Bipolar

Hey gang! Sorry for the extended hiatus from regular updates. Honestly, I just haven't had much to write about lately and I imagine you all dislike filler as much as I do. Thing have been going pretty well for me. My tics have been pretty steady, even with the inevitable increase around the holidays re: holiday stress. No, today I'm writing for another reason entirely.

I've been seeing a psychologist for talk therapy since June of 19 and a psychiatrist for medical intervention since July of the same year. Through a number of conversations with my psychologist, we decided it's likely that I'm suffering from bipolar disorder, specifically type II. Bipolar type II is typified by longer stretches of time in the depressive phase of bipolar disorder and never reaching the stage of full mania most commonly associated with the condition. Sufferers of Bipolar II reach a stage called hypomania, which is just what it sounds like. Much like a hypodermic needle is inserted just under the skin, hypomania is juuuuuuuust barely under full-fledged mania. I never reach that "life of the party, hey let's all hang around Ed and feed of his crazy good energy!" phase of the bipolar pendulum. It's more like there are super happy phases where I feel like I can conquer the world and make all sorts of plans and commitments that, in reality, I'll never be able to fulfill. It's been a pattern all through my adult life, and I'm so lucky to have a psychologist who is patient and skilled enough to help me recognize that this is pathology and not personality. She also helped me make an important connection between my Tourette Syndrome and my (still tentative) bipolar diagnosis.

See, one of the things that I've been forced to do as a result of having TS is to be hyper-aware of my mood. I know that being either really sad or really really happy can cause my tics to come out excessively, so I keep diligent tabs and strict control over my emotional behavior. A lot of my hypomanic tendencies are kept in check by that strict control, but that doesn't mean I don't have those tendencies. I want to gamble, but I don't, because I recognize that as a warning sign of excitement that could set off my tics. I want to make crazy plans to go on insane, expensive dates with my wife, but I don't, because I know that a sign of behavior that could get my tics riled up. For so long, I've associated my dislike/disdain for sleep as a feature of my TS, while in fact it's a super-common indicator of being in a hypomanic state. It's not that I don't sleep, as much as it's that I truly don't need sleep to function for days at a clip. But when I come down from those highs, I'm frighteningly depressed for days on end, for as long as two miserable weeks. I thought for the longest time that that's what normal depression was. I'm thankful to my psychologist for helping me to understand that this cyclical behavior is indicative of Bipolar II and not just run of the mill depression. She helped me realize that I might not feel the symptoms of hypomania as keenly as other people because my TS has caused me to keep such a tight lid on my excitement.

My psychiatrist put me on Abilify a few months ago, and my mood has been a lot more stable since then, although I now want to eat everything in sight (on a related note, Ben & Jerry's new flavor, Oat of this Swirled, is freaking spectacular). It's also helped with my tics a little bit, and I haven't noticed any other side effects. Being on a drug that's classified as an antipsychotic is a little scary though, and so is the general diagnosis of being bipolar. Like, having Tourette's has a stigma, but it's more a stigma related to mockery. Bipolar is downright scary to some people, yours truly included. Long before I had an official diagnosis, bipolar has been something I've been worried I suffer from for a while. It just makes too much sense considering some of the longstanding patterns in my behavior.

So I wrote this blog post to reach out to any other TS patients who are also suffering from bipolar, regardless of type. I could use some support and if you're anything like me, I bet you could too.  I'm curious about the frequency of these two conditions existing side-by-side in people, and I'm also curious to learn any coping strategies I could use to get through rough patches. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Conversationally Speaking

Tourette in Popular Media, Entry 1: The South Park Episode

Awareness