Mastering Bipolar Disorder

I have bipolar spectrum disorder, once known as manic depression. Think mood swings ranging from deliciously grandiose highs where everything is possible, to frustrating lows where it’s an accomplishment if I can stay out of bed for longer than a couple of hours a day.

When I came out at 18, no one, including me, knew or suspected I had a mental illness. Since diagnosed, I’ve found that many people in the gay community, who I expected would understand and accept me because of their own experience of stigma, have made me feel pathetic and unwelcome.

My first manic episode occurred when I split from my first boyfriend; my perfect life was destroyed. I continued writing and one-by-one demolished professional barriers: two actors came over and I persuaded them to take their shirts off, to consider whether they had the appropriate physique to model (how would I judge that?); I sleazed onto a minor celebrity who is much bigger now, drunk not on alcohol but hypomania.

One night I arrived at a friend’s stage production in a white stretch limousine and proceeded to boss the cast around for a photo shoot. The same weekend I took a black limousine to a gay street party and demanded permission to drive through the crowds. No one considered me sick – they thought fraud.

After release from hospital, little of my old life remained. Editors walked on shattered fluorescent bulbs around me. Don’t write anything but reviews for us, we don’t want a bad name, they’d say. Don’t tackle this challenging topic, we don’t want to set off your mania. I flopped into a post-psychotic depression where I stayed in bed for 23 hours a day and didn’t pick up a pen for five years.

Next to react were my friends in the gay community. People I knew well distanced themselves from me. You’re speaking too fast, you’re becoming manic, said one mental health case worker, which left me feeling as if I had to control every word I uttered. Yes, I could tell, another friend said when I confided my bipolar – and left me naked, transparent and exposed.

How do you respond when someone around you starts acting in a way uncharacteristic for them? If you know them well, call Adult Mental Health Services, 13 14 65. If you know them in passing, be kind as they heal; many won’t treat them well.

It’s taken me seven years to rebuild my reputation – the same length of time I’ve now been well. People who need to know are aware of the effects of my illness and medication. The one thing I lack is being able to discuss my illness amongst the GLTBI community and feel accepted.

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