It was never a conscious decision to become poorly. Many
doctors would speak to me, quizzing me about the events leading up to a manic
episode. Their questions are edged with a slight accusatory tone – ‘were you
aware you were becoming unwell?’ At this point I’ll shift uncomfortably,
because the answer is yes. I try feebly to explain, like the adulterous partner,
‘I couldn’t stop it from happening.’ And this for me is partly true. The grip
of mania is vice like, so forceful that there is no way for me to wriggle out
of it and shrug my way back to sanity. When it’s happening it’s like a snowball
gathering momentum down a steep slope; the snowball clings to every flake of
snow it possibly can whilst hurting towards an inevitable collision with the
earth that will break the staggeringly colossal sphere of bright white into a
fragmented mess, the beautiful purity of it ruptured into dirty muddied flakes
that had been previously been whole.
I cannot deny the impact my mental health issues have had
upon my life. I will have spent a quarter of this year hospitalized come 2017.
I toyed with the idea of not writing anything today, I haven’t been feeling so
articulate of late. That would have been silly though. I don’t know many others
who know what it’s like to spend a chunk of time in hospital for mental health
related issues, besides the people I was in hospital alongside. Although I’m
not unusual in that this has happened to me, I am slightly unusual that I feel
able to speak freely about it. I speak because I can (Laura Marling, my hero)
to anyone who thinks they’d like to listen. I have Bipolar (not sure what type
though, I’m a bit rubbish) which sometimes leads me to have episodes of mania
whereby my energy levels are persistently increased and I lose touch with
reality. It has once led me to have a depressive episode, whereby my pleasure
in life diminished, I was constantly fatigued and lost all sense of hope. This
I find much harder to talk about than the manic episodes. I bare scars I wish I
didn’t, but they are a part of me now and for that I am glad. The alternative
is much sadder.
I adore the Georgia O’ Keeffe quote from which this blog
post pinches its title from. My margins of what I deem to be a success have
shifted hugely. I still have ideas of how I’d like to succeed in life but they
are irrevocably different to what they were a year ago. I judge that me
spending the remainder of this year without spending any time under section
would make it a great success! But as O’ Keeffe says, that is irrelevant. I am
making my unknown known. I have been depressed. I have been elated. I have been
scared. I have thought shoes worn outside the house as optional. For these
reasons you must always have hope. Try not to google ‘positive mental health
mantras’ when feeling blue – most likely being told ‘you’re never alone’ in a
cute font with a sunset backdrop isn’t going to make you feel less alone. Try
talking to your family if you can. If you can’t, talk to your friends. If you
can’t, talk to the Samaritans. Buy your favourite food. Read your most loved
book cover to cover, if only a line at a day because that’s all you have the
energy for. Have long baths, short showers. Basically, do all the things you
can to maintain your mental health. It’s really bloody important. Don’t aspire
to being happy, it’s the most nondescript word around (that and ‘nice’). Be jubilant, be fearful, be hysterical, be
furious, be gleeful. There is a spate of healthy emotions far more interesting
and human than merely being ‘happy,’
