{"id":1676,"date":"2017-01-01T16:41:03","date_gmt":"2017-01-01T16:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/?p=1676"},"modified":"2017-01-01T16:41:03","modified_gmt":"2017-01-01T16:41:03","slug":"2016-a-tough-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/?p=1676","title":{"rendered":"2016 a tough year."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>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. \u00a0It started with me having lost my mind and scared I couldn&#8217;t get it back. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0From there on it didn&#8217;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&#8217;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. \u00a0I 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. \u00a0I didn&#8217;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. \u00a0The last time I reached that point was September while in a nasty mixed episode. \u00a0 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. \u00a0It 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. \u00a0From 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. \u00a0I&#8217;m looking forwards to this year now and finally feel like I&#8217;m starting to recover from full mania from November 2015 into the January of 2016. \u00a0I think I can finally see a way forwards. \u00a0My friend killing himself has been a huge wake up call for me and also has really fucked with my head. I can&#8217;t get it into my head that he did it let alone that I tried 3 times last year. \u00a0His method was far more horrific than mine was. \u00a0Maybe that&#8217;s what I can&#8217;t understand because he must of suffered for a short while. \u00a0So here&#8217;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. \u00a0I guess the more I know myself fully and know bipolar better the more I keep track of myself. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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. \u00a0It started with me having lost my mind and scared I couldn&#8217;t get it back. \u00a0I felt like a backseat passenger in a car headed &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/?p=1676\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">2016 a tough year.<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1676"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1677,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1676\/revisions\/1677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebipolarbuilder.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}