Overcoming Mental Illness

And so 2007 is slowly drawing to a close…as my clock goes (AEST) there is a mere 25 and a 1/2 hours left as I begin this post…and as with most people at this time I am thinking of three things:

1. So, what are my chances of a New Year’s pash…
2. Blimey, better get cracking on making some resolutions…
3. The internal-analysis of the last twelve months…

Well I can categorically tell you that my chance of a New Year’s pash are zilch (zero, nada, nought) unless I somehow manage to enter a manic phase in the next 25 hours 27 minutes - the chances of which are pretty slim! And what exactly is the point of making resolutions anyway?

My mind however has been mulling over the last object on this list with a kind of exasperated urgency. Voices, songs, screams and agonised yelps are haunting my every waking moment. The thing I find hard with my bipolar is getting all the ghosts to shut up, they’re just there, constantly, bickering away at my soul until I am nothing but a cowering wreck on the floor.

So let’s for a moment, just a moment (allow me that) forget that the events of the last eleven months happened. Let’s rewind the clock and take a peek at the year that wasn’t, a year that this time twelve months ago was going to be one of the best of my life, instead of the bitch year from hell it became!

[NOTE: From this point on everything not in italics is what could have happened if 2007 had gone the way I had hoped/whereas everything in italics is what actually happened]

January was not the best start to the year, I’ll give it that. I was suffering from the crippling illness that is Glandular Fever - a sickness that rips out your energy and leaves you a hollowed out shell barely able to move. However, I gave it my best shot! I worked, hung out with friends, drank with my housemates and went on photography shoots in the Dandenongs the results of which I was able to share and show off to all my friends, as some of the images I took that day are the best I ever took. As the months changed the Glandular Fever was beginning to ease it’s physical grip and I knew that all I had to do was battle through the depression this illness was going to throw on me.

As my girlfriend had suffered from the same illness the year before I was aware that depression usually follows the physical symptoms of glandular fever. It’s because the virus has bitten such a vicious chunk of your energy your mind is just unable to fend off the onset of this mental symptom.

It was a hard thing to feel, having overcome my depression, only to feel those feelings all over again for different reasons. Fighting it was hard, as it would have been all too easy to allow it to take over me completely. However with the focus I had on my nearly completed interactive-novel ‘Behind Closed Eyes’ and the support of my girlfriend I was able to distract myself enough to not allow it full control of my senses. Starting college whilst still suffering glandular fever was tough, but fantastic, and I was looking forward to all the work I could accomplish over the following year.

As February began drawing to a close, still suffering glandular fever but getting there, I was walking from dropping my girlfriend off with her friends to do some work on my novel when I received a phone call during which I learnt I’d been diagnosed with a form of leukemia (CLL) and needed to make an appointment to speak to my Doctor urgently. When I sat down the following day to tell my girlfriend of this news, and how it was upsetting me, she listened, and it felt great to get this off my chest. A problem shared is a problem halved, as they say. Thus when I went to the Doctor on the Friday she was there to speak to afterwards about what I had been told instead of sending me a text message asking if I wanted to go out for an evening of tears. Which, let’s be honest, is the last thing you want to do after spending an entire week trying to come to terms with a terminal illness and not knowing how long you have left to live!

Three days later she ended out relationship by text message and I was left wondering how suddenly everything had gone so wrong/Three days later we, with everything that was going on in both of our lives, organised a gathering of friends and acquaintances for an almighty piss-up designed to relieve our stresses and have some fun/The glandular fever still gripping me, the CLL secret eating away at me, the emotional turmoil I was in following the break-up; made it impossible for me to write the assignments I had to write and as such lost my college course and benefit payments/The glandular fever still gripped me but I surged on none-the-less to write my assignments, driven by the desire to get rat-arsed come the week’s end. So by the end of that week I had written several half decent, but not half bad given the circumstances, assignments and my study-benefits were granted giving me an income/The fracked up week to end all fracked up weeks ended with me sitting under a tree bawling my eyes out/The difficult and somewhat tiring week ended with a group karaoke session, several kegs of whisky, a slurpy sex session and the distinct odour of vomit the following morning.

March, now that my glandular fever had subsided was all about college, CLL, and finally becoming the person I wanted to be. My first port of call was a conversation with Grace about all that had been happening, the second an evening spent with Sally having a few beers so I could finally get to know her better, my third port of call was the finalisation of the ‘Behind Closed Eyes’ project so it would be ready for my girlfriend’s birthday/March, now that my recovery from glandular fever had been put on indefinite hold, saw my depression from this illness relapse as feared into full blown depression following the emotional roller-coaster of the last week of February. Unable to talk to Grace about the CLL I fled to Port Fairy in the hope I would be able to fend off the breakdown I could see looming on the horizon. It didn’t work; the depression darkened, my self-harm came back, and I ended up inflicting for the first time in twelve months, and the breakdown hit me like a tonne of fracking bricks.

The effects of the breakdown were devastating. My brain shut down and couldn’t function; self harm became normality, my hallucination returned but her supportive mischevity had become malicious viciousness, but I fought on as best I could. I found myself cutting, burning and whipping daily in order to relieve the pain and focus my efforts on my next novel, now that ‘Behind Closed Eyes’ was in the can/The effects of overcoming glandular fever, depression and finishing my novel were obvious to one and all. With college in full swing my social anxiety was waining, and even though I was still being affected by the CLL diagnosis, with the information out in the open it made it less looming. I started to make friends slowly at college, and with my social anxiety becoming less of an issue, further established my friendship with Sally through my girlfriend. With my life less problematic than it had been in the past I was able to support my girlfriend emotionally through her stresses of college and things seemed to be going well as the diagnosis of a terminal illness shakes your brain up as to what you should be doing with your life, and we found ourselves connecting more emotionally because of it/After a couple of months of more emotional abuse and angry arguing I was not able to celebrate her birthday with her due to the fact we were no longer speaking. The work I had done on her present was for nothing, and this deepened my depression and effects of the breakdown/When my girlfriend’s birthday rolled around she greeted my present with the excitement to which I’d hoped, paying off over six months of work and made me feel awesome. The holiday which accompanied the interactive novel had to have it’s date’s slightly altered due to my crapness, but it gave us both something to look forward to.

When May rolled around we moved in together as planned earlier in the year and our arguments increased a little. Being however so close to each other all the time, and with my social anxiety pretty much a thing of the past due to college and the efforts I was making to be more outward (brought on significantly by having death tap me on the shoulder), we found our connection strengthening. Friendships were also deepening at college and things were finally working out/When May rolled around my self harm was out of control, my hallucinations were becoming a daily occurrence, and my isolation; brought on by the reduction of my social circle due to the breakup, caused me to lose it and one Tuesday afternoon attempted suicide. I survived, and was amazed that when I saw my ex-ex-girlfriend and my ex-girlfriend the day after that neither noticed I was completely out of it from having nearly died the day before. When Grace saw the suicide letter I had left I nearly told her everything to do with CLL and what had happened with college, but my desire to protect my ex-girlfriend (who was still not coping well with the breakup and her own stresses) was too strong and kept it a secret. Eleven days later, as I attempted to re-connect with my ex (as I was desperate to become friends with her again as I didn’t know how long I had left due to the CLL) her emotional abuse continued and she told me I “should just kill myself,” and spent that night sitting in a park away from any objects which could do the job as I feared for my life. My Mum arrived for a visit, one of the few highlights of the year, and after being attacked by my ex for not caring enough about her since she broke up with me started to realise her abuse would never end.

In June, following one final failed effort to reconnect with my ex by sacrificing something of great value to me in order to afford phone credit, decided to leave Melbourne. I packed, said my goodbyes to Grace and a couple of other friends (not knowing whether I would ever see them again), and hit the road/In June, following a stressful few weeks of exams for the both of us, my girlfriend and I hit the road for our five days in the Whitsundays and lots of merriment was had. On our return I helped her finalise and pack for her exchange trip and then set about having as much fun and excitement as we could before she left/Arriving in Adelaide I started to question what was happening to me as my mood fluctuations were starting to get out of control. Later that month I learned my CLL was not as bad as first thought and wished, as I sat alone, I had learnt this in February/When I learnt from one of my visits to the Doctor that my CLL would not see me dead by the end of the year, a massive piss-up was had and lots of sore heads were felt in the morning!

The first week of July saw one of my family in hospital, another end up a heartbeat from death after an overdose, and a week long campaign of email abuse from my ex. I cracked, and undertook a weekend of self-harm not seen before. I ended it by knocking myself unconscious with a tree/July saw several parties come and go as Grace and my ex prepared to go to overseas. There was drinking, stress outs, massages and all sorts of last minute shenanigans/I cut all contact with the people in my past and following the tree incident found myself entering a manic phase and rampaged through Adelaide doing very uncharacteristically Addy things I still don’t think I can go into (though anyone who’s bipolar type 1 may have an idea)/I said my goodbyes to Grace and my ex-girlfriend (we broke up amicably at her request to not have a long distance relationship) at the airport and returned home to get myself sorted for my next several months at college and continue to enjoy the rest of the year.

The months which followed would see me continue merrily along in my college course, working my part time jobs, and continuing to enjoy my new ex-socially anxious life on my way to become a writer & photographer/The months that followed saw me collapse out of my manic phase into a vicious depressive episode, further isolation and loneliness, further job application rejections and all not helped by my failure to acquire Australian citizenship. Once again I attempted suicide in October. Shortly after this event I decided to set up my blog and entered a slightly less manic but still manic phase as I set about writing of all the things which had happened in my life I had never really talked about before. In November I was diagnosed bipolar and realised all of my dreams had finally been taken from me/With everything that had been happening through the year, and my efforts and work with college, my dreams were not only bubbling along nicely but also starting to come true with my first acceptance of a published article in a local newspaper. I had a fantastic birthday with friends from college and entered December eagerly awaiting my parent’s arrival for Christmas whilst enjoying to vicariously travel the world with Grace and my ex, who I was on good terms with.

Christmas was a day of fun spent having a BBQ on the beach with my parents, celebrating the year that I had finally sorted everything out/Christmas was a disaster, a day of tears, pain and vicious self harm sessions late at night/The rest of the week was spent enjoying Melbourne and planning New Years celebrations with my friends whilst eagerly awaiting the joys of 2008…/The rest of the week was spent in a nasty depressive episode, self harming and very near suicide attempts as I wait for a plane to leave Australia and the continuing hell 2008 will no doubt be… 

[And just so you know the whole italics thing is finished now] 

It’s always interesting to do things like this, not all the time, just now and then. You kinda see where things went wrong, what mistakes you made, and realise just how much tiny events can drastically alter someone’s entire life: a singular text message changed the entire direction of the year, and as a result, the entire direction of my life.

There have been good moments this year, not many, but there have been a few, just not recently. It has unequivocally been the worst year of my life, period! I lost everything - including both my physical and mental health, my friendships, my home, my posessions and my hopes and dreams.

In 11 hours and 17 minutes it will be a New Year, 2008, a new dawn; perhaps next year won’t be as bad as I fear it is going to be. I am trying to be optimistic, but then I was this time last year, and look what happened! I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what plays out, because in all honesty, I don’t think anything could be as bad as this year.

If it can be; I’d rather just die now.