt here and I’m not sure what picture this paints of me at all?  Reading back, I don’t think I’d like to work with someone like me if I wasn’t me!!  I don’t really need to be motivated to do my work.  For the most part I enjoy what I do all the time.  I am lucky that way, in that I have a job I love, certainly there are elements of it I don’t, but for the most part, I am doing exactly what I want to do.  I am certain in my abilities, I think that just comes with age and experience.  I don’t need a lot of direction either or hands on management.  Just point me towards what you want and let me go at it!  So what does that leave then?  I am neither a leader nor a follower – When I was thinking about this piece what came to mind was a sketch from the Life of Brian by the Monty Python crew where Brian (the main character) stands at a window and talks to the crowd, telling them not to follow him, that they are all individual.  The street crowd agreed they were ‘All individuals’ in unison and one lone voice called out from the back ‘I’m Not’…    Perhaps this is me!  Just me – just individual!

Sometimes I don’t like my daughter!!

I know what you are all thinking as you read this, that I am a terrible mother to even think this never mind to write it, but you know what I’m not!

I am realistic enough to realise that at times she will do things that really annoy me and that’s okay!  She’s a typical teenager, no better or worse than any of her peers and typically at this time of her life she is the nucleus of the universe.  The sun shines for Her, the Moon comes up for Her, the birds sing only for Her.  Her brothers are there to torment her and her parents, well, we are there to spoil her fun and ruin her life…!!

If my daughter was a mythical creature, I would suggest she’d be a fire breathing dragon.  When asleep and calm she is wonderful, magical, beautiful, majestic;  when she is awake, she breathes fire, bringing destruction with her everywhere she goes and in her wake remains the shattered ruins of what was once our home!  Her fire devours everything in her path and if it’s not her eating everything she can find, it’s the pack of dragons she leads.  Yes my daughter is a born leader, proud, confident, somewhat dictatorial (but not in too bad a way – now I’m feeling rotten here….) but she can also be bossy, rude, sulky and ignorant…  And this is the person I don’t like at time. It’s the one, who whenever I say no, firstly tries to cajole or bargain or reason me into changing my mind.  When that doesn’t work, it’s the one who becomes petulant, spitting nails that’s not my favourite person in the world.

The one who starts a sentence with “You know how I love you…”, I adore, because she’s so transparent and I know she really does love me which lifts my soul and makes my spirit sing every day.   The one who asks if I’d like a hug when she knows I’ve had a bad day is the one I want to wrap up in my arms and never let go…The one in whom I can see so much promise and talent and capacity to be greater than she can ever imagine, she’s the one I love with all my heart.

But the one who doesn’t want to even lift her own clothes off the floor or tidy her room when she can’t even see the bed is the one that I’m not too fond of.    It’s the one that can really hurt me as her mother  by what she says when she means to hurt that I don’t like…  When she is a mother herself some-day, she will realise what it is to be shut out by your daughter, to be viewed as a nuisance and not as a loving parent, to be shouted at and told ‘I hate you’… (although she’s only said that once to be fair…  most of the time it’s a little less brutal..)  But you know what, while I may not like her at times, I’ve loved her since before she was born, and I’ll love her till I die.  And she will get through these years and come out the other side bursting with the promise I see in her every day.  I just hope the same can be said for me!!!!

Stephen Fry – A very Brave Man.

Stepen Fry –  A very brave man.

It has been reported in the media within the last few days, that Stephen Fry became so depressed last year he tried to take his own life.  For those of you who don’t know who this is, Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television and radio presenter, film director and activist, One of the ‘stand out’ phrases from his interview where he admitted to doing the unthinkable was that ‘There is no reason for it, were there a reason, you can be talked out of it’.  I have to applaud the bravery of the man in allowing this to become a talking point throughout the world’s media.   It has been known for some time that Stephen suffers from bi-polar, a debilitating form of depression which affects ones whole life and all the relationships within it.  It takes a particular type of courageousness to admit to trying to end your own life and allow that act to become a talking point for sound bites and pithy responses.  What it also does do however, for thousands of people who struggle with bi-polar, is bring the topic into the light of day where the right information can get out there into the world without historical stigma being attached to it…

Many people, who deal with depression as a daily part of their life, do so in silence because of the embarrassment the condition causes either them or their family.   I know a bit about this because I am bi-polar myself.  When I was first diagnosed following the birth of my first child, my attitude was very much this is something I need to tackle, get treatment for and yes, talk about.  I have no problem admitting I struggle with depression and there are times, despite the medication, I still have periods of misery or euphoria, depending on the swing!  But my family was not as ready to announce to the world they had a member who was ‘mentally ill’.  I was asked not to tell anyone, to keep it to myself and the basis for this was it would somehow affect how people view me.  It could alter other people’s opinion of me and I may fall in their estimation.  My answer to that was simple:  if the fact I have a condition I am not responsible for, I can do nothing much about and cannot get better from alters someone’s attitude of me, then perhaps they are not worthy of my friendship or respect in the first place.  I know I can’t unring that bell once I tell those around me that I have depression, but I also believe that staying quiet, pretending I don’t have it and leaving my actions and reactions open to misinterpretation is the worst thing to do.  For me it means my mood swings are viewed in the proper light; it’s not necessarily me being a bitch on a day that I am really down, it’s just that I’m having a really bad day!  Of course, having bi-polar disorder is not a justification for bad behaviour either and sometimes it can be an easy excuse.  There are days all of us can get up out of the wrong side of the bed and go through our day just ‘in a bad mood’.  Whereas those days however, most people are in control of their own mood, someone like me who struggles with bi-polar may not even realise they are not only miserable themselves but making everyone around them miserable too.  It’s not a defence, but it is an explanation.  When I fly off the handle however at someone where that behaviour is certainly not justified, I am quick to apologise when my mood has stabilised.  This normally happens when I am in the euphoria stage of bi-polar.  For me this is the hardest to combat.  After nineteen years, my husband has become very adept at spotting the warning signs and realising very quickly when I am in a cycle and need to take time out.  He is very good at taking over the household when this happens and for that I will be eternally grateful.  For many years, before I was stabilised on the medication I still take daily, his life, as well as mine, was miserable.  I am sure coming home to me when I was at home with the kids was not a very pleasurable exercise for him, but despite the agony and the cheerless life we had for a few years, he stuck it out and supported me every step of the way.  I’m not an easy person to live with when I’m not well but I recognise that fact and thankfully I am relatively stable and have been for years.  I still have swings, but not anything like as bad as before I was medicated.  My particular mood disorder is termed a ‘rapid cycler’, which means instead of months of depression and elation, I can swing daily between the two, or the swings can last for a few weeks at a time.  That see-sawing of emotions is hard to deal with and does make you question your quality of life.  I can’t speak for anyone else but myself but there are times when you feel so despondent that anything seems better than your quality of life at that time.  As Stephen so succinctly put it, there is no reason why you feel this way, you just do.  I have had people tell me to ‘snap out of it’ or pull myself together, or stop letting (whatever) bother me, but it’s not that simple.  Trying to explain that to someone who has never struggled with clinical depression however is like trying to explain why you can’t stop breathing.  You just can’t!  It is part of your makeup, an involuntary programmed response that you are not in control of in any way, shape or form.  Even trying to stop breathing doesn’t work because it just doesn’t!! 

I firmly believe it is not the good times in our life that define who we are; it is the trials and tribulations we face and come through, that tests our real mettle.  I am who I am because of and perhaps also in spite of my bi-polar.  I work very hard to be well every day, I work very hard to be deserving of the support of those closest to me and I surround myself with people who not only understand but can see past my illness.  Because I am worthy, I am I hope a good person and I am also bi-polar. 

Irish Prime Time Programmes exposes some bad practices

Absolutely shocking Prime Time programme exposes bad practices…

The hype was there before the programme ever aired.  We all knew that the Prime Time Investigates programme ‘A Breach of Trust’ aired last Tuesday, was going to be dreadful, especially for parents who have young children in creches at the moment.  So I sat and turned on the programme last Tuesday with thousands of other people and from the outset I could not believe what I was seeing.  The commentator was quick to point out on a number of occasions that the footage we were all viewing was not the only evidence they had gathered over the 200 hours of filming.  The undercover investigators had witnessed many aspects of ‘good practice’ at the creches highlighted, but somehow, that seemed so hollow compared to the footage that was aired.  As a mother, I was shocked, outraged and extremely alarmed at the elements of bad practice that we saw on the primetime programme.  Watching very young children being strapped into chairs, watching them being manhandled, pushed down, punished by isolation tactics and shouted at is not any one’s idea of a nurturing and caring environment.  It’s been years since my children were young enough to be minded inside or outside of the home, but the shock of seeing how some of these children were treated was not lessened by that fact.  Any mother knows that having children triggers a primal instinct to protect them that strengthens as they grow older and it never leaves you, even after they fly the nest.  It was this primal instinct that was screeching at me as I watched that programme.  It is this primal instinct that wants me to cause harm to anyone who causes harm to mine…  And it is this primal instinct that was repulsed by what I watched last Tuesday.  Whether it is your own children or someone else’s at the receiving end of ‘bad treatment’ it doesn’t really matter, the resulting disgust is the same, the resulting horror is the same and the resulting anger is the same.  I have no doubt that minding a multitude of children is a difficult job to do.  It is a job that should be recognised for the importance each parent places upon it.  It should be acknowledged for the benefit or the harm it can do to our young children and the level of trust each parent places upon childcare providers must never, ever be broken in the manner in which it was broken for the many parents of the children involved in the programme.  Some of the behaviour we saw on the programme was tantamount to physical abuse of our most vulnerable precious citizens.

 

I was lucky enough that I had grandparents close by who not only looked after but treasured my young babies while I went back to work.  It was not a choice but a necessity that I had to do that and for most women these days that is also their reality.  Working is not something that many choose to do nowadays and that can have long lasting repercussions.  Feelings of guilt and indeed depression can be a feature of life for many parents during the time their children are very young and they have to leave them every morning with veritable strangers. All you can hope for is that the crèche where your child is, is a good one, a caring one and somewhere where your child will be safe.  There are many crèches throughout the country where this is the case, but the repercussions of that prime time programme will be with us for a long time to come I am sure.  It would certainly give me great pause if I had to leave my child at any crèche and I would certainly try and make sure that there were safeguards in place to protect my precious bundle from the ill-treatment we were witness to on the programme. To the many many thousands of considerate and compassionate crèche workers out there who do a very difficult job under very difficult conditions, I applaud you all for maintaining the high standards expected of you.  To those care workers who treat their job and the children under their care in the same manner as those we witnessed on the Prime Time programme, I say get out of the profession and leave it to those who really care….