Johns Story from the UK

I don't know whether I am at the beginning or the end of my story but here goes.

I am 46 years old, and live in the UK near Wales. As far as I can recollect I have been bipolar all my life, this is decided in hindsight as I have only just been diagnosed bipolar after a lifetime of not knowing what’s been happening. Only now can I see the patterns, and things begin to make sense.

Over here mental health is almost a dirty word, and peoples understanding of it can be very ill informed. Today for example I went for an occupational health review to decide whether I count as disabled, and am covered by our county’s disability discrimination laws. The MD conducting the review at one point stated, and I quote "You cannot have a mental problem you are far too intelligent" visa vie all mental patients are idiots. And this is the doctor making the decision on my future. Actually I really must have seemed intelligent to the jerk, as I knew more about my condition than he did.

As I say its all new to me, my psychiatrist has offered me lithium treatment or Carbamazepine ( I think), but I am scared of the side effects. I am scared of what I might lose, and that basically is ME. I have never known I was manic, I just thought it was how I was. I knew when I was depressed, but everything else was me. All the women at work know me as a tease with a near the knuckle sense of humor, but luckily they see me as a bit of fun, but in reality I have a major problem controlling myself. Unfortunately the role of my job is changing and I am going to end up dealing with customers outside the cocoon of the company environment where people know and accept my foibles as harmless fun. I will be faced with meeting other young ladies, in a less controlled atmosphere, and I don't trust my self enough not to say or do something wrong, which will end up in a nasty situation.

I have already ruined one marriage with violence and womanizing (again unchecked / un diagnosed mania ) and I have spent 18 years with my second partner fighting these two demons alone. On the former I have won, on the latter I still find it hard to say no (though of late I have managed to say it). God knows I am neither young or good looking, but there is something about my mania that women seem to find enthralling or attractive. Perhaps it offers them an air of danger, or perhaps, from reading your other stories, its just the same romantic illusion they attach to poets and painters.

As I say I don't know whether the diagnosis is the end of a lifetime of suffering story, or the beginning of a new unknown world to come story. Either way it’s where I am.

John

Source: Mental Health America