The Discarded Ones: Living with Bipolar

Before writing this piece, I have listened to thousands of hours of Doctors and Psychiatrists and Psychologists on YouTube and in real life, and read medical reports from top facilities, spent hours scrolling through Bipolar support groups on Facebook. I have sat and listened in clinics, and sat with Pastors, Counsellors.

To see a professional in South Africa costs R 3,500 for an hour. Your medication could run up to R 8,000 per month.

In the USA, the problem is so severe that some states do not have professionals available for patients to see. The problem is so widespread. But I will focus on South Africa. A week in a private clinic here can cost up to R 35,000. The state hospitals have waiting lists. Long ones. For Tara, months.

The brain is our last outpost in the medical frontier. We have an understanding of the working of the heart, lungs and other organs, but the brain is still like a telescope looking into another galaxy. An unknown, seen from a distance. There is a lot going on in the mind, and it is hard to pinpoint exact problems. Doctors cannot agree on specific treatment, because everyone with Bipolar is a unique person with a unique story and unique brain chemistry.

My first experience with Bipolar was many years ago when I dated a man for five years, who told me in the first meeting that he was diagnosed. I was uneducated about this disorder. He explained that he had a mother who severely mistreated (severe child neglect) him and his brother as babies, ending with her being put in an institution for life, and never seeing her again. At 19 his brother killed himself with a bullet in a black goth apartment and this man sat with him until the body was removed. Sitting holding the hand of a brother with most of his face gone. Not long after, he was running naked down a road in his suburb and it took the force of ten policemen to get him into an ambulance and when he came to his senses, he was in a padded cell. For a long time. He was on a very regimented schedule, waking at 5 everyday, showered, took his pills, made a pawpaw protein smoothie every single day and was asleep by 9 after taking another handful of pills.

He was physically active, had hobbies, friends, and swore to never ever get to a point of being incarcerated again. He texted me when he had a bad day, and I left him alone. Hell hath no fury than that red head man on a bad day. But super interesting, talented, full of surprises and funniest sense of humor. But damaged. And damaged many others.

Including me. And his ex wives. I was naive.

I have never been judgmental with people with problems. I was treated for bipolar and could not make sense of the diagnosis. I had no highs. I know nothing of highs, I have not ever taken drugs. I know depression well. But after years of searching for what ailed me since I was a small child, I realised it was actually anxiety — and after being on the most horrible meds that made me text strangers at midnight and cooking meals at night without knowing, I found my lil pink pill called Xanor and now we live together in harmony. (The horror of waking up early to delete messages that make on sense on Facebook, real and embarrassing) But I first had to go to a cocktail of Seroquel, Molipaxin and a sleeping pill, which caused a hefty weight gain and robbed me of years. I had to find my own diagnosis, and felt a bit mistreated by the medical world, when in the end my problem was so simple to fix.

It is so complicated. I have a friend in France who has been trying to get medication for two years. The doctors refuse to administer medication to this person as the language barrier prohibits a thorough investigation. She self medicates with wine. Which is common for those with Bipolar, the need to numb out pain and agony with substances.

Someone else texts me in private for advice who is terrified should anyone ever find out she is being treated for Bipolar. So she speaks to me. The judgement will be too much for her to bear.

The scenario of living with a bipolar partner looks dismal on paper. 80% of marriages involving a bipolar spouse end in divorce. 60% of individuals with bipolar will attempt suicide multiple times.

I had the most angelic friend, a very committed Christian, a youth pastor, that I was really close to for 20 years. We had regular coffees in Parkhurst, and would sit for hours chatting about everything under the sun.

One day, the conversation went tense and he told me that he tried to commit suicide a few weeks before. I was stunned. Stupefied. He never stopped laughing, he never stopped making plans to enrich kids lives, he had so much good in him. And then we discussed medication. He believed the Bible was against sorcery of drugs and that his faith would get him healed. I had heated debates with him, but when we met, he had the biggest smile on his face, and warmth oozed out of his whole being. He was angelic.

One December he bought me two antique wardrobes as gifts, said he did not have any space and we sat drinking coffee in the kitchen for the whole afternoon. Christmas Day I sent him a message, I love you Boetie (Bro), and how is your Christmas. All fine. On New Year's Eve he hung himself in a cupboard, off his mind with a manic attack.

The Church was so full at his funeral that people had to stand at the back, some outside. That was the impact he had had on so many lives. So many people who were better because of his efforts. I emailed his pastor and had heavy, hard words with him about how to treat people with mental disorders and the preaching against medication. He listened and replied that this was a very big eye opener for the Church.

30% of Bipolar men will succeed at their suicide attempts.

Now I am married to a highly intelligent man, with lots of talent, and started a relationship with me unmedicated. If you want to know what the loneliest you will ever be, marry an unmedicated bipolar person. My husband’s mania kicked in after his sister let in a man to her house who worked on her roof the week before, as he said he wanted to check if all work was done well. She knew him. He knew her two year old daughter would be out for her morning walk in the lovely suburb of Claremont. He slit her neck three times, stabbed her multiple times. And took a life that everyone described as the most loveliest, funniest, caring human they had the opportunity to meet. A two year old with golden curls walked through her mother's blood in the kitchen before the police could arrive.

This brother and sister were inseparable, they did everything together. Partied as teens together, shared meals once a week, daily conversations.

What transpired from that murder, is a man spiralling so out of control as mania set in. His mom has no mania. She is calm, and one of the gentlest women you will ever meet. So how does one shared trauma manifest so differently in each one. She has crippling nightmares, he sleeps without dreams.

Seeing a person in a full-on manic state is scary. You would be sharing a meal, having wine and laughing and all of a sudden arguments would start coming up. At first, four years ago, the fighting was tremendous. I did not know what I was dealing with. Not having a support structure was a total misery for me. When I reached out to my family, and I was in shock and not knowing how to deal with suicide attempts or falling through windows, finding him in his car ready to take his life, the rattling on about one subject for 24 hours at a time, then sleeping for 3 days straight. Their answer was clear to me, divorce him or we will reject you and never see you.

The ones you discard. The discarded people.

90% of the time or more even, I have a supportive husband who brings me coffee in bed and cooks better than anyone I know, we chat about music, we watch European movies. And laugh a lot.

Do I throw away 10 percenter? The ten percent was very bad. Birthdays, Mother's day, Christmas, Anniversaries. I cannot celebrate them now, as I know he will have a triggered mania. Emotions lead to triggers and manic attacks. The other 90% is glorious.

Four years of rehab, moving out, clinics, emergency rooms, sitting in public hospitals, sitting in counselling and even having a couple pray off demons - I kid you not it was suggested to us, but I think they were more interested in planting demons, I got the chills. You try, you fight, you try again. And you forgive. Again and again and again. And no one gives you any accolades for holding on. You are on your own.

Then suddenly, after asking around for years, we found a clinic, with an incredible woman who took time to get the full inventory, and found that the medication he was on was a quarter of what he needed to take. Ritalin was included. New diagnosis was made. Childhood traumas were addressed. He has PTSD, Bipolar and ADHD. Fun. But the meds are working. For the first time in four years.

But now, I have no friends and family left.

It is the loneliest place to be. To fight an enemy so deep in a mind that professionals have not got a grip on it yet.

A manic person does not remember what they did or said the next day. This means a serious short in the highly complicated works of the brain. The NHS characterises the chemicals controlling the brain's functions called neurotransmitters, which include noradrenaline, serotonin, and dopamine are imbalanced. One of these chemicals might be too high or too low, and it is impossible to do blood tests on an ongoing basis to see where each patient is. The NHS also speaks of the link to genetics, a condition which is inherited. Which in my husband’s case was from his father, who died undiagnosed in his 50’s. Severe trauma as a child brings it on.

Which makes me very worried for the children raised in our country. In being treated for a lifelong problem of insomnia and anxiety, I spent time in a clinic as I thought it might be helpful. What I learnt there was more shocking to me than helpful. Every girl in that clinic was raped. These are obviously women with good enough jobs to have medical aid, and companies who cared enough to send the woman for treatment. With our rape status so high, what can we expect in the near future with our countries mental health crisis? I have since spoken to many men who have been raped as children as well, more than you would ever believe. Also fighting severe trauma.

We are in for a hectic ride as a country, and hence my letter. It is very embarrassing for an individual to admit to others that they are bipolar. The stigma is enormous. The judgement is incredible. Most Bipolar workers will not tell their employers. It is too risky.

Here we are in 2022, and there is a mental health month, and help lines, and yet, bipolar will be used against you in the most nefarious ways as I have seen these past four years with my personal situation.

It is true that you will receive so much grace and love if you are ill... just not mentally ill. That will be used against you with full artillery, it will be war.

As a bipolar person, you fight with your own mind, your own people and on your own.

As a spouse, it is exhausting, and I have retreated now to where I don't want to be social, I don't want to have to explain and I have retreated from my family, and yet, ever so often I will still be under massive attack from people, the details can fill a book. I cannot attend my son's wedding with my husband. I must go alone. I had to elope. It is extremely lonely for a spouse. And one gets extremely angry when mania sets in when you really need to have a husband to protect you for something specific. But it is usually in a situation where you need help, that the person will be triggered.

Every morning with my coffee and rusk, I scroll down the Bipolar Facebook group. It is very sad. Often people say goodbye, saying they can’t do it anymore. Your messages are futile. It is a curse like none other. I have an American group I follow and a local group. The local group is filled with hopeless situations of not getting medical care, not being able to get hospital care. I have someone very close to me who ended up in Baragwanath Hospital, who was robbed of everything leaving the hospital only in underpants. Shoes, clothes, all stolen.

I am also on a mom’s group on Facebook with over 60,000 and the daily posts of hurt and confused mothers chatting about their children’s mental health issues, cements the idea that we have reached a crisis state.

This writing is a plea to stop the bullying. I know it is easy to throw stones at a bipolar person. My plea is that we encourage more clinics to open to the public, as private clinics are so expensive and the people who need care are not on medical aid.

I watched a TikTok this morning from Ian Cameron in which he said we now live in a country of 3 murders an hour.

How much trauma is that causing? What is going to happen to us as a whole nation with trauma and severe mental health issues. I think we are seeing the strains already.

If I found it difficult, imagine how difficult it is for an uneducated person living in poverty.

We need to address mental health, we are in for a very wild ride. We need mental health professionals, and we need a government that starts to realise that our mental health is so bad that it is causing enormous damage.

But somehow it feels like yet again, this message is just like whistling in a hurricane.

Photo by Mia Ziervogel

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