Reflections on a Bipolar Life

 Looking at the date in the context of all my earlier posts, I laugh.  It's not humorous.  It's rueful.  It's been 13 years.  So I ask myself just how much anyone will be interested in what I have to say about this passage of time, and shift in emphasis.  I do not assume, but I hope that my words will resonate or illuminate in some small corner of the web.

Since 2007 (a time when I was hypomanic and the year of my last entry), I have received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.  For you, the reader, that may only be so many vague words without any real understanding.  For me, living it, I finally had an explanation for the months of depression, the lack of motivation, the self criticism, the inability to participate in my family's adventures as my sons grew up.  Less obvious, but also addressed by the diagnosis, was the hypomania, the euphoria, expansiveness, grandiosity, ambition.  

That's not what this is about though, the symptoms, swirling changes in self-perception.  This is about the treatment.  As I understand it, bipolar disorder is a genetic disorder of the brain, a psychiatric illness manifested as a chemical imbalance causing mood swings.  The way psychiatry has addressed this is largely through pharmaceuticals though there are others.  Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) uses magnetic pulses to stabilise moods and behaviour.  Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) proved the most effective for me with its brief electrical current the catalyst for a seizure in the brain resulting in production of neurochemicals important to stability.  Lastly, and about which I know very little, is vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) which involves a sort of pacemaker and electrodes.

Like most other bipolar patients my initial plan was to rely on medication(s) to manage my symptoms as there is no cure for the disease.  My doctors and I tried all sorts of meds, eventually progressing to the point where I opted for TMS and then ECT.  It was the ECT which rescued me and gave me back a life I enjoyed.  However, the main side effect of ECT is memory loss.  The price I have paid has been both retrograde and anterograde amnesia.  I have lost huge swathes of memory from before the intensive course which kicked things off in 2015.  I also struggle to create and retain new memories now while I continue with maintenance ECT treatments every four weeks.  Remember, there is no cure for the disease.