In a Bipolar's Shoes

Imagine being on a slow roller coaster ride. You have paid for six rounds. They are over. But no one has stopped or slowed it down. You feel excited. The seventh round is like the extra ride you have sneaked in for free. On the eighth round you feel like the guy controlling it has forgotten his counting. The tenth round had already made you feel light and heady. It's pleasant but somehow you are not enjoying it much. By the twelfth round you desperately want it to stop. By the fifteenth all that you want is to get off the damn thing and go home. By twentieth you have somewhat given up and still there is a flickering wish that someone will rescue you from this slow torture! This is my life.

Every single day I wake up, not knowing if I'll be in the highs or in the lows or how rapid my mood changes will be. Life is like riding a mood roller coaster, which is sometimes slow, sometimes rapid and sometimes remains static for days and then takes starts off with a jerk. You are born, bound to the roller coaster. You might be standing at the same position for days but you cannot get off. You are not in control of your moods; your mind controls you, instead.

You do not know whether you will be happy or sad or angry or mad by the end of the day but you know you'll have to live through today to face a tomorrow. Sometimes my moods change almost 8-10 times day, or more. At times it is exhausting to go through so many mood swings. At times it almost my body. I feel a dull, persistent pain which refuses to go away. Medicines don't seem to work. All I want to do is to bury my head in a bunch of pillows and cry my heart out and it maybe just morning!

The Supreme Court has overruled the Delhi High Court's decision to repeal 377

Sec 377 of the Indian Penal Code considers any kind of penetrative act not for the purpose of procreation as unnatural, equating homosexuality with paedophilia, necrophilia, bestiality and the like. We are enraged. It is shameful and regressive. As a bisexual and activist for equal rights, I am indignant. We had a gathering in front of the Academy of Fine Arts today at 15:00 hrs. It was a success, considering that this was organised in a matter of few hours.

When the entire world in legalising homosexual marriages, only our country is regressing. Ashamed? Yes! Enraged? Yes!

No court or law has the right to dicate who one an love or marry. What next? Bring back child marriage or Sati? With thousands of rape survivors awaiting justice, they now criminalise homosexuality! Funny that people can now go to jail for love while rapists and criminals roam scot free. We will not stop till we get justice.

WE SHALL OVERCOME!

THE FIGHT CONTINUES...

Fear!

Last night I had a weird feeling. I was scared for my life. For some time I had been pretty scared of the little sounds and shadows. But last night things turned quite ugly.

I was pretty convinced that I was going to die. Every time a car passed by I thought it was a conspiracy to kill me. Even a little voice, be it of the security guards or anyone passing by appeared to me to be the reason of my death. I was mortally scared. This had happened before but never for such a long period of time.

My session with my therapist has been postponed by more than two weeks now. At some points I don't even want to see a therapist. At some points I do. I wish i could make my mind up without so much of fuss

I am doing good now but scared if these episodes recur or increase what will happen. I have been on Oxcarbazepine 900 mg a day, along with Paroxetine 12.5 mg and Clonazepam 0.75 mg. I am more stable, definitely but not really doing well. I am more hypomanic these days. I am really worried if I end up with full blown mania. The fight is on...

Five Things that people don't know about a caregiver spouse

1. We are stronger than we seem to be
It is not easy to fight with a mental illness. The person we fight for is often not the person we fell in love with and married, during the spell of the illness. It is difficult to see them in that state and yet not break down and give up. We are often at the receiving end of a lot of hurt from them but we brush it off as the illness and fight for them.

2. We are good at hiding our bruises
More often than not we are bruised, psychologically as well as physically. At times it is bad enough to send us into therapy. At times we have to hide it in layers of make up or under shades.


3. We have a lot of patience
We do rant at times but only when we have reached the end of our patience.  What you hear is just the tip of the iceberg. Who likes to see their own lives crumble in front of their eyes? Especially when we had just thought that we had seen the worst that could come. Believe me, you wouldn't want to exchange lives us!

4. We do not need your sympathy
Sympathy is the last thing we want from you. Please try to understand the illness and give a sick person his/her due respect. If the person has been behaving strangely with you it is not the person, but the illness.


5. Every day is a fight for us
Every morning we wake up with only one prayer that things go normally. Every moment of our lives are spent fighting with an illness that makes our loved one a different person. Every breath we take is mixed with a fear, a terror of the illness taking control of our significant one. It is not an easy job to fight for your beloved one, especially when the person(in the episode of the disease) is not cooperating with us. We fight all the myths, taboo and stigma to just get our lives in a working order and just when we finally achieve that, life often deals another blow. We do snap as well.

Finally we need love as well..We might not have achieved much in life but we have a round the clock job. Our dear ones often keep us awake the whole night. They often wake us up very early in the morning. Often we hardly sleep for days. Often we are into anti-depressants to cope up with our lives. We do end up looking old and haggard. We hardly have a life outside. We have lost many friends because our partners might have embarrassed us in front of them. We are not invited to any of your parties. Often we do not go to any social gatherings. Often we are too exhausted to even live a life. But we do appreciate love. It means a lot if someone cares to ask how we are.