Living with Bipolar and Schizoaffective

Trigger Warning: discussion of mental illness, and suicide

Living with mental illness is hard in itself. Living with mental illness is impacts every facet of your life. It isn't just bad days or moments where you lose clarity. It's every day, always sitting in the back of your mind.

As someone who has what people would categorize as severe mental illness daily life can be hard. sometimes the hardest thing is getting out of bed and other days it's going to sleep and calming down. Finding the will to live can be exhausting especially when you have to do it every day. For myself, this is what it's like. Lately finding the will to live has been my primary focus because I'd rather just not.

This is no way to live as you might guess but not every day is like this. Some days I am on the opposite side of the spectrum. I have more energy than I know what to do with and I feel like I could take on a god. I am beyond the sugar rushes we knew as children or drinking to much caffeine we know as adults. I am so hyperactive I won't sleep for days and the overwhelming urges I feel make it hard to concentrate. Did I just bleach my hair two weeks ago to blonde because that's what I wanted well guess what, auburn is it now and I NEED to do it now! With things, there is no later or holding on and thinking about it. I may not have a ton of money, I may not have slept in over twenty-four hours, and I may not have a ton of gas but driving an hour to go to Target sounds like a fantastic idea, and I'll drive! These are manic episodes for me.

The paragraph before this described my depressive episodes. Not all my days are like this. In fact when I am on my medication and have slept you probably wouldn't be able to tell I'm different from you. When I'm on my medication and it's working I feel what I can only assume is pretty normal. Most of my days are like this. I feel pretty stable and can respond to situations with the correct emotions and intensity.

The rollercoaster that comes from not having my medication can be deadly and hard to handle not only for me but everyone else in my life. I know that I tend to not react correctly when I'm not on my medication and I become overstressed, overstimulated, or just simply overwhelmed. There usually isn't a warning when this happens especially if I'm out in public. Being out in public can be the hardest part for me because I can become overstimulated and to cope I tend to overdo it or underdo it in the emotional and reaction departments.

Now, this only describes one of two mental illnesses I mentioned in the title of this article. Having Schizoaffective makes life interesting. It creates a different host of problems that don't play nice with the other things going on. For myself, I hear and see things that aren't there. One of my typical hallucinations is that there is a large black mass standing in my room. This is not only scary at night but it also makes it hard to sleep creating other problems due to lack of sleep.

Hearing voices and having intrusive thoughts is something that I also experience. This makes it hard to think and carry on conversations with others. These two things can be a deadly combination. For myself, the voices are nasty, mean, condescending, and say awful horrible things like "people won't miss you". These voices coupled with intrusive thoughts that are usually centered around death and suicide make it hard to experience life healthily.

Life with mental illness isn't the same for everyone. Some people function very well and hold down steady jobs and are wildly successful while others struggle to do everyday tasks like getting out of bed. For myself, I have varying degrees of ability. Some days I accomplish everything plus some on the to-do list before heading to work. Other days I can't get out of bed and have to be supervised by someone else. For instance right now as I write this I have accomplished a fair amount of things today but it's also because I am trying to distract myself from the thoughts and feelings like life isn't worth it anymore. If I'm being honest it isn't easy and it sucks.

One thing I have learned throughout all of this is that there are people who love you and will miss you. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is ask for help and let others help you. Also stopping and gaining clarity is important sometimes. Taking breaks is also important to your health and the world won't stop just because you take a break and breathe for a little bit.

Through all of this, I am thankful to my family, my doctor, and my therapist. Without them, I probably wouldn't be here today to write this article. I am thankful that I am still here to do so because I would have missed out on so many things if I wasn't.

Orginally posted on Medium (https://medium.com/@makaylanakamura/living-with-bipolar-and-schizoaffective-b385ed73f879)