Now that I come to see it written down, that title seems really really strange. But I can’t think of a better one, so it’ll have to do. What I’m trying to say is really something along the lines of “I want to write about how my diagnoses (particularly with regard to mental health and neurology) and my understanding of those diagnoses and ability to discuss them has evolved over time” but that’s way too long for a blog title!
In addition to being autistic, I also have bipolar disorder (bipolar II to be precise – which means that my manic episodes are actually called hypomanic episodes and are somewhat more moderate than the full mania of bipolar I, but that my depressive episodes are generally longer and more extreme than the depressive episodes usually associated with bipolar I (there are also other forms of bipolar disorder, including cyclothymia (often called rapid-cycling) and, I believe, something about mixed states or not specified – my knowledge on current bipolar disorder designations is a bit rusty as I’ve not done much work on it recently and I don’t have the time to do a research project on it today)).
I was formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2010, although I had evidently been self-diagnosed for some time before that. I briefly wrote about my experiences back in July 2009, and I was clearly already comfortable with the self-attributed label at that time, so I suspect I had been self-diagnosed for some while before then – I really can’t remember. I have openly and comfortably spoken to anyone who cares to listen about bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety for many years now, and I’m currently learning to do the same regarding autism. As it’s bipolar day today I had wondered whether simply to share my previous writing about my experiences with bipolar disorder, but when I looked up those writings my rough style and my evident lack of knowledge were just a bit too grating, so I decided to write this post instead.
And so we come to the notion of evolving understanding. It is clear from my 2009 writing that my own understanding of my mental health and neurology has evolved massively in the last 8 years. It is also clear that the understanding of autism in general has evolved massively over the last 8 years. And it is also clear that some of the issues in my life that I attributed to bipolar disorder back in 2009 were obviously related to my being autistic, as this quote, from 2009, shows:
“Every so often I get stressed, sometimes for no apparent reason. And sometimes, as happened when the treadmill broke recently (it was really just the last straw), I go over the edge. I cry uncontrollably, I am unable to focus on anything and incapable of making even simple decisions. Work becomes impossible. I feel terribly guilty. Eating normally becomes impossible. My senses go haywire. I shake uncontrollably. My legs HURT. And the world becomes a very frightening place, full of bright lights and loud noises, where even little old ladies with sticks seem to move at the speed of light. It is worse in the mornings. And, as I am now discovering, rather hard to write down in a way that makes any sense.”
Bipolar disorder, particularly bipolar II, and particularly in those who are AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth), has traditionally been a common misdiagnosis in the days when the understanding of autism was poorer than it is today. I did wonder, when I received my autism diagnosis, whether my bipolar disorder diagnosis would be removed, because so many of the ways the two conditions present and interact can be similar. However, bipolar disorder is also a common comorbid condition with autism, and the prevalence of bipolar disorder in the autistic population is far higher than in the population as a whole. During my assessment there was a long discussion about my mental health and about how bipolar disorder and autism interacted in my life, and I’ve also mentioned this interaction in the post about Different Language. The conclusion was reached that bipolar disorder is, for me, a comorbid condition alongside autism, and the two have to be considered together.
It’s also obvious now, from the quote above, just how many of the characteristics I ascribed entirely to bipolar disorder in 2009 were actually part of my being autistic (“My senses go haywire” and the subsequent descriptions of sensory problems associated with light and sound are obviously autistic characteristics, in hindsight). For the best part of a decade, bipolar disorder was blamed for pretty much everything that was “wrong” with me, and for a decade or so before that it was simply “anxiety and depression”. As life has progressed I’ve steadily acquired more diagnoses (and more “labels”), which might be seen as bad in some ways, but is actually providing me with much greater understanding of how my head works, and I hope, eventually, how to control it sufficiently to live a life of reasonable quality.
Perhaps, when I’m a bit more able to focus than I am currently, I’ll write a bit more about bipolar disorder and how it affects me and how it fits into my life. I’ve spent most of the last decade becoming reasonably competent at managing the condition, through a combination of medication, various talking therapies, mindfulness, and, possibly most important of all, keeping a daily mood diary (which I did for years until summer 2016 when the “autism hypothesis” was formed and things went completely crazy – once I am a bit more settled I shall set up a monitoring system that takes both bipolar disorder and anxiety and autism into account). Although some of these treatments were not totally suitable for me because they exacerbated issues caused by undiagnosed autism, they did, on the whole, work for management of my bipolar disorder – what I need to do now is to adapt them so that they’re working WITH my neurology to improve my mental health, not against it.
And my understanding of mental health issues and neurology continues to evolve, as, I hope do the understandings of others. Part of the reason I write this blog is to try to understand things myself (it is well-known in teaching circles that explaining things to other people is a good way to test understanding) and also to try to help others understand the complicated world inside some of our heads!
I do, however, fear that I’ll look back on that last paragraph (and possibly most of the rest of this blog) in 8 years’ time and think that my “rough style and my evident lack of knowledge were just a bit too grating”, just as with the 2009 writing, so maybe it’s time to stop here.
Euthymic bipolar day to you all!
Finally Knowing Me: An Autistic Life 