What can I say other than 2016 was one of the hardest years of my life other than possibly 2012. Maybe both are on a similar level for different reasons. It started with me having lost my mind and scared I couldn’t get it back. I felt like a backseat passenger in a car headed for a cliff with no driver and a seatbelt firmly locked with no chance of stopping it happening. From there on it didn’t get much better. Early hours of the second, at least I think it was the second, of January I disconnected from what at the time could only loosely be termed as reality, walked up my garden and stuck my kids rope swing around my neck and tried to choke/hang myself. I’d previously researched how Robin Williams had killed himself and it sounded a good way to go not that I was even intending to do it only minutes before going up there. It was just a case of being so disconnected and so far out there. I saw my GP and I then got sent for an emergency psychiatric assessment and properly diagnosed as having bipolar 1 after seeing the cpn and getting referred to the psychiatrist in Februaury. Before seeing the mental Health team at the hospital I went into ultra fast cycling with countless mood changes per day. I didn’t tell many but a week after the first time up the garden I went up there again trying to work out what had happened and did it again. The last time I reached that point was September while in a nasty mixed episode. As the year progressed I saw the psychiatrist in February as mentioned and started some meds. Then I got unwell in May with pneumonia and had a blip in moods again partly down to the pneumonia. Summer was a head fuck mostly then late August I started ultra rapid cycling again which then switched to a mixed episode. I still carried on at work regardless as I desperately clung to some form of routine no matter how mentally unwell I was. It lasted longer than I expected and I ended up back in the MH system after having been discharged in the July. The mixed episode went from late August right through to mid October. Each day I expected it to stop but it lessened a bit for a few days before hitting hard again. From then onwards I found out a friend had tried to kill himself and ended up in a MH hospital for a month only to get discharged and not get much outside care. A few weeks after that in early December he tried and succeeded this time. His funeral was on Friday 30th Decmeber. I ended 2016 pretty bloody level all things considered and have managed to rest well over the Christmas holiday time. I’m looking forwards to this year now and finally feel like I’m starting to recover from full mania from November 2015 into the January of 2016. I think I can finally see a way forwards. My friend killing himself has been a huge wake up call for me and also has really fucked with my head. I can’t get it into my head that he did it let alone that I tried 3 times last year. His method was far more horrific than mine was. Maybe that’s what I can’t understand because he must of suffered for a short while. So here’s to recovery and fingers crossed for the end of this year because I see a pattern of every other year from November onwards I slip into hypomania and then full mania. Luckily last year was a year with only some hypomania two arms the end. I guess the more I know myself fully and know bipolar better the more I keep track of myself.
