There’s not much but you should have seen me before, especially on my bad days. The mood swings alone drove people around me nuts, even after I warned them. I kind of scared my disability lawyer when we got to court by promptly telling the judge that I didn’t like him – I was not on a good medication then, but it actually went in my favor. The guy figured if I was going to tell him in front of a room full of people that I didn’t like him when he was to judge my qualifications for disability, that I must be nuts.
My case is severe bipolar depression. Your friends might not be. The earlier you get it treated, the better it is. PLUS, if one has medical insurance and can keep working and pay for private therapy, one gets better much faster.
For me, once being active, in positions of responsibility, a hopeful writer and a hobbyist, one of the worst things are when I get ‘stupid,’ that is, I have problems absorbing things. Place me under stress and it gets worse. It’s a crappy feeling because while it lasts, I am aware that I had been smarter and mentally quicker. I have to be careful when my mood switch because I can be cheerful one minute and the next in profound depression or unexpectedly irritable and angry. When angry, I tend to really have to watch it because my normal caution and reason tend to go out of the window and I’ll argue even if I know I’m wrong.
Usually, I make damn sure that, when around people, I can leave at any time and be by myself. I’ve left parties, dinners, stores and outings because of that. I try real hard to avoid being in any situation where I cannot leave. Unfortunately, by doing this, many people think me aloof or egotistical.
Where I last worked, I tended to gravitate away from the ‘clump’ of employees and stay by myself which got me termed ‘not a team player’ but if I remained in close proximity and changed moods, then I could get into arguments and get termed ‘argumentative.’ Plus, if I was in the ‘stupid’ mode, my boss could give me instructions on what to do 100 times and it would not sink in, so I carried a note pad and wrote everything down, which got me the reputation of being stupid anyhow.
You want to do something? Write to your congressman about increasing the funding to mental health and disability. A WRITTEN letter, because I have learned that they pay little attention to e-mail.
By the way, the symptoms of severe depression, in many of its forms, can seem like schizophrenia. One may actually hear ‘voices’ at times or suddenly do crazy things that they are not aware of, like go walking around town in their PJs in the middle of the night, in the rain. Such things are rare, but known. (I don’t do them.)
What? Me worry?’
