- Country of Origin: United States of America
- Trigger Warning: Suicidal Ideation
There was something off; I knew it. I couldn’t quite name it. But it was deeper, darker than what had previously bothered me.
I was diagnosed with depression at fifteen and generalized anxiety disorder at seventeen. Depression, being familiar to me, seemed like a well-worn jacket weighing me down. Anxiety seemed like a scarf, too tight, wrapped around my throat, restricting my breathing.
I learned how to manage and to wear them. But this… this was different.
The story behind my diagnosis
For several months, at the end of my freshman year of college and into my sophomore year, I was plagued by misery. I was nineteen and in an abusive relationship that was making me question everything; who I was, my place in the world, my purpose, and my destiny. I started exhibiting troubling symptoms — symptoms that were more extreme than I had experienced before.
I wasn’t sleeping. I was like a zombie, wandering through the days and nights, lost in the fog of my mind. I was losing my sense of time; hours would pass in a blink, and I could not remember how I had moved from point A to point B. I felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness.
I was numb, frozen.
Some days, I was agitated, jittery, and unable to stop myself from moving. I needed to act, to jump headfirst into whatever I could — projects, games, or adventures. I needed distractions. I needed action. I desired constant motion, my mind racing along with my heart. It was like I was running a marathon and couldn’t stop.
My depression was unlike anything I had experienced in my young life. It overshadowed my every waking thought, leaving me helpless and weak, lost and confused. I would vacillate wildly from barely moving, eating, and breathing, to being so wired and alert that I couldn’t focus. Either way, I wasn’t functioning.
It was obvious to anyone who saw or talked to me that something was wrong. I was so unlike myself; it was shocking. I was transforming into some other-worldly version of myself, the opposite of the person I was, a photo negative of the girl I once knew. It was frightening, unsettling, and frustrating.
The revelation
It all ended in a burning, blistering, ugly way one night.
It was late at night and dark. We were somewhere in Boston, outside a liquor store. The boy I was seeing revealed his hand: he had been cheating. All my suffering, all the back and forth, all the mind games, it was all in vain. I started to implode. I cried, I screamed, I fought. I was shattered.
All I could think about was death. I had been teetering on the brink of suicide for the better part of six months at that point, but now it had become all-consuming. I was ready to end it all. I wanted the suffering to stop, hard, fast, and cold.
I had a vague notion of a plan, but he stopped me. He wrestled me into the car, drove me back to the college campus, and left me alone to lick my wounds.
The next morning I was still reeling from the aftershocks, still contemplating ending it all.
But I had survived the night, and that had to count for something. So, instead, I chose to take a leave of absence and headed home.
I found comfort in the embrace of my family and sought answers from my medical providers to understand what was wrong with me.
During a session with my provider, she asked direct and unusual questions. Then, she had me fill out a questionnaire. I was as honest as I could, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was filling out. I handed it to her; she examined it briefly and then revealed what was on her mind.
The new diagnosis
A diagnosis that we had somehow missed during my years in talk therapy with her. It took exacerbated circumstances to reveal the more extreme symptoms, but it was clear that I didn’t just have depression.
I had bipolar disorder.
Specifically, bipolar II. It is characterized by a severe depressive episode, feelings of hopelessness or intense sadness, coupled with a period of mania and elevated or irritable mood.
A pendulum of emotions.
At first, I felt empty. Bipolar was a scary word, a word that felt foreign, unfamiliar. I knew nothing about it. It was bitter in my mouth. The weight of it seemed overwhelming. I tried to wear it on and understood how it fit. It was a little too big, too cumbersome, too heavy.
But then I tried to sit with it. I considered it. There was comfort in at least having a term for what I had been experiencing.
Power is in knowing and in having a treatment path. We were going to change my medicine, reach out to my therapist, and work on bipolar-focused treatment instead of just depression. I wasn’t going to be left in the dark with the weight of this new diagnosis. I had a way forward.
Though the treatment took some time, I did notice improvements. My moods didn’t swing so wildly; my sadness was not as deep, and my mania was not as high. I was becoming more even-keeled and returning to my old self, the self I could recognize in the mirror, the one I loved.
I kept my diagnosis a secret for a long time. I knew that there was a stigma around being bipolar; I feared people would just assume I was “crazy”. But, as I understood my own experience with it and what living with bipolar actually looked like, I found myself shedding my shame.
It’s been ten years now of living with this diagnosis. Ten years of treatment. Ten years of understanding how to manage emotions that sometimes feel unmanageable.
I have accepted my diagnosis with love and understanding, and now I treat myself gently.
Having better knowledge of my mind is a blessing. I do not shy away from it and don’t use it as an excuse. It is a part of me, and I have learned to live with it, wear it, move with it, and embrace it.
Thank you to Apurva Makashir and Tanvi Sethi for their inspired edits on this piece and to everyone else on the Mental Health team.
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TAYLOR RAUCHER
Taylor Raucher is a queer writer from Massachusetts. She has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction. Her work has been featured in Historic Northampton’s “Covid-19 Stories”, Free Spirit, and Stories with Shotei.
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