Book about BiPolar: Surfing the Edge

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surfing-Edge-survivors-bipolar-disorder-ebook/dp/B0167DQA70

Surfing the Edge, thoughts so far ...........................................

I've read about 40% of the book and have just read the bit about an unexpected friends death. For me this part felt delusional though the person interviewed Alistair says he felt it was very real, he reacted in a way that he had a paranormal experience, obviously a friend dying has a profound affect on you but Alistairs experience to me sounded Psychotic. In fact i was surprised that the Health Professional didnt cover that trauma in his summation of that chapter. I lost my best friend when he was 30 in a Motorcycle accident and Im still sure that from a self esteem point of view that affected me a lot, especially as I had fallen out with him prior to his death and we never got to clear the air.  I should point out that a very engaging element of the book is that a Mental Health Nurse sums up each chapter of the book from a Health Professionals point of view as service provider.

Reading this book Im getting a feeling that with BiPolar as an illness its much less triggered than some other Mental Health conditions, it creeps up on you either as a manic experience or as a depressive experience though i also have tons of associated anxiety as well. I often feel that things for me change without any reason and once again my self critic gets in on the act and regardless of any prior progress with statbility or living well with the condition thats all wiped out very quickly, in fact my BiPolar which doesnt have lots of mania but has plenty of low mood/anxiety just wipes my life aside when it comes on and though i have tools and practices I can try and use it really is normally just frustrating trying to navigate the condition.

At the moment im sitting here having read 40% of the book 'Surfing the Edge' finding it really interesting but Im aware that the three characters are different to each other and to me, their experience of BiPolar is very different to each other though it feels like they have come to terms with their illness better than I have. I have had Mental Health challenges for a long long time where things were marked down as Stress, Depression, Anxiety going back to when I was at Polytechnic where I didnt sleep for 10 days when I have my Finals exams due to my anxiety levels........I would try running every night to quiet the mania in my head ............ I just couldn't and at my first house when I was up in my Dressing Gown at 0630 in the morning in 1990 when I started painting the house for no good reason that morning. It wasn't until last year that my only time with a Psychiatrist ( bar 1 other ) gave me a BiPolar diagnosis as he spent 3 hours going through my episodes through the years.

Im not sure what im saying here but im very aware that our experiences of Mental Health are very different from person to person.

This book is very interesting though as the way it works is that 3 BiPolar sufferers are interviewed chapter by chapter regards topics and their BiPolar experience. I imagine myself being interviewed and my answers having some correlation with the three folks the book looks at but ultimately being very different.

Recommended

Depression is not a choice

Today has been a bad day at work, in that though I have been at work I have achieved practically zero.

I have had a 'church going' person tell me to pull myself up by my boots and get on with life, intimating that my condition is a choice I have every day.

Who would choose to be depressed?  I have been so much happier in the past when I was not in a relapse or continous anxiety and low mood or less normally manic.

Of course I compare myself to so many things that make me feel guilty/worse, thats how my head works.  I can see all the phyical illnesses that people have, i can see the hardship of trying to build a life in a war torn country like Syria, people don't choose those situations just like people do not choose Mental Illness.

I feel less than others in so many ways because Im struggling to beat my mental illness even though my GP is following the medical model and im also following the Talking Therapy model to try and get some progress, its not proving easy and I understand that because my condition isn't physical in any obvious way that people might not understand how exhausting it can be acheiving very little !!! It can be though.  

I'm always pleased when someone has beaten their Mental Illness or at least not relapsed for a long long while whilst navigating it. its also true that some folks dont beat it and they have to live with how it makes them feel, how if impacts performance, friendships and even of course marriages and family life.  I think everybody we meet is unique and interesting and I think everyone I meet or talk to with Mental Illness is unique and interesting, each experience just like with physical illnesses is unique as well.

Im not quite sure what im trying to say but I think Im just pouring out my frustration that started with a comment to me earlier today and then was added to by my inability to work as I would like to.  My head is still on the wrong axis with too much/many thoughts from past, present and future fighting for part of my mind, making analysis and decision making and creativity at work such an ask.

Im pretty sure that though it can be a First World problem no one chooses to be Mentally ill.

Samaritans

I had never contacted the Samaritans before as I guess I had never felt, however flat and frustrated, that I was in that level of crisis.  To me it indicated that any dark thoughts I was having were beyond me and those supporting me.

Last week and earlier this week though I was becoming incredibly frustrated such that I just needed to vent, frustrated with myself and with my progress not with any of those supporting me and following Talking Therapy ( mine is really good ) that felt stymied I decided I would contact the Samaritans eMail address.

I have to say that the response was much more thought through from Samaritans than I would have expected and the dialogue has really made me think about some things, it hasn't fixed anything but I was so cross with myself I needed an avenue to vent myself within a safe environment and though Im sure the eMail I sent to them was quite venal, the response I got was warm, supportive and well thought through.

I just thought it worth mentioning as its something that people might not exploit because it might seem very dislocated where as my experience has been thats it works as one way to have a dialogue that is meaningful, I'm on a few online forums where I have vented from time to time and well meaning though other Mental Health sufferers are the platitudes can be quite driveby and repetitive if that maske sense.