Having a Great Time, Wish I Were Dead
December 28, 2007 by pistolpete
For those who’ve read my blog or comments on yours for some time, it won’t come as a surprise that I have Bipolar Disorder. My particular label is “Bipolar II with mixed states” or “Bipolar II with rapid cycling” - depending on which psychiatrist I consult. Either way, my moods shift such that, (as the title suggests) I can begin a post card with “Having a Great Time.” and end it with “Wish I Were Dead.”
While I did start blogging to work my way through a depressive cycle (Blogging & Depression), I quickly found that I became so obsessed that I went into a “hypo-manic” state. This is like going to a theme park and riding one of those medium-sized roller coasters that aren’t so scary, where the lines aren’t as long.
My psychiatrist at that time was more adept at working with inpatient children than outpatient adults who had full-time jobs and full-time families. She was very aggressive with my meds, to say the least. I was on a cocktail of drugs. Among many other things, I was taking the equivalent of ritalin on top of a healthy dose of speed. I was spinning more and more out of control. When she started talking about ECT (Losing Your Mind or Losing Your Memory?), I decided it was time to look for another psychiatrist (10 Reasons to Leave Your Psychiatrist).
My new psychiatrist was/is perhaps the best psychopharmacologist on the Island (if her prices are any indication, she certainly is). She essentially cleaned out my system such that I was left to simply feel what I felt, which was a bleak sense that life was not worth living. While I’ve never been close to suicide, I was pondering it spiritually (Faith and Suicide). At the same time, I was also wondering about the wisdom (and even sinfulness) of consistently wallowing in my darkness. (Sinful Despair).
In addition to my strong faith (which I see as Christ’s faith in me, not my faith in Christ), I have a tremendously supportive family. Two other, worldly things that can lift me up (even if only for a while) are beautiful poetry by people like Wendell Berry (The Peace of Wild Things) and good music from people like Johnny Cash (Beating the Blues).
While I’m not one to offer advice to anyone about mental illness, one recommendation made to me early on that has more than paid off is that I read Kay Redfield Jamison, particularly her memoir An Unquiet Mind (One Unquiet Mind to Another). Jamison not only struggles with Bipolar, but she’s one of the world’s foremost experts on it. It has been incredibly inspiring to me to see that someone with Bipolar can accomplish something worthwhile in the world.
So, now that I’ve got this post out of my system, it’s time to leave my own insanity behind and go back to the usual insanity that is Necessary Therapy. Believe me, it’s a much better place to be.
{For more information and support on Bipolar Disorder and other mental illnesses, visit the National Association for the Mentally Ill or the National Institute for Mental Health. If you just want to hang out with a bunch of crazy ladies, visit bipolar chicks blogging.}
Hang in there man … you’ve got a lot to offer. I like the point about “Christ’s faith in me”. I enjoy your blog.
The Pistol fires back: Thank you for your encouragement. It helps to know I’ve been down this road before. And I don’t travel it alone.
Pistol Pete,
I can’t fully comprehend your situation, I pray that God grants you strength and peace however.
Hearing your story reminds me of Proverbs 3:5. Though Proverbs 3:5 addresses wisdom, it seems to fit here as well in terms of “understanding” the baggage, the afflictions, the uneasiness, the self-doubt or whatever else each of us is bound to experience as a trial or valley while on our walk in Him.
Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
Grace and peace be with you.
The Pistol fires back: Thanks, Christopher, for your thoughtfulness. Proverbs 3:5 is actually quite a good verse when it comes to Bipolar. Perhaps even more so than most people, I can’t trust my own thinking, or feeling, and need to have that much more trust in the Lord and in God’s Word. Thanks again.
Pistol Pete! It’s THE best mental illness! Click on the links on my side links to famous manic-depressives..you’re in mighty good company! i mean i have it! i’m not really into 1,2,3,4..i have mixed states so that plonks you in bi-polar 1..so much for bi-polar LITE! yeah i get all that..i spent years feeling suicidal..never acted on it..vile depression & a fair bit of hypo-mania which harnessed & controlled by my lithium aint so bad..
The Pistol fires back: Wow. Shall we form a club? Can we get somebody to build us a treehouse? Do you know a secret handshake we could use? I’m sure you’re the exception, but I don’t generally like hanging out with people with have Bipolar. They’re sort of a bunch of loons, if you know what I mean?
Happy New Year Pistol Pete and thanks for your transparency and courage–an example to me.
The Pistol fires back: The same to you and you are most welcome.
I have An Unquiet Mind in my ‘To Be Read’ pile…glad to hear it’s a wise choice. Thanks so much for stopping by my place and taking the time to comment. I have good days and bad days ;). And on the bad days I have a great support system both here in real life and in the blogosphere. I look forward to visiting here often. BTW…would you mind if I put you on The Mood Disorder Network blogroll?? It’s a blog I am working on that will feature the writing of other individuals with mood disorders.
The Pistol fires back: Yes, if you can read just one book, let it be An Unquiet Mind Good to hear you have a strong support system. Glad to hear you’ll visit again. I guess I could be on your “Mood Disorder Network” blogroll. It won’t require an physical acumen test, will it? I’m terrible at those. Anyway, thanks for dropping in and leaving a comment.
Kay Redfield Jamison’s books have been a great help to me, as well. I’m boringly chronically depressed, btw, not bipolar, and able to tame my disease quite easily with a steady diet of Paxil. In “Touched with Fire,” Jamison suggests a connection between creativity and these sorts of mental disorders. Which, in a weird way, gives me peace. It seems like an acceptable bargain, the benefits of artistic creativity against the challenges of mental imperfection.
And in the end, my struggles with depression make me even more aware than I might otherwise be of my need for God’s grace.
The Pistol fires back: Excellently put. Can you imagine if they one day therpeutically modified the gene producing mental illnesses such people like us no longer existed? Personally, I’m glad Redfield Jamison is working with the group on the human genome project and hope her voice continues to be heard. Thanks for respondiing.
Thanks just for being who you are. Thoughts from people with real problems are always much more valuable to me than the sterile talking heads that write a lot of the books and fill up a lot of the airwaves in contemporary Christian circles these days. You are accepted and appreciated as you are - a ragamuffin like me. Thank you.
RE post #2:
“The Pistol fires back: Thanks, Christopher, for your thoughtfulness. Proverbs 3:5 is actually quite a good verse when it comes to Bipolar. Perhaps even more so than most people, I can’t trust my own thinking, or feeling, and need to have that much more trust in the Lord and in God’s Word. Thanks again.”
Pistol Pete;
I thank God, for revealing the scripture to me, and for using me to share it with you, and whomever else may need a proper and timely word.
I pray that this spirit of edification and outpouring amongst visitors to NT is infectious, I pray that we all carry the thought and idea to lift one another up, not just in times of need, but as a way of life, a way of being better brethren to one another.
Let us serve each other before we serve ourselves, thus all may be served.
Grace and peace be with you.
I spent about three years in a serious run with Major Depression (related to emotional abuse … I’ll post details sometime), and I thought that little could be worse than that, until I met a dear friend diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. He and I swapped stories, and he once said that he came back from an almost-two-hour lunch (because he decided on a manic whim to go swimming at the indoor pool near his office) and looked over the stairwell, thinking of how easy it would be to jump. The change was that fast …
One thing about the spiritual ramifications of mental illness … I think that there is a difference somewhere between choosing to mope and being medically depressed. I’m not sure where that line is, but I’m sure that there is one.
Anyway … I will continue to pray for you. I also think I’m going to write about this soon … Look for a post called “The Army of God: Shooting Our Own Wounded.” (Yes, I know the title before I start writing this one … but there’s a reason for that.)
The Pistol fires back: Thanks for your story and glad to hear I may have inspired a post.
I look at mental illness (at least mine) as genetic, but I do have a choice. I can either allow myself to wallow in my misery or seek help. It’s the same with my alcoholism. I can either be a practicing or a recovering addict. This doesn’t mean I don’t still feel awful some (well, a lot) of the time, but things do get better.
Your title (…Shooting Our Own Wounded.”) reminds me of something an elderly woman who was depressed told me once, “I was told Christians weren’t supposed to get depressed!” I prescribed one Psalm a day and told her to see me in the morning.
Thanks for weighing in.
what the hell pete?
The Pistol fires back: There are about a dozen ways I could read this, inflecting each word, then combinations of words. Are you surprised? Chagrined? Angered? Bemused? Disappointed? Please, say more.
here’s hoping and praying for a 2008 full of many good things for you pistol.
The Pistol fires back: And may your crooked shores be made straight.
trying to figure out what the hell all of this means, confused is the word, happy new year, don’t forget to hang out with some loons.
The Pistol fires back: I’m not sure what anything means myself. I just shot you off an e-mail to see if I might explain things better.
Peter,
I’m glad to see a certified “man of the cloth” who embraces the very real nature of psychological disorders and NOT consider them to be some strange Satanic influence that drinking strychnine and handling snakes will cure.
Mental illness is just that…an illness and it’s very real. Laying of hands won’t cure psychosis any faster than the laying on of Haldol. Not by itself, anyway. Depression and all of it’s mental/emotional variables requires a combination of meds, cognitive therapy, hope and the will of the patient to get better. Maybe the last two are where spirituality comes in.
I’m a firm believer in faith..maybe not solely in an ecclesiastical vein, but I do know the importance of believing in the distinct possibility of a better tomorrow. Considering the many psychic scars we bear (many of which are self-inflicted) I’m really and truly surprised there isn’t some gifted and forward thinking, patient-centric analyst out there offering “psychic therapy”. You know exactly what I mean by psychic therapy. And I ain’t talkin’ ’bout John Edward neither!!!
Good luck to you, Peter. This is an issue that sadly, hits very close to home with probably more than half of your readers.
So keep on as you know how. Do as we all do—continue to fight the good fight. Even with the evils of a seratonin imbalance, the world is still a pretty groovy place.
I force myself to believe that even when I don’t.
Especially when I don’t.
Happy New Year Peter,
LK
The Pistol fires back: Thanks for your thoughts. I really enjoy the way you write.
well i know some manic-depressives are very disabled by their illness & i often wonder if they’re just lazy..but then i’m apparently ‘a high functioning bi-polar’ which is true in the sense i only had 2 episodes & the first was when i was 38 & was post-partuum. But i’m not making light of my illness..the doctors say i have a severe form..i do however have good self management skills etc etc…generally Pete i try & present the normal side of the disease..no-one would have any idea if i didn’t tell them..but i insist on destigmatising..i’m not a loon..it’s just like diabetes..in my case a chemical inbalance that needs managing..nothing more..nothing less..if you click on the famous people with bp link on my blog you see a lot of ‘normal’ people you wouldn’t have thought had the condition..God bless..
The Pistol fires back: I’m not sure about you, but that sentence you just wrote is definitely having a manic episode.
Uh…thanks….I think???
Someday, when I grow up, I can’t wait for people to appreciate “what” I say, as opposed to that patented “way” I say it.
Some day….
That gives me something to aspire to in 2008.
Thanks Pete.
LK
The Pistol fires back: Funny, I think I get more of a kick out of being about to write well than actually having anything to write. Maybe it’s because, as a minister, I am so confidence in the content of what God says through us, that I just have to focus on writing it well. Nonetheless, I pray your form and content come together for a blessed union - now and forever.
Hey, PP:
Oooh. Not sure how that sounds…
I FINALLY figured out how to “subscribe” to others’ blogs through WordPress. So I be catching up. Sorry to hear about your struggles. I do have a theory that everyone who has these kind of issues has them as part and parcel of some sort of major talent. And from your writing, this seems to be the case. In fact, most people I know who achieve alot are just a bit (well, maybe alot) crazy. Perhaps to enhance humility?
The Pistol fires back: Thanks for your encouraging words. Kay Redfield Jamison articulates your theory in a book about gifted people who have Bipolar. It’s called Touched by Fire. I’d like to agree, but I have doubts. I do think my illness gives me a hyper-sense of reality. I think, feel, see, and touch, more intensely. My manic episodes also give me the energy to produce a large body of work in a short time. Mostly, though, I think my Bipolar just makes me a little unusual and some people value peculiarity and call it genius. Thanks again for your thoughts, though.
My mother has bipolar and rapid-cycles. Her bipolar hit her shortly after she and Dad divorced when I was 8…and over the years, it just got worse and worse, culminating in a suicide attempt and mass destruction of our house when she woke up, angry that she wasn’t dead. My first act as an 18 year old (thus an “adut”) was to sign her into the hospital on a 72 hour hold…as her “Guardian.”
It sounds to me that it didn’t go that far with you…you are blessed. I will keep you and your family in my prayers.
If you are interested ,here’s the post I wrote on what it was like to grow up with a mother who suffered from this disease:
http://adorotedevote.blogspot.com/2007/09/aunt-nutsy.html
God bless you!
~ Julie
The Pistol fires back: Wow! What an experience. You are right, my Bipolar episodes have been more self-contained. I voluntarily admitted myself into a psych unit and have since accepted all the treatment necessary to function as best I can. From what I see and hear, though, I am the exception. And I say this not with pride, but with sorrow. So many beautiful, wonderful people, are so consumed by Bipolar that they become lost in life and decide the world would be better off without them. I’ve had such thoughts at times, but, by the grace of God, they’ve never prompted me to action.
Thanks for the link to your story. I’ll look forward to reading it.
One final note - you might be interested (if you’re not familiar with it already) in a group called NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill). They offer a great deal of support not just for persons with serious mental illnesses, but especially for their loved ones. My wife has participated in some of their classes and support groups and has found them very helpful.
I hate your site. I am so jealous that your faith is strong either in Christ or Christ’s in you. I used to have faith until I was at the very bottom of my pit for the gazillionth time, begging for this struggle to stop so I can go on being “normal”. Wondering how many times I’ll have to do this. I’m also a rapid cycling bipolar. As if you couldn’t tell I’m on a down cycle.
I love your site. Because it shows me I’m not the only one putting in their Google search engine, “why do I wish I were dead?” Because it actually made me laugh. Because it’s there. So I think I’ll wind this up on a positive note - and I have so few of those - you’re lucky you are getting one.
Thanks for sharing. I do believe it helps.
Cheryl
Cheryl -
I can appreciate what you are saying. Sometimes I hate my site, too. I try to write in it daily, but lately it has been a burdensome chore just to crank out a post now and then. I refuse to use it as a means to spread misery (which I could easily do), so sometimes I go blank.
I can also identify with you that there are many times it feels like I have no faith. At those times, I just need to keep reading Scripture, talking with trusted, empathetic Christian friends, and reminding myself that it isn’t so much that I hold onto faith, but God holds onto me through faith in Christ.
I’m grateful you find my site meaningful. People like you keep me writing and pressing on for another day. I’m glad you can laugh with me at the absurdities of the life in which we find ourselves.
I am honored to be getting a positive note from you, but you are welcome to send less than positive ones. Just keep coming back.
Am I to understand that you were taken off all your meds by your dr and underwent ECT? Would love to know your experiences with that and if on any meds now. My daughter is going thru right now.
The Pistol fires back:
No, absolutely not. I would never recommend that. I was given the choice of ECT by a psychiatrist who didn’t know what she was doing and I declined. From what I’ve read and heard, ECT can be effective (usually in conjunction with other meds) when a person has Bipolar and is mostly depressed. As a rapid cycler, it likely would have sent me off in all sorts of directions I wouldn’t want to go. While I have heard of cases where ECT can be effective (under very specific circumstances), there are many doctors who won’t even consider it.
I am currently on many meds - Seroquel, Risperdal, Lithium, Lamictal, Clonazepam, and Fish Oil. While I hate being dependent on so many meds, I know the alternative is much worse.
Thanks for dropping by. I pray your daughter is on the road to wellness.
Jails have the internet now….
I FINALLY figured out how to “subscribe” to others’ blogs through WordPress. So I be catching up. Sorry to hear about your struggles. I do have a theory that everyone who has these kind of issues has them as part and parcel of some sort of major talent. And from your writing, this seems to be the case. In fact, most people I know who achieve alot are just a bit (well, maybe alot) crazy. Perhaps to enhance humility?
The Pistol fires back: Thanks for your encouraging words. Kay Redfield Jamison articulates your theory in a book about gifted people who have Bipolar. It’s called Touched by Fire. I’d like to agree, but I have doubts. I do think my illness gives me a hyper-sense of reality. I think, feel, see, and touch, more intensely. My manic episodes also give me the energy to produce a large body of work in a short time. Mostly, though, I think my Bipolar just makes me a little unusual and some people value peculiarity and call it genius. Thanks again for your thoughts, though.
The Pistol fires back - again?: Once more, a slight edit. I tend to be a bit prudish with language. Thank you, however, for your kind words. And, did I fire that paragraph above or are you imitating me? If you are, you’ve done a fine job.