Ruminations of an Aging Manic Depressive

How we see ourselves yields what we expect. Changing our view of ourselves depends on what we see in the norms society reflects. This is how self-awareness changes. For example: I am a senior citizen and have behaviors and symptom that fall into a pre-existing group. Back pain, bursitis, and chronic illness impact me. As a late, middle-aged individual, I see the evidence stack up and realize I am newly arrived at being categorized as a senior citizen. In this way, my ideas have changed. Accepting a bipolar diagnosis also utilizes this same process. At first, no insight gives way to later insight that can then give way to recognition of a new definition of self.

I remember my initial reaction to mental illness. I was manic. I was pleased and infused with the grandiose ideas that filled my head. For weeks I was on a high that was all too much to discard. When weeks later I experienced a drop in mood, it was with reluctance and dread that the party ended. It was several years before I realized these episodes had a beginning, middle, and end. It took several more years to focus on and recognize there was something amiss. Only after years of many episodes was I able to grasp that when people referred to mental illness, they were talking about someone like me. It was at that point that my view began to change. Forced into making a choice between seeing myself as someone special in a positive way when spiritually high and as a mental patient seeing himself as someone special in a negative way when acutely depressed, I arrived at the conclusion I was in a category that inspired stigma.

After innumerable ejections from restaurants for talking out loud to myself, encounters with the police, cheap hotels, and six different therapists in just as many years, I had a rude awakening. With lots of jobs and broken relationships, I was side-lined by my aberrant behavior. When I ended up in a mental hospital, the last little chink in the strait jacket clicked in; and with it came a shift in attitude, the recognition of what I had long strived to avoid. I was mentally ill. Aging and attitudes can both change.

Becoming an elder is more than a number and bipolar is more than a collection of symptoms. Attitudes serve as our identity. We don’t arrive at a time of life by chance or at an acceptance of mental illness by accident; we experience events that add up over the years to the recognition that we have changed.

A Work Ethic for the Recovering Manic Depressive

There is much lost in initiative when one is struck with mental illness. Drive dries up like autumn leaves cast adrift by the wind. Caught in a mental maelstrom, one is often imprisoned in the world of the mind. The enduring quality of mental aberration often leads to a paralysis of activity and action. The best-trained and raised with an attitude of productivity often become enmeshed in a net of mental stricture which leaves one immobile and uninspired. Stamina is lost.

Recovery takes work, and success takes tenacity. How do you cultivate an ethic of work that will carry you through the successes and failures of creating a life, when motivation seems to have left you behind? Not only is mental illness fraught with inaction and faintness of heart, but its course over time leads to a loss of vitality and a lack of impulse to act. With this in mind, here are some ideas to help carry you through:

Never take no for an answer. When in treatment, don’t be discouraged by early failures. Turn frustration into persistence.

Angry at the rejection of a job application? Allow your anger to be channeled into positive action. Depressed at the daily lack of routine? Allow your melancholy to form a response. Shy and withdrawn after an episode of mania leaves you unsure of yourself?

Sit and let the discouragement wash over you. Use it as an expression of impotence. When you get done with feeling sorry for yourself, make a resolution to fight back. You are not a failure.

Read books and attend lectures that promote hope and a positive image. Take your life one day at a time. Make a list of daily tasks to complete, and do your best to complete them. Gauge your ability to persist as you go through your list. Acknowledge that your ability to persist will vary from day to day. Over time, your ability to pursue a goal will fluctuate. Accept this as you accept the need to push yourself.

Though anxiety may be your opponent, never let it define you. Learn from your struggle with depression and anxiety. Know you are more than your illness and don’t let others (professionals included) define you. When all seems lost, rest. Rest as long as you need.

When you lose hope, allow time for hope to return. In the end, motivation will surface, perhaps slowly and in small pieces. Let it move you. Eventually it will come.

Like a muscle atrophied after disuse, hope and tenacity must be toned and retrained. Be patient with yourself. Know you are more than your illness. The ethic of work is in your attitude. It is to that you must apply yourself. And so, a work ethic is born or recovered.