Bipolar Life

** Trigger Warning: Mental Illness **

This episode is a short one and a personal one. It focuses on bipolarity. In it I also share with you my current experience with my bipolar disoder.

Resources:

If you or someone you know is suicidal, for immediate help, please call the suicide prevention phone line for US & Canada: 988

Canadian Psychological Association

Mental health support - Government of Canada 

American Psychiatric Association

Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (US)

Relief: The path to mental health (for people living with bipolar, depressive and anxiety disorders — Quebec)

Instagram: @themadpoetrypodcast

Email: themadpoetrypodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hi, and welcome to Mad Poetry, Mental Illness Reimagined. My name is Georgia Vrakis. I'm a clinical psychologist, an academic, and a bipolar woman. This podcast is about destigmatizing mental illness and giving a voice to mad people and mad resistance. I will start by saying that today's episode is quite personal, as it is specifically about bipolar life. So living with bipolar disorder. As I record this episode, I am in a low period. What I mean by that is that as you know, I've already explained that bipolar disorders are generally characterized by ups and downs, and sometimes mixed episodes. And the mixed episode is, as it says, a mix of high and low symptoms. So a mix of hypomania symptoms and depressive symptoms, for example. So I right now I find myself in this latter phase. In my case, I feel extremely productive, but I also feel sad. So that's kind of a weird feeling. To be honest, it's very hard to define, even to myself. But don't worry, dear listeners, I'm okay thanks to my solid support network, my husband, and my mental health providers. So, bipolar disorder is many things, sometimes wonderful, sometimes painful, sometimes all of those things at once. It is part of me. It makes me the person that I am, and that means it's the good, the bad, and the ugly, as they say. Being bipolar is not always easy, especially when society often shuns the mentally ill. To be understood, we need to be heard, even when we whisper, lean close, maybe you'll hear my words, on the struggles and the joys, the lived experience of a bipolar woman. This brings me to the poem that I wrote for today, which basically describes what I'm feeling right now and how I see bipolar disorder, how I see bipolar life, how I live my bipolar life through the ups and downs. So it's called 13 Ways of Living Bipolar Life. Bipolar life is riding a wave higher and higher and higher, and then crashing hard on the rocks alive but broken. It's not wanting the high to end. As long as you stay high, you can't go down, right? It's a natural high. It can't be that bad, can it? Bipolar life is taking your meds every single day as prescribed. Bipolar life is intense productivity and creativity. One year I even wrote 40 poems, and they were all really good. It's trying out for the Olympic swim team when you don't know how to swim. The thing is, I know I can do it. It's your loved ones pulling you out of the water before you drown. Bipolar life is hereditary. Both my parents are dead, so I have no way to know who gave me this gift. Bipolar life is sometimes laying still on the floor, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the pain to recede. Bipolar life is knowing that people look at you differently since the diagnosis, and the pills, and the sick leaves. Bipolar life is knowing that you are different from the norm. It is living in a society that doesn't understand you and pushes you away into the margin with other misfits like you. Bipolar life is my life, the life of a misfit, and I'm okay with that. So, this is the poem I wrote specifically for today's episode to give you a glimpse or an idea of what goes on, what can go on in the lives of people with bipolar disorder, by using myself obviously as an example. I hope you enjoyed it. And so, with that, we arrive at the end of the episode. So, thank you for calling listening in and have a good day.