The same as last time, I’ve written another entry that may go onto a blog separate from this one. I won’t name that site until it actually posts one of my essays, just in case what I’m writing doesn’t suit the needs of that venue. But since I’m spending my time getting material to that website, and not writing specifically for this one, I’ll enter some of the pieces here. Hopefully, they will be interesting to those who drop by. Eventually, I’ll work to sustain writing for both locations, but right now I’m building an inventory of posts for this new project. The entry that follows encapsulates my experience as a designated ‘bipolar patient’. It is meant to be cautionary to those who may be recently diagnosed, and anyone who questions a doctor’s gloomy predictions about the potential productivity of ‘bipolar patients’.

RoadBlock&Detour

The years 1999 and 2000 were the worst of my adult life. Work-related spinal injury ended my career as a surgeon. I found out the damage in my neck foreshadowed lifelong pain with the possibility of paralysis. In 1999 my wife and I abandoned the city we called home, and a house we’d lovingly renovated, in order to move closer to my work and spare my neck the long commute. But even so, within a year I could no longer operate. My colleagues reacted negatively to what they perceived as my abandonment of responsibilities. As an added blow, a long-running lawsuit settled against me. I felt very alone and very lost.

Soon after, I found out how badly my mind could go awry. Depression had been an intermittent companion for twenty years, but I sank to depths that exceeded anything previously experienced or imagined. I ended up in a psychiatric ward on a suicide watch. Discharged after twelve days but not feeling much better, I left the hospital on a powerful new antidepressant.

Five days later I landed in another psychiatric unit, only this time in a state of extreme mania and florid psychosis. The new medications may have triggered it. Never having experienced such insanity in myself, I feared my mind had permanently snapped. Those were my lucid moments. More often, I drifted in a novel world where God spoke to me and magic was everywhere.

The intense mania resolved quickly, but full recovery has been slow and painful. My psychiatrist convinced me that my mind now had a terrible illness. Depression that hitherto had been unpleasant, but never disabling, had morphed into a dangerous brain disease. My moods needed potent medications and lots of coddling. Slips into hypomania threatened my sanity in ways my doctor assured me were dreadful, but never really explained. Rather than encouraging me to regain strength and reenter the world, she cautioned against ‘taking on too much’.

I became hesitant and fearful. I abandoned career opportunities when confronted with difficulty and conflict, because of my psychiatrist’s ceaseless admonition that I now had ‘poor stress tolerance’. Better to live a boring and disabled life than risk jostling my fragile brain.

That message led me into a trap that is proving difficult to escape. I’ve weaned off most of the drugs, and feel eager to work. But after ten years of minimal productivity, potential employers no longer take me seriously. My future probably depends on developing a freelance career, but the long running discouragement eroded my confidence. And years of inactivity have sapped my endurance.

I write this as a warning to others. Be very cautious about allowing your doctors to set limits on your potential. It is safer for them if you stay at home in a medicated daze than if you take risks. But it’s worse for you. Our minds may be different, but they remain vital and capable. Be your own best friend, and don’t let the concept of mental ‘illness’ limit your dreams.

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