Bipolar — What Does ‘I’m Sick’ Mean?

I have bipolar disorder and I say “I’m sick” a lot. One could argue that with bipolar disorder constantly trying to kill me, I’m always sick, but “sick” is a sliding scale for someone who is, essentially, sick every day. Other people with chronic illnesses will likely back me up on this. (And yes, it’s true that not eveyone with bipolar disorder is chronically sick in the traditional sense.) So considering bipolar disorder, when I say “I’m sick,” what do I mean and how am I bipolar-sick right now?

The Spreading of Illness When ‘I’m Sick’

Sometimes I’m “normal-person-sick”* and sometimes I’m “bipolar-sick” and my friends that know me expect me to specify; after all, normal-person-sick can harm a person’s health through contagion while bipolar-sick can only harm your mental health through feelings of empathy. I admit, both kind of suck.

What ‘I’m Bipolar-Sick’ Means

If you have bipolar disorder you know that it can make you “sick” in a number of ways. (By “sick,” I mean feeling unwell and experiencing suffering.) According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), this bipolar “sickness” should fall into the category of a depressed mood, a mixed mood a manic mood or a hypomanic mood for those with bipolar disorder. These moods have a variety of symptoms relating to emotional and physical health. (You can read all about them, medically, here.)

But this doesn’t take into account a whole lot of sickness that a person with bipolar can experience. Lots of symptoms can occur due to comorbid disorders like anxiety disorders (very common for those with bipolar disorder) and medication complications like side effects and withdrawal effects.

So when I’m bipolar-sick it could mean that I’m feeling, well anything. What it means is that the bipolar or complications of the bipolar is making me feel unwell and is making me suffer. And when it comes to being sick, I’m bipolar-sick way more often than any other kind and most of the time bipolar-sick feels so much worse. In fact, right now my right wrist is in a brace (and has been for two weeks) and I would much rather deal with that than the bipolar-sick I also currently feel.

Bipolar-Sick Because of Medication

And yes, medication can be a major cause of bipolar-sickness. For me, it is right now. I can feel the bipolar-mood-sickness bubbling underneath but on top is bipolar-medication-sickness and it’s making me miserable.

Right now I’m titrating off one medication while adding another. This is known as a cross-taper. My medication changes usually have to be done this way because if I endeavor to get off a medication without adding another at the same time, I become suicidal at the drop of an eyelash. I understand this. But holy moly is it no fun. I can’t even explain the specific symptoms I’m feeling. All I know is that everything is wrong and painful and hard. I know that all my neurons are colliding painfully inside my skull and making a huge, electrical mess and that mess has crawled into my entire nervous system. You’d think you couldn’t feel that, I know. But that description fits what I am feeling better than anything else. People always feel bad for those in withdrawal from heroin or even alcohol but people rarely think about what it’s like for those of us who have to switch medication oh-so-very-frequently because of the moving target that often is bipolar disorder.

But I would like to mention that this bipolar-sickness is so much better than bipolar-sickness that is purely illness driven. That type of sickness wants to result in my death. This type of sickness want to result in my pain. Pain is better than death, even if sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.

Bipolar-Medication-Sickness Has an Endpoint

Plus, I do know that bipolar-medication-sickness does end at some point. I woke up this morning feeling more human-ish than I have in a while. I thank the universe for that. I’m sure my day will get worse but I will say that it has given me hope that this won’t last forever.

And that’s really important to remember because many people don’t stick with medication changes long enough to truly tell if they are helpful or not. That’s a huge problem because you never want to cross a medication off your list unless you really have to. Yes, this beginning bit is hell, but it won’t always be this way. And yes, if it doesn’t go away over time then, yes, another change is in order, but most of the time it becomes livable over time.

Now, truth be told, the worst part of withdrawal usually comes when you go from the smallest dose possible to nothing and I’m not there yet. This means things are likely to get worse before they get better. But still, I’m working through it. And I’m working through it because I’m strong. Bipolar has forced me to be this way. After many years I know that I am bipolar-strong. I can take it.

* Before you have a fit, I feel “normal-person-sick” is a perfectly reasonable statement. Yup, I know someone is going to scream that “people with bipolar are normal too!” Okay, feel free to focus on that if you like but my words make sense me to and those around me. You can feel free to substitute something that makes more sense for you.

Banner image by Flickr user Simon Kellogg.