Explaining these bouts of normalcy to my therapist and psychiatrist, they equated it to the work we’d been doing together for months. But for me, it didn’t feel normal. I wasn’t doing anything different. I’d just wake up one day, after only a few hours of sleep, ready to conquer the world. Knowing that wouldn’t last, I’d pack the days that followed with outings with friends, shopping trips to reward myself for conquering my demons, flirting with men every chance I got. But after the crash, none of these things registered. The five different anti-depressants I’d tried over the course of a year and a half did not affect my ups and downs.
(Subscribe to Women’s Health’s newsletter So This Happened for the latest trending news stories)
After the incident in the cab and the phone call with my mom, I did what every doctor shudders at and Googled my symptoms, landing on the Mayo Clinic’s website, specifically the explainer on bipolar disorder. “But I can’t be bipolar,” I immediately thought. My only experience with bipolar disorder was the psychosis displayed by Cameron Monaghan as Ian Gallagher in Shameless and Claire Danes’ Carrie Mathison in Homeland. Both Showtime series displayed a particular type of bipolar disorder: bipolar I, the one most people are familiar with because its symptoms are so defined.
As I scrolled further into the Mayo Clinic article and saw bipolar II, I learned something: that the differentiating factor between bipolar I and II is how mania presents itself. In BPI, mania can involve psychosis and lead to hospitalization, involving extreme risk-taking and grandiose ideas. But for BPII, you’re more likely to experience a less severe version of these symptoms, called hypomania, which does not last as long and can be misidentified as an simple increase in energy and improved mood. Hypomania hides in plain sight.
Related: Demi Lovato Speaks Up About Living with Bipolar Disorder
As I read the list of ways in which hypomania presents, I recalled instances in my past that could’ve been categorized this way. When I was a child, I would have bouts of rage. Uncontrollable rage set off by nothing in particular. One of these episodes, in particular, led my brother to call my parents scared of what I would do as I tore the house apart looking for some item I needed in that moment. Later on in college, I’d go for a week or so drinking every night and hooking up with random people before I crashed and spent the next few weeks getting high and eating peanut butter on my couch, refusing to see my friends who were at a bar a block away.
Watch this blogger explain what it really feels like to suffer from depression:
When I finished reading multiple articles on bipolar II, I called my psychiatrist to schedule an appointment for that week. A day later, I sat on her couch and explained what I found, with the caveat that I knew I wasn’t the professional, but I was a mess and couldn’t help but look for answers.
She began asking more questions, straight out of the DSM-5 textbook, and realized she and my therapist has missed this diagnosis because, like me, they’d mistaken my brief periods of happiness for medications working or mental health help in play. I left her office with a prescription for Lamictal, a medicine traditionally used for epilepsy. Knowing any new medication required patience, I dutifully took my pill each morning, and in the weeks we followed closely monitored my mood and any triggers. Within six weeks, I felt more even. I was consistently getting out of bed and brushing my teeth, and on days when I felt happier than usual, I didn’t fall down the rabbit hole of flirting and alcohol and shopping sprees. I was, as the psychiatric community would say, leveling out. These small, subtle shifts were huge.
Related: My Bipolar Disorder Was Misdiagnosed as ADHD
It sounds strange to say, but I’m forever grateful for my bipolar diagnosis. I’d gotten to the point where my depression felt like a permanent state and my periods of happiness were my mind teasing me with something I’d never fully grasp. But this diagnosis and the medication to treat it slowly led me to feel like my old self. The shift was noticeable to everyone. I went from not seeing friends or leaving my bed to making plans, working more, and reconnecting with hobbies I’d long since abandoned.
It’s been a few months since the fog lifted, and I’m ready to talk about how I arrived here. I needed to hit bottom and have the wherewithal to acknowledge it and advocate for myself when it felt like nothing would ever change. Arriving at such a low place and now letting the fog lift made me a better friend, daughter, and sister, and a better self. The fog might settle in again at some point, but now that I know what kind of fog I’m dealing with, I’ll always now the most important thing: that it’ll lift.