Interview 3: Bipolar Disorder
Do you feel like your mood changes often and unexpectedly?
Yes, but I’ve always been moody so it was difficult to know when it was bipolarity or when it was my immediate mood .The way to identify, that I’ve been taught and have learnt over time, is to identify patterns. Is the time of day triggering me? Things like that. When there is not necessarily an external trigger, that's how you know it's probably more biological and less environmental.
Do you feel like you want to keep to yourself most of the time? Are you a social person?
Growing up I was an extremely social person. I was the definition of being an extrovert but when something like this happens it completely throws you off balance. Suddenly, you’re not sure who you are because your responses to situations and to triggers - social as well as environmental, aren’t what you’re used to. It’s almost like not being yourself. You know, not being yourself for a day or two is fine but over time you do invariably start withdrawing; but once I accepted it, I found the right medicines that worked for me, the right practices, and started meditating -- I do tai-chi, I do Reiki. At one point all those things were a burden for me, but now it’s come to a point where, in the lows, there are 3 - 4 days where I just don’t want to see anyone. But usually not anymore. I’m pretty much back to being an extrovert.
How do you perceive yourself? Do you think highly of yourself or not at all? Why?
Oh! It's extremely variable, because, I mean, that is what a mood disorder is -- when you’re feeling really crappy inside, you’re going to feel horrendous about yourself as well. You’re going to feel worthless, you’re going to feel like you didn’t do anything to deserve the recognition you got, you ask, “What have I done with myself? What am I worth? I’m just an emotional burden on everyone around me.” Those kind of feelings approach your mind. But when you’re in a better phase, when you’re doing better, when you’re at or above what's called ‘baseline functioning’. At a baseline stable mode, your perception changes. It’s like you know that you’re really worth something, there’s so much you can do, there is so much potential in you, there is so much you have done and achieved. But as I said, perspective, it’s a mood. It’s a mood. Pessimism and optimism are functions of mood. So it’s variable.
Are you stressed at home or at work? What stresses you? If you would rate your stress from 1-10 on a daily basis what would you rate it as (10 being high, 1 being low).
Well in my case it's also coupled with an anxiety condition which is very common with depression. Many people with depression will also have anxiety with it, since your self worth and mood are so low any unresolved social misgiving or anxieties are amplified because of the low mood and the pessimistic state of mind that you’re in. So yes, I get stressed out very easily which is why I’m a freelancer. I am an architect, a qualified architect, but I only work freelance and I only work on projects where I can take my own time. You know, I do a bit of acting as well. But once again I’ll do it with people and a schedule that can get along with what I’m doing. I can’t to the 9 (AM) to 5 (PM) paradigm. I’ve tried it out enough times, it doesn’t work for me. I’ll be half asleep in the middle of the day. I need to allow myself those things. So on the home front yes, it’s difficult as I like most people, at least in our society here (in Delhi), and while I can’t speak for all of India, I know it’s a lot worse in most (other parts) of India. But even in upper middle-class and upper-class Delhi, mental illnesses are very misunderstood and we have a very cliched way at looking at mental health. I mean, what is mental health? Let's just define that first, right? It's your state of well being, a state of emotional well being. The word mental is a misnomer. It shouldn’t be mental it should be emotional health. So when I’m in a really good space, which (has happened) in two out of three environments I have functioned in -- they could be job A, job B and friends and home -- that is four spaces. Let's say two out of four I’m doing very well. I’ll feel pretty decent about myself. But on an average I’d say if a normal me would have been at a three on ten on a non bipolar part in my life, I’d say it goes to a 9.5 very often these days. A 9.5, 10, (result in) days when I break down.
Have you ever known or heard of anyone who has committed suicide and how do you think it impacts other people?
I tried to commit suicide in 2013. The thought actually struck me two years before that. 2006 was when I was first diagnosed. It was environmental factors in my case which triggered my bipolarity and depression. At that time we thought it was just depression….unipolar depression for a few years but …..
You don’t have to answer.
No, its fine. It’s fine. You should know this. So for a few years of not getting better, not having those good days made it very excruciatingly difficult because you lived in a bubble, an intellectual bubble. You smiled when your mind said, “Oh you are supposed to be smiling, people around you are smiling.” You didn’t smile because you felt like smiling. You didn’t frown because you felt like frowning. “Oh, everyone’s frowning, oh ok. Oh right I heard something negative, I should frown.” Not being able to connect with yourself emotionally and not having a stable emotional core and about five years into the journey I considered it (suicide) realistically. Saying, “What do I have to give to anyone?” I’m almost done with university. I’m an architect but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it in the world. But then I was, like, “No, it’s just anxieties I’ll get over it, i’ll crack it.” And then I went out in the real world and I did fail. I couldn’t do the jobs you’re expected to do. And Architecture is rigorous, especially right now .It’s an extremely competitive field in at least most of the stuff that’s happening, unless you go into really interesting digressions which is what I did. And then I gave myself a deadline. I said six months. and if in six months I don’t see the silver lining in the clouds, I’m out. I considered going and living in a monastery. I considered you know just jumping off a cliff. I considered all sorts of things. Six months passed but then there were reasons .I would say, “Ok, now another three months,” then those three months ended and ok, another two months, another one month, another few weeks and finally I just went into this stupor -- almost where I knew I wasn’t getting better and I didn’t believe I would, which is a point where a lot of people in Europe (a debate has come up) are going in for euthanasia. And I was literally at that point, where it has been nine years and I haven’t had a good day. Who am I kidding? (I felt like) I’m a burden on everyone around me .I’m never going to be productive in this world so why should I go on? I should be allowed to make that choice for myself. I tried (to commit suicide), basically …… so I just fell silent. I was hoping I would just come back to me. I was waiting. So all this while, before that last phase was a preparation. I was with someone in college who was also my girlfriend in school. We had gone to the same college together. I broke up with her because it was holding her back in life. She wasn’t going on to doing her thing. She wasn’t living her dreams and I made up some nonsense and luckily back then she bought it but then she figured it out later, but within six months she was in Florence doing an Arts course and now she's doing very well for herself and I was glad I made that choice but it hurt as well. You know, if you're letting go of everything you care about because you're worthless and you are a burden, you're an emotional burden on everyone around you, you're just taking -- you're not giving and that’s not a good feeling… So one day I was just like, “Let’s do it.” And I tried. I won't go into how I tried, but two important things happened that night. The first was of course I woke up the next morning and I wasn’t dead and instead of completing it which is what my first thought of… I had a panic attack and I called my girlfriend at that point of time. She said, “Just walk to your brother’s room.” She spoke to my brother and parents, whatever it was, it was handled. We went to the hospital. It didn’t really change much. It still doesn’t change the fact that people don’t get it. People can't, you can't blame someone for not sympathizing with something, they can’t. It’s not part of their imaginary realm. You can't imagine living with no emotions. You are practically a sociopath if you choose to be. But the second important thing which happened that night and this for me is particularly important which is why I started working in mental health care -- is when I got into bed that night I was happy and the depression was gone because I wasn’t going to wake up the next day and have to deal with everything that came my way. It was just over. It was that beautiful feeling of the end of the day where it’s just behind you. It was that feeling and I hadn’t experienced it in years. When I reflected on that a few weeks later, I realized that’s the catch. It’s not me that needed to die, it’s my life that wasn’t fitting me that needed to be changed. Because the second that life was gone I felt perfectly fine. And that really was a turnaround point for me where I started my work towards what's called reclaiming your life. The problem is not with me, it’s with the way my life makes me feel. I mean, you talk to any counselor, they will tell you they have a rigid self-care routine where they will do things for themselves. They will take frequent vacations, because you are hearing depressing stuff all day, and you are going to feel like that. I was in spaces where I cared a lot about things around me and I was powerless to do anything about it and obviously I was going to be depressed now when I look back at it. Forget the word ;depressed’, obviously I was going to feel horrible about it, and when it happens for years at a stretch and you haven’t had a break your mind’s conclusion is going to be - “Dude, it’s you. It’s not what’s happening around you.” So that was really a turning point and everyone I know who’s tried and survived has something similar to say for it. It’s when you reach that point where you let go of the last fragment of the identity you had from before, because most of the sadness in mental health or any illness comes from trying to be the person you were before. The day you accept that you’re not that person anymore and that person wasn’t working for you and you have to be somebody else, most of the healing is done. A lot of psychiatrists that I know say this to your face, that the day you have accepted that you have this problem, you're half cured, that’s half the battle won. That's exactly what happened.
Was it difficult for you to accept the fact ?
I saw it. For me it was an instantaneous thing. It happened to me. I didn’t have to convince my mind of something. You know I experienced pure bliss that night. I was thrilled. I couldn’t sleep for hours because I was so happy. I just tried to kill myself, dude! I’m not waking up again. Why am I happy? That's when you figure it out that the problem was not me, the problem was that my life was a misfit for me and in most cases that’s exactly what it is so that’s how it impacted me. It impacted me enough for me to start working with a mental health care organization. We have this thing called Bhor Foundation. I was one of the people who helped start it and we have thing called the festival of madness in Delhi .We celebrate madness. We do film screenings, workshops. There are all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds that come ,psychiatrists, film makers, people working in the health care sector and its tons of fun. We call it reclaiming yourself and you know friends come out for the first time .you see people walking around with frames around their faces saying we're all mad here and taking pictures with a big smile on their faces and you know you’ve done something right.You've given them the safe space to accept that it's okay to be different.
There's this term called neurodiversity if you're familiar with it.
Could you explain it to me?
Neurodiversity is basically a school of thought which says which first of all discredits contemporary psychology and psychiatry and says there aren’t really mental health illnesses. There are just differences in how mind's function and in different paradigms they would flourish which is supported by a lot of facts and very sensible rational thought. For example the autism gene which is being pinpointed appeared in humans 10000 years ago and we shifted from being hunters to hunters gatherers and farmers which is interesting because people on the autism spectrum have been found by research to have a better visual recollective memory which suddenly became more important than functional neuromuscular coordination and that gene characteristic expanded by natural selection into humans and today we have millions of people on the autism spectrum. So that school of thought works with this idea that they aren’t mental health disorders, they are just differences. It is very interesting because if you think about it and actually go into it, it makes a lot of sense.You take a bipolar person - me, bipolar characteristics is you have periods of extremely high functioning and then periods of not being able to function. Now if I'm in a profession that needs me to kill it for a month or two at a time and then I can take a break, I have an edge over anybody else because it comes inherently to me. I can stay up four nights in a row without needing food or sleep and without it taking too much of a physical toll on me because my biochemistry has adapted to it .And I will crash later for sure and I prefer those bad days so I’ll take up three projects now ,do them really well and then save up for a rainy patch and what's wrong with that.
The real crux of the understanding or misunderstanding of mental health the way I see it is in the term NORMAL. Who gets to define the term normal.
Lot of psychiatrists today deny personality disorders. They say sorry we do not believe in personality disorder. It is not a disorder. You are a different personality type. Like risk taking is a borderline personality characteristic. Every special forces guy would be a risk taker. Every X sports person is an extreme risk taker and seeks it out, borderline trait. Is that a bad thing. We worship them on the red bull videos, so it’s all about context .