A Quieter Mind

It’s always interesting when things come full circle.

I was in a second-hand bookshop this afternoon and found an old edition of Kay Redfield Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind. I love books and I love to read but if there was one book that I could say saved my life, that’s it.

When my then-psychiatrist diagnosed me with bipolar disorder in December 2012, I was most of the way through my undergrad in psych. I was the one who flagged my symptoms for my doctor and yet was not prepared to hear the actual words. I didn’t know anyone with bipolar. Depression? Anxiety? Sure. I have plenty of family and friends with both. But bipolar disorder? Nope. I’m an anomaly.

My education taught me about symptoms and medications but nothing about living with it. I didn’t know what it meant in practical terms. My only examples came from pop culture, which most often presents bipolar as being either in frank manic psychosis and bouncing off the walls or almost catatonic with depression. I was neither. There was no possible way I was bipolar. Nope. No way. Absolutely not.

The episode that finally brought my symptoms to the fore also blew the lid off previously undiagnosed ADHD and dyscalculia, and created other issues like short-term memory loss. I went from being an A and B student to a C and D student almost overnight. (Yes, Cs get degrees but they don’t get you into grad school, which is required in my profession.) Trying to deal with the shame of the label was bad enough, but the cognitive effects were almost more than I could bear. Being neither particularly attractive nor talented relative to my peers, my brains were what I was known for. But now they were gone. Who am I if my brain is broken?

Then I grieved, hard. I grieved who I was and the life I had planned for myself. I wasn’t suicidal but I truly thought that my life was over and my dreams evaporated. I tried to imagine a different life for myself but just couldn’t. And, I didn’t have anyone in my life who I could turn to as an example of living with bipolar.  I thought my academic life was over and I’d have to figure out how to pay back $45k in student loans while earning minimum wage. Marriage and kids? Well, that’s not going to happen. Then, as now, supports and resources for people with bipolar and how to live with it are pretty paltry - though there’s a surprising amount for loved ones. It’s why I’m so glad that Scott Ninneman/SpeakingBipolar, Life through a Bipolar Lens, and The Bipolar Bro exist on Substack.

I think I said in another post that when I feel lost in life, I go to a bookstore. So, off I went to Chapters and found the mental health section. There was a wide array of books about anxiety, depression, CBT, borderline personality disorder, and more (as there should be) but I quickly became disheartened. I scanned the shelves over and over until I finally saw one small white book: An Unquiet Mind.

While the details of our lives are vastly different, reading Dr. Jamison’s descriptions of her experiences with both mania and depression was like someone had plucked my own experiences from my brain and put them on paper. I felt seen and less alone. I couldn’t put the book down. Reading about her experiences with diagnosis and treatment, how she adjusted her lie and career path, and how she didn’t just survive but thrived, helped to lift the dark cloud that had settled over my future. I saw glimmers of hope and the grief started to shift. I sought academic supports, developed good relationships with profs who understood my challenges, and by the time I graduated, I managed to claw my way back up to an A-.

Over the last 13 years, there have been a lot of, well, ups and downs. I finished grad school and even made the Dean’s list a few times. I learned that my ability to regurgitate random facts in an exam will never come back but I can blow a thesis out of the water. I have fulfilling relationships, a promising career, and I just might pay off my student loans before I die.

Now, the peaks and troughs of bipolar aren’t so extreme but there are still challenges. It isn’t cured and never will be. My mind will never be quiet, only quieter. Even as I write this, I am in a hypomanic state. (You’ve probably noticed how ridiculously long this writing is. It’s too long to paste into a note. Even in print I can’t shut up. It’s also possible that it looks like word salad and three weeks from now I’ll find 27 typos. I’ve also posted four times in four days, which is unheard of for me.) Based on when the symptoms started, I’ve probably got 1-3 days before I start to slide into depression.

More importantly, bipolar is affecting my ability to work. After finally losing my shit on my managers in a clinical meeting about 6 weeks ago (yelling and swearing at them at full volume about corporate BS), it became clear that my brain can no longer handle the stress. We agreed that it would be best to reduce my hours to four days a week. Tomorrow will be the last Monday I work for them.

Is it exactly what I asked for? Yep. Do I think it’s for the best? Absolutely. Does it put me in a better position to build the practice and lifestyle I want? You know it!

Does it also make me sad? Definitely.

There’s a strange sort of grief that develops when you know that a desired change is coming. Even though it’s something you want, there is still a goodbye. When my employer first hired me, I could see myself working for them for the next 25 years. Then, I started to yearn for private practice but have never been ready. However, the bipolar has slowly worsened while working in the corporate world and is now pushing me out the door. In some ways, I feel much the same as I did years ago when my grades plummeted. Who am I if I have to give up corporate life? Am I still employable? What does this mean for my future? Will it affect how others see me? And what about those student loans? This time, though, those questions aren’t laced with panic, just concern and planning.

It has been a few years since I’ve read An Unquiet Mind. Maybe finding it in the bookstore means it’s time to read it again. Or, maybe it’s just a reminder that part of grieving my old life and could-have-been life is just adjusting how I manage the bipolar. Maybe I’m being pushed towards, not away from. Maybe it’s not full circle, then. Maybe it’s just another loop around the spiral.

(If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with any form of bipolar disorder, or if you’re simply curious about it, highly recommend An Unquiet Mind. Seriously. I passed it around my family and they all came away with a much more accurate description of what it’s like on the inside than I could ever articulate.)