Katie
Prince Edward Island
Bipolar Disorder
I was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Now that I realize what I’m dealing with I would say I have since I was about fifteen years old; I’m thirty three now; so eighteen years at least. I guess it kind of started a couple years ago. I broke up with my boyfriend at the time or he broke up with me and then I started partying a lot and just kind of spiraling out of control. Eventually, when I was living in Montreal, I just had to move home, as I knew I wasn’t going to be okay if I stayed there any longer. So I came home and I was good for a few months and then I kind of started up again and I started drinking and partying and doing a lot of self destructive behaviour and my best friend actually came to me one day and said you’re going to die. She’s like if you don’t stop this, you’re going to die. And she was so firm about it and she was so insistent. And I trust her so much cause she deals with mental health issues as well. I trusted her over anybody else. And that’s when it came time for her to say that to me, I knew I had to get help.
After Christmas, I guess maybe in February again, I just kind of crashed. Totally crashed, I just was literally at the end of my rope. I didn’t think I could go on. I didn’t know where to look out for help and I was really frustrated. I have a friend who’s in counselling and I really respect her approach to things. So I knew that there must be someone else out there with that similar approach or open mindedness. So I contacted another mental health place here and the minute she told me on the phone “We can help you Katie,” I broke down and I was so relieved. So I got to see the psychiatrist. I had to go through my family doctor and get a referral, so then I went and I met with a psychiatrist and he diagnosed me in the first session. And he put me on Lithium and kept me on the Zoloft. I’ve been pretty good, you know, I’ve definitely had some slips. It’s hard to stay on track. Sometimes, I think that’s the hardest part is just following a regiment because I’m very chaotic. So that’s kind of where I am at right now.
Journalists now are a younger generation and I feel like they’re tackling it a lot better but it’s just sad that it takes suicides to become something that’s presented in the media, but I mean it’s like there’s some silver lining coming out of these horrible things is that it is getting talked about more. And I feel there’s been more of a push on mental health and on bringing in resources here. I mean they’re heaps and bounds away, a long road away, but I think that the topic is being discussed now a lot more than it ever has been. There’s definitely some room for improvement but it’s in the right direction, it is going in the right direction.
My rage is very manic driven state because I’m like it is high octane, it’s so much energy. It’s like probably my heart rate and everything is the same way as it would be if I were just flying happy. It’s very high intensity and then the opposite is however high I
My advice would just be if you know something’s off, cause you know something’s off, just go talk to somebody. And if you don’t find the right person, keep looking because there is somebody out there who can help you and who can make you feel, quote on quote, normal.