Follow the White Rabbit: The Dark Hole of Bipolar Disorder

I will need your help one day. I will need your help when I chase the white rabbit and lose my grip on the dirt and follow him down that rabbit hole, like I have too often before. While I’m falling I will definitely hit a few rocking chairs, some bookcases, a night stand or two and definitely a brass-post bed. And then I’ll hit the ground hard. However, there will be no little key or doorknob for me to enter Wonderland. I’m stuck in the dark with dirt on my knees. That little white rabbit is a sign of hope for me and that bastard keeps eluding me. Now I’m stuck in the pit, in the dark, all alone.

I am now 32 years old. Since I was five, I have suffered from various forms of mental illness with the final diagnoses landing on Bipolar Disorder II and generalized anxiety disorder with good ol’ panic attacks thrown in. If my first ever doctor at age five would have told me what I was in for, I never would have believed him. To this day, I still can’t believe this is my life. Looking in, I’m normal. My family is amazing, my soon-to-be husband is the love of my life, and by all accounts I look like I’ve got my shit together. Behind the mask are the severe depressive episodes, the seldom highs and the crippling anxiety that makes it impossible for me to even keep a job. I am not the only one.

The stigma of mental illness is real. I am obviously not the only person living with it. Just one who happens to have a MacBook and some writing experience. I write for myself and for those that can’t yet give their voice or have lost it.

Depression doesn’t hit me all at once. I’ve grown enough to see the signs coming but sometimes you’re speeding too fast to stop in time. One day I am literally skipping and the next crying for hours on end. Don’t ask me why. That’s just how it is. And I can’t even tell you why I’m crying. The world overwhelms me. My life overwhelms me. And I don’t understand how I’m supposed to make it through another day, let alone live the rest of my life with this disease. I have been hospitalized, done outpatient therapy, regular therapy and taken nearly every medication that’s ever been marketed. I’m just wired this way.

My white rabbit of hope has disappeared again. Stuck on the other side of the looking glass, all I can do is manage to breathe. No, I don’t want to get out of bed today, or shower, or eat, or read, or talk to you. If you tell me to go outside and get some fresh air, I will bite your head off or pull my hair out. The good days are when you can just sleep, sleep, sleep. That’s the depression I love. The bad days are the ones marked by insomnia, where I’m up all night scaring the hell out of myself with suicidal ideations and thoughts of self-harm. My family has always kept me from following through on any of these. But I am not afraid to say I’ve done my share of cutting and more recently, instead of cutting I just got a few tattoos instead. Anything to not feel the emptiness that’s inside of me. So I can scream on the outside instead of screaming deep in my soul without anyone being able to hear me.

The episodes last longer now. I am getting married in December of 2016 and I spent May-August in a depression so severe that I didn’t know if I’d make it. I was planning for the happiest day of my life when all I could think about was how awful having “the rest of my life” was going to be if I kept feeling like this. I love the man I am marrying more than anything. This is a wedding I have dreamed about having since I was 13 (yes, to the same guy). I felt no excitement whatsoever. Instead, I spent hours on the phone with my father crying while he tried to console me. There’s only so much your loved ones can bear and try to understand. No matter what, you feel totally and completely alone. You go through the motions. Make it through a day at a time. Live for tomorrow, not knowing what you’re actually living for.

When I learned that this would be my life forever; the pills, the pain, the burden to others, I was unwilling to believe it. There has to be something that can fix me for good. I’m sure that anyone who suffers like I do has felt the same. Yet we are stuck like this and we don’t know why. I may never have children because I can’t get off my medications. Even the smallest dosage change can send me spiraling down for a nice long episode of hell. Getting off them completely? Hello, inpatient hospitalization. This is not something I have been able to completely come to terms with yet. I just follow my daily morning and evening doses and try not to miss a pill.

When I am my happy-go-lucky self, you would never suspect a thing. I’m bubbly, I smile a lot and I don’t cry. I’ve always had social anxiety, but when I’m up it’s something I can deal with. I’m the Happy Alice with her cat, Dina (mine’s Gemma). Flip the switch and the person you thought I was is a thing of the past.  I have no reason to believe there is any light at the end of my tunnel or any reason there should be.

But I keep living. Because I don’t have the option not to. It’s painful and I resent it at times, but there’s no alternative. Unfortunately, many are lost due to this. It’s hard to live a life you don’t want to be stuck with. It’s easy to make that disappear. When I am able to (meaning not in an episode), I want to lend my voice to those who can’t use theirs for whatever reason that may be. Everyone has their baggage. Some of us have baggage mentally attached that there’s no getting rid of. So what do we do? We FIGHT. And like I said, I can only say this now because I’ve come out of my most recent episode and taken steps to ensure I keep away from stress. Fighting the stigma is all we can do. I am not a scary monster because I am “mentally ill.” I’m broken and have to repeatedly have my pieces glued back together.

I may be down in that hole for a long, long time and I may get some dirt under my nails, but I’ve crawled my way out of that rabbit hole with my rabbit of hope and I will continue to do so.