Mental health advocate Sabine NLD Bittle writes a letter to her younger self and shares what it was like when they first gave her a bipolar disorder diagnosis.
For the longest time I’d always known there was something “wrong” with me. Was it maybe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome aka Yuppie Flu? Hypoglycaemia? Hypothyroidism? Season Affective Disorder? I just couldn’t figure out what it was. Nobody could. This was partly because I never told anyone about my manic episodes (or my depression for that matter), and partly because none of my doctors at that time were paying much attention to me.
I didn’t think mania was a problem
I mean, before a bipolar diagnosis, I don’t think any of us ever think that the highs are part of any kind of illness. The highs are exhilarating. They’re wonderful (sometimes). Okay, they weren’t always particularly good for me, but what did I care? At times I was bold, brave, daring, smart, wild, fun, amazing, I was the Lizard King, the Goddess, I could touch the stars, I could do anything, everything, I didn’t need sleep, I didn’t need help, I didn’t need to eat, I was superhuman and I was going to change the world. Who wouldn’t go along for that kind of ride? And if anything weird happened, hey I lived between the veils anyway, right?
Even depression was totally normal for me
Being depressed and suicidal was normal for me too. Internal darkness was an almost constant companion. I’d grown up with it. I wrote poems about it. Created art out of it. Lived it. Made it part of who I was. When I felt too dead or too dark inside, I’d cut myself just to feel alive. To feel a different kind of pain, something more acute, something outside of myself, something I could see and recognise and identify, something that was starkly beautiful, something that gave me pure relief from the pain I felt within.
All that was normal for me. To be flung from one intense emotion to another was life as I knew it. I didn’t think that I was ill. I thought I was “special”, unique and creative. That it was part of my purpose. And so I never brought it up with any doctors or psychologists. Ever.
What made me ask for help
What I did desperately seek help for was the physical debilitation of the lows. When, for no reason at all, I suddenly didn’t have the energy to get out of bed, to brush my teeth, to hold my back up straight, or even to keep my eyelids open. When my head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton wool, when I couldn’t string a coherent thought together and a massive, heavy, cold, dark, grey hand dragged me down from within my own body.
It was purely the fatigue I was seeking help for. And never found any.
And then they diagnosed me with bipolar disorder
“If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, acts like a duck, and looks like a duck, I’m pretty sure it’s a duck.” my homeopath said one day after months and months of lengthy consultations.
“You have bipolar disorder.”
The intense flush of relief to finally know what was wrong with me was almost instantly sucked into the depths of what I originally thought of as a deeply oppressive life sentence. Crazy? Oh my God. Crazy. I was crazy. Officially. Fucking. Crazy. What? What? What?!
I didn’t like that fucking duck.
I’ll never forget how the earth fell out from under my feet on that day. How my blood went cold. How everything changed. Suddenly everything made sense. And then, just as suddenly, it didn’t.
Where does bipolar end and where do I begin?
My entire identity, unbeknownst to me up until that point, was wrapped up in what was medically known as a mental illness. I was fiercely creative. And fiercely emotional. “When I’m happy, I’m fucking happy. When I’m down, I’m fucking drowning.” That’s exactly how I used to describe myself to people. And of course, I would rather throw myself into a wall of drawn swords than not to have the freedom to express myself. I thought it was a choice.
It suddenly it occurred to me that for all the years I had spent describing myself to people, I was actually describing the symptoms of bipolar disorder. And suddenly, I was lost. It turned out that in all my life, all I had actually been was a walking cluster of the symptoms of a mental illness.
And as if that wasn’t enough, when I went home and started researching bipolar, what little remained of the earth beneath me crumbled away when I discovered the link between bipolar and creativity. And now fucking what? Was I bipolar because I was creative? Or was I creative because I was bipolar?
Don’t become the disease
“Don’t become the disease.” my doctor warned me. But what the hell did that mean? Okay, fine, I knew what he meant, but how was I supposed to unpack that? How was I supposed to separate myself from the disorder? Was I supposed to ignore one part of me somehow? Or build bridges between the two? Maybe to somehow bash them together into someone who was more ‘acceptable’? Or make everything one glorious, cohesive, peaceful, Zen-like one?
And how was I supposed to tell all this to my family? My boyfriend?
I’d never felt so found and so lost in one moment.
But somehow, over 20 years later, I’m still here. And somehow, not lost. These are my ever-so-slightly wiser words to the scared and bewildered me when I just got my bipolar diagnosis …
My letter to my younger self …
My love,
You might feel like the ground has cracked like a sci-fi movie and fallen out from under you, but you’re gonna find your ground again. Even better my love, you’re gonna build a new ground. Your own ground. With a stronger, deeper, gentler sense of self than you’ve ever had before. You will finally come to know who you truly are, and not only will you eventually accept yourself for it, you will love yourself for it.
And that’s something you’ve never, ever had.
You’re going to learn about your bipolar disorder, you’re going to empower yourself from every frikkin’ angle you can find, you’re going to learn to fight when you need to, and you’re going to learn to yield when you need to. I’m not saying that you won’t still get messy. You will. You’ll still have dark days and wild times and anguish and despair, and blinding gloom and moments of watching yourself from outside yourself, and all kinds of crazy shit, but you’re gonna make it through all of it. Promise.
You are surrounded by incredible love and deep support, your family and friends love you for who you are, your boyfriend understands you better than you understand yourself and has become your biggest fan and what you now call your ‘strongest medicine’.
Today you’re living your dreams, you’ve found your voice, your tribe, your home, your true creativity … you no longer question whether you’re bipolar because you’re creative or whether you’re creative because you’re bipolar or even if you’re some kind of “walking cluster of the symptoms of a mental illness”.
Because it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Because you just are. You’re strong. You’re brave and you’re beautiful. You just happen to be bipolar.
You’re a warrior.
