Bipolarann -- An ongoing story of managing bipolar disorder

by Ann in Kentcky

My story is ongoing. I am in progress of healing. I have had bipolar symptoms since I was a young girl although the doctors did not know what could possibly be wrong. Through high school things worsened, beginning first with depression for a couple years and then a year and a half of mania and hypomania in which I abused alcohol and prescription medication to bring myself down.

The one good thing about this period of mania, is it happened during the course of my divorce and I didn't have an attorney, is that my manic state of mind had this grandeur illusion that I could beat his attorney and the USMC (they were playing dirty and falsifying records). Well it's a good thing I was manic -- I obsessed over it and worked throughout the nights several times a week without stop. In the end, I won! Eventually it caught up with me, another depression hit and I ate myself to death with cheesecake, then mania where I was obsessive about everything.

I took seven college classes in one semester (grades were three A's and four A+'s), worked 25 hours a week, worked out at the gym like a mad man, and weighed EVERY last bit of food that went into my mouth. I drank at work (I was an admin manager at Lowe's) and drank to fall asleep. Then... depression. After that the cycles sped up, every two weeks was the norm and I had no idea why on earth I was so stinkin' happy for and then I'd get so depressed for no reason. It kept cycling like that. It all caught up to me, I had a breakdown, disassociations, had a stay in the hospital.

Now I am trying school again but have been having increased symptoms and I am so lucky because I get the ultradian cycling. Ugh.

I have created a blog (non-profit) which I want to share with as many people as I can. I have included raw emotional journal entries, including: mania, depression, dysphoria/mixed episode, self harm, etc. I have also added posts with information I have gathered from medical journals about the physiological differences in bipolar disorder, and I connect the dots between the science and how it is expressed in terms of symptoms.

My blog is http://bipolarann.com.