Days Without Incident
On being in a bipolar episode again
Bipolar is a misnomer. It should be called tripolar, with manic, mixed and depressive phases. I have having a mixed episode now. My doctor put me on a first-generation anti-psychotic called Thorazine last week when it became clear a hypomanic episode was about to escalate into acute mania.
I hoped the Thorazine would arrest the hypomania before it spun into the mixed and depressive phases. But maybe my brain needs to cycle through everything. These phases are the planets and I am their reluctant sun.
Mixed episodes are often described as a cross between depression and mania, but they are more complex than that. They are different for everyone and often considered the most dangerous part of an episode. I cycle through emotions all day. In one hour, I went through calm, panic, despondency, irritability, hopelessness, rage and then calm again. All this in overlapping waves while taking my daughter to summer school, drinking a Coke Zero in Family Mart and walking home. I got home and just started sobbing.
Sometimes episodes arrive without a trigger. This time I’m certain that it was caused in part by long-haul travel to California from Taiwan. But I’m not going to give up my summer trips to see my family.
I am being responsible. I am seeing almost all members of my care team this week: psychiatrist, psychologist and my new EMDR therapist. I need to talk about what it means to have a bipolar episode just as I am starting treatment for trauma caused—and triggered—by bipolar.
Since I cope by analyzing things, this is a chance for me to interrogate how I define stability. Am I going to measure it by how long I am in remission? Or will I accept that this will always be a part of my life, sometimes without warning? Because one mindset is a messier, but ultimately more sustainable, narrative.
I want to interrogate what resiliency means in a mental health context. People say keep saying I’m resilient, but what you perceive as resiliency may simply be privilege. I am able to navigate systems that destroy other people like me because of generational wealth, financial privilege, racial privilege, even the fact that I am married. I know what I am doing when I bring my husband to appointments.
I think most people reading understand this already, but just in case—I want you to interrogate what you think of when you think of someone who is in an active mental health episode. Especially if they have bipolar, schizoaffective or schizophrenia. Sometimes it looks like nothing from the outside.
I am still working and chatting about restaurants and website redesigns with my colleagues. I am taking my daughter to the mall tonight for kimchi stew and some shopping. I have plans with a friend this Wednesday. I try not to cry when the bad feelings hit me. I know they will pass. At 9PM I will take my Thorazine, lie down and wait for my thoughts to stop.
This morning I told my husband “I feel like 2023 is happening again.” I had two episodes which culminated in my fourth hospitalization. He told me to take it easy and do something nice. So I went to the yarn store. When I touch yarn, I know who I am. I’m not Catherine, the bipolar I patient.
I’m Catherine, whose life is filled with softness, warmth, color, texture, rhythm, creation. I am surrounded by people whose existence makes me feel less alone and who I hope feel the same way about me.
I am here. I am the sun, surrounded by suns. And so much more orbits around us than our disorders. In each of our minds are entire galaxies, and this is just an infinitesimal part.
Wow this is so raw. I appreciate the question of what is resiliency? That definition is based a lot on the support networks you might be lucky enough to have, but it’s also a view from the outside. Sometimes people think you’re resilient when really you’re just good at masking.