Bipolar Backstory

Without revealing any names (to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent), here’s a hopefully somewhat concise description of my learning that I had Bipolar II disorder.

Bipolar II is different from Bipolar I, aka Manic Depression, in the following ways (not categorical, but it’ll give you the flavor)– manias are mild, characterized by high energy, productivity, and creativity levels, none of the more dangerous aspects of mania such as gambling, extreme spending sprees, promiscuity, delusions, and psychosis. Often called “hypomania.” However, manias slide into irritability, anger, rageaholism, and then into deep, prolonged depressions that can include sleeplessness, exhaustion, lack of interest in former activities, suicidal thoughts, passive thoughts of death, etc. Bipolar II sufferers tend to cycle more rapidly between phases, and suffer from more and longer depressive episodes than people with Bipolar I.

I’d been depressed since November of 2005, with no particularly good reason. Work was going well in that I enjoyed working with my clients and colleagues, even if my cases weren’t always what I would want, either for facts or for sheer excitement. My marriage was going well, as my Better Half (the BH) was finally employed again after a long period of unemployment, and the money situation was starting to be stable again. And there were no particular Larger Family Issues, since my family and the BH’s family were doing well. My depression and energy levels continued to sag– I gave up yoga, stopped cooking, was exhausted when I came home from work, and I became more anxious about tasks at work that normally wouldn’t have bothered me. I began wasting more time at work, taking longer than I’d like to do routine work, and avoiding doing tasks I did not want to do but which were necessary steps to moving my cases along. One case in particular began to gnaw at me; the facts were stupid, and my client simply wasn’t liable, in my opinion. But opposing counsel was the most stubborn, obstinate, WRONG lawyer I’d ever come up against. I began to doubt that I was seeing the case aright, at which time I started to fall apart, and let the entire case go straight to hell.

At the same time, I was having other health problems, none in and of themselves ultimately life-threatening, but contributing to my distress, distraction, and physical and mental discomfort. I couldn’t sleep at night for waking up in a cold sweat thinking about this particular case, and yet I was utterly paralyzed from doing anything about it when I got to work.

On the outside, I still put up a pretty good show to my colleagues, who were occupied with their own worries and some pretty large cases our office was handling. This all continued through April 2006, when the prozac my PCP had prescribed stopped working after 6 weeks and I was feeling mentally Worse Than Ever. I made an appointment with Massachusetts’ Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (www.lclma.org), and after an intake session with a sympathetic but not sentimental social worker, eventually got a referral to a therapist, who ended our first session with these life-saving words– “You know, I think you might be Bipolar.”

Before this appointment, however, things had come to a head at work, and the opposing lawyer on the bad case had finally given up on me and called both the client and my bosses. I was called on the carpet and broke down, telling them about my depression, my other physical problems. I threw myself on the sword, admitted everything, and offered my resignation. My bosses were shocked, I think, at the way I fell apart, because I was and am now again the Hard Charging But Not Masculine Female Associate. To their credit, they didn’t fire me on the spot, and the conversation turned immediately from the discussion of The Case to my own health. When I told them I had made some thrashing overtures toward help, and that I’d been to LCL but was still waiting to see a therapist, the conversation shifted again– to getting me through this.

I have never been more embarrassed, grateful, humiliated, relieved, and as conscious of Grace as in those first few weeks after The Case went to hell. I don’t know what I would have done if my bosses in particular had not been so supportive of me, and I couldn’t believe for a long time (and still sometimes don’t) that I actually deserved the friendship and support they have shown me. Once my therapist nudged me toward the bipolar diagnosis, it was all uphill. My health insurance paid for therapy without a fight. I found, after some initial few weeks trying to locate a shrink who would accept my HMO, a wonderful psychiatrist who treated me with the humor, respect, and criticism that I need to keep perspective, and who recommended, on the first try, a combination of medications that have allowed me to feel energetic, happy, normal, and serene in varying combinations. I still get mood swings, especially with my period, I still have a hard time with the wintertime lack of sunlight, and I still have a hard time when I don’t get enough sleep– but they don’t push me too close to the edge, like they used to.

I still have lots of work to do with my therapist. I have lots of bad mental habits, formed both before and after my bipolar likely emerged in my late teens, that I need to root out. I have lots of mood triggers that I need to recognize, so that I don’t let things get my goat the way they did with Opposing Counsel from the Case.

Things are now much better, and after a probationary period at work, I feel like I am back on my game and better, because my energy levels are more consistently high than they used to be, and I am less irritable and more easily amused on a regular basis. I do feel like the medication and the therapy have allowed me to finally become the person I always felt was under the mood swings, but I know I’m going to have to keep an internal eye out to make sure I don’t go down the dark road alone again. I did have one minor freak-out, a few months into my new treatment, but I recognized it in time (albeit the Nick Of Time) and together with my boss, were able to come to a resolution that embarrassed no one and which preserved the client’s interests. So now I am working to build on the person I can be, and to recapture and maintain the creativity and self-expression I lost toward the end of high school. (Although this time, hopefully the poems won’t be as bad, and I will restrain myself from drawings of unicorns in the margins.)

It’s going to be a journey, and like any journey, there will be bumps, potholes, sinkholes and exhilarating views– but I feel like my backpack is full of the tools that I need to cope with whatever the road throws at me.