Stigma: Me : friends

If you have been following my story, you will know how lonely it is after you have been diagnosed. I am BI-polar one to clarify.
I was treated at 18 for a psychotic episode. The doctor cannot diagnose you after one episode, because it may have been a stress induced breakdown. I was what they called a genuine case which meant that I would respond to treatment, get better and move along with life . Unlike many others I met who have just gone down and down.
I remember one session with the psych and I explained why I did not think art therapy could help, as I did not want to be amongst others problems in a group setting when I had my own to deal with. And she said I see, you want to be in amongst the well. To me she sounded a bit sceptical as if people who had been through what I had experienced are never fully part of normality again. I had doubts myself all ready now they were confirmed. I had a mountain to climb and I knew it

It's rough. I developed my symptoms in high school and if you tell them you're struggling with mental health they're all "we're on your side" but once you show symptoms they go running.
I'm glad you're moving on with life. Bipolar is a tough one.

My life had been turned on it's head. After the 28 day programme in rehab, I wished they had advised me that recovery had barely started.
I spoke to friends if I saw them, I went to the pub for a while, it was a regular Friday night thing. But I realised that getting drunk was doing me no favours and and decided that no drink was the answer, I had no choice. No drink meant limited social life but I had no job anyway so feeling left out was just part and parcel of what I would have to contend with for a while.
If someone had just put it in a nicer way, not just don't you realise you are sick, or softened the blow saying I needed to take time out, things may have been different.
I spoke to old flat mate, but I was incredibly depressed and my future seemed bleak. I watched the music channels and we had a pizza but the only music that held my attention was hard rock and I eventually settled for my own company until I felt ready to re-join the working world. I had to go through the whole denial and acceptance phase.

I met one of my pals on a night out and she would not speak to me because she had just lost her job. She was obviously upset and didn't feel up to acting.
She asked me to hold her wine and coat for a second until she could think of how to escape and It clicked with me and I let her be.
By this point Its safe to say I only had a boyfriend going for me. Dearly devoted Fred. He went on Holiday with his friends from what he told me, were egging him on to cheat on me and pull in the night clubs. I thought that this was their way of saying that I was just a lost cause now.
They weren't the only ones who had reached this conclusion. Top of the list: My own parents. An ex-teacher tried to help and asked my brother to asked me if I would like my art work from school. I thought that they just wanted rid of it and I said I do not want it, just bin it. I said this because I thought they wanted nothing in connection with me. I felt like I had jail bait tattooed on my fore head

Fred was really persistent and demanding. I would fall asleep in his parents conservatory, and even in his room I would sit on his seat and flake out. I needed the medication but they had sedative. I asked him to give me nights to myself so I could chill and listen to music or catch up with TV. He would turn up anyway. He told me to stop listening to some of my music, because he listened to a lyric: bury me, bury me, I am finished with you. He was saying that my rock music would make me ill again.
We went to the pictures one time and he went to grab my hand and I took it away and he started acting like a parent : how dare you make a fool of me, next time you will hold my hand. I never really opposed him because I was depressed. Out of work and out of friends and parents who wanted nothing more than to wash their hands of me.

All the advise on mental health stipulates that you have force yourself to do things like exercise. But you cannot fight the natural progression of mental illness. If you have very little energy, it won't come back over-night.

You are depressed for a reason and carrying on as normal just won't work. Sometimes it just isn't possible to face the day. You have to let yourself be broken. Something needs to be repaired. It is like a physical illness, and you have to cut things out of your life for as long as the head needs you to.

I remember my doctor saying after another of our sessions that there is light at the end of the tunnel but it was like she was responding to my tenacity rather than her own advice. Why should I settle for less? She seemed quite weary with her work if I must say. She asked me about my earliest memory while I was an in-patient and I did not answer. This was my business, and there was no way I would take anything to do with the social services. It would be like going from the frying pan and into the fire.

My advice to anyone who has ever been admitted due to mental illness :
TIME
Concentrate on you. I cannot begin to imagine what it must be like for a mother or father who has been in hospital to come out and not be able to look after their kids on their own without help. Most kids understand that their parent is needing rest, recuperation and medical assistance but the parent must feel a failure and riddled with guilt. Someone needs to say: It won't all ways be like this, you will get back on track and we understand.

I feel like many health professionals put too much emphasis on how a persons "illness" affects all those around them. And they forget the one in the centre of it all: the individual. Considering they are all ready unwell, making a person feel like a burden can only lead to one solution : suicide.

I also wish they would have told me a lot more after the diagnosis.

What I've found is that they're not trained to do so yet, and the state of the art of bipolar treatment is just beginning to evolve beyond "treat reactively until cycling stops and call it good."