Riding high in April, shot down in May: an account of bipolar disorder

Trigger warning: content mentions suicide

It’s 4am and I’m bouncing on the bed in my student dorm like a five-year-old, reciting the Shakespeare quotations I will need to pass my finals in a big loud voice. I will get in trouble for this the next day when a member of staff at my college calls me in for a little chat about the excessive noise I’ve been making at night. But I don’t care because I feel like a million dollars and life is beautiful – who needs sleep anyway?

Now it’s a year later and something has gone terribly wrong. The high I felt whilst studying for my finals has popped like a soap bubble and in its place a thick and suffocating fog of low mood has drifted through my life. I’m sleeping more than usual, suddenly overcome by fatigue and apathy. And when I’m not sleeping, I’m crying – about nothing, about everything.

I quit my hobbies, which only remind of how empty everything is. I dodge seeing friends, who only remind me of how alone I am. Because I’ve started to feel like there is a wall of glass between me and everyone else – a barrier which keeps us from hearing each other.

“How are you?” someone asks me. “I’m fine,” I lie. “Good,” they say, because they cannot hear the screaming inside my head.

I start to think a lot about ending it all, not because I really want to die, but because I want the pain to stop. I do not take these thoughts seriously, until one day I find myself in hospital following a suicide attempt...

This episode of low mood led to me being diagnosed with major depression. I didn’t think to mention the weeks of high mood and sleeplessness that had me bouncing on the bed at 4am – I’d felt great, so what was the problem, right? I didn’t know then that I was suffering from bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder is a mental illness characterised by extreme mood swings and changes in energy levels. Having experiences beyond the normal ups and downs that most people have, people with bipolar can dip into a state of low mood and low energy (depression) or rise into a state of elevated mood and high energy (hypomania/mania). Hypomania is an elevation in mood and energy without some of the more debilitating symptoms that characterise mania (which may include psychosis).

The manic catalyst

It was a four-month manic episode that finally led to me being diagnosed with bipolar disorder – nearly a decade after the first hypomanic episode that had me bouncing on my bed shouting Shakespeare. It started with sleeplessness. But oddly, the less sleep I got, the more energy I had. My hours of sleep dropped with the passing weeks – 8 hours, then 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 – like an ominous countdown.

I felt a rushing euphoria, I laughed at everything, I danced around with a fizzy, frenetic energy. I lost my appetite and took up smoking. I left my house share, despite having nowhere to go, because I was increasingly running into conflict with the people I was living with (with everyone, actually).

I was spending money like water and making bizarre decisions. In the midst of sofa-surfing, I spent the last of my money checking into a luxury hotel for a week. I spent the week holed away in my room drawing endless pictures of black holes.

Oh yes – about that: I’d proven something about the nature of black holes. Odd, given that I know little about physics. But who needs formal training when you can hear the stars sing?

And another strange thing was happening: coded messages from MI6 began arriving through my headphones via the lyrics of songs by the Village People. I don’t even like the Village People.

By this point, the rushing euphoria I had felt was mixed with terror and horror: I was, at some level, aware that none of this made any sense. Psychosis is Janus-faced, one pair of eyes on reality and the other on – another world entirely.

And both worlds were increasingly frightening: in the real world, I knew there was something seriously wrong and was terrified that I was losing my mind. In my other life, the enemy agents had bugged my phone, which I threw away, and MI6 warned me via the weather forecast that further trouble was coming in like a big black cumulonimbus. I peeped around curtains waiting for the men in the long black car in the car park to come and get me….

From depression to bipolar diagnosis

This manic episode led to me being diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It took nine years for me to be diagnosed with bipolar after first seeing my GP about depression. Unfortunately, this delay is typical. According to a survey by Bipolar UK, it takes an average of nine-and-a-half years for a diagnosis of bipolar to be made after first telling a clinician about any symptoms. Survey participants cited two principal reasons for this delay: misdiagnosis and failure to report hypomanic symptoms.

If you think you might be experiencing symptoms of bipolar disorder, it is crucial to see your doctor so that you can receive an appropriate diagnosis and medication regime.

Because there is hope. Since being diagnosed and put on more appropriate medication, I have experienced a stability and a happiness that I didn’t think were possible for me. I am now volunteering again, having not worked in several years due to my mental health, and it feels so good to embrace recovery and all the opportunities it brings.

For me, staying well involves a combination of medication, therapy and self-care. Making sure I get enough sleep, not taking on too much stress, taking time to do gentle exercise – these things all help to keep me well. Reaching out for support from professionals, or from friends and family, is crucial. Depression and mania can both feel very isolating; but there is help available.

In his song, That’s life, Frank Sinatra sings of life’s ups and downs: “That’s life, / That’s what all the people say, / You’re riding high in April, / Shot down in May”. Perhaps as someone with bipolar disorder I identify with that lyric more than average. But I am slowly learning to trust that, with the right support, I can navigate the highs and lows I experience.