Finding balance in bipolar | Ellen Forney | TEDxSeattle

you, shortly before my 30th birthday, I got my first and only tattoo on my entire back and I sat under the needle and I sat under the needle for five and a half hours straight, it was incredible, intense, cathartic, I was marking in a walking rite of passage. over red hot embers through a burning door transforming becoming even more rugged and beautiful and I knew deep down that nothing would ever be the same as I walked home in the snow in the fresh air on the shiny sidewalk everything was perfect exponentially perfect everything was magical, intense and full of universal truth.

A few weeks later I was referred to a psychiatrist and she had some interesting news for me. She told me she had

bipolar

disorder, which I didn't believe, so she pulled out her copy of the DSM. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and we went through the symptoms one by one, talking a lot, sleeping very little, being easily distracted, feeling powerful, sexy, and cocky, it was like my entire self was clearly outlined right there on that stack of inanimate paper. It was like a punch in the gut like my entire self imploded, but I knew it was true now that I'm an artist and so I have to admit that a part of me was intrigued by the idea of ​​officially being a crazy artist, but along with my romantic idea of what it meant to be a mad artist was my terrified idea of ​​what it meant to be a medicated mad artist.

I spent a few years in a psychiatric unit after graduating college working there and some of the patients there seemed really crushed. Because of his medications I had been an artist and writer since I could remember, it was my vocation and now my profession, so if they crushed me, who would I be? What would I even do for a job? I couldn't imagine it, so I settled into the idea of ​​being a crazy artist and thought I'd leave it at that. I spent the next two and a half months in a manic state. I seduced some people and played dress up in my own closet and danced in front of my mirror for hours I started to get impatient with my closest friends because they were now going too slow for me and I made a lot of new friends who only knew me as a charismatic , entertaining, flirtatious and full of energy.

It was dizzying, spinning and out of control, but I couldn't stop, I couldn't even slow down, I couldn't control it, I didn't want to control it, that manic episode lasted five months and then the bright things dimmed and I stopped changing the color of my nail polish every day and then I felt exhausted and then completely exhausted, I found myself facing the inevitable companion of mania and I was sliding back into the deep, muddy hole of depression, my head was shaking, I was drowning and I was desperate, and that's when the doctor prescribed lithium and I couldn't resist anymore. lithium made it official I was

bipolar

I was crazy and not in an intriguing way in a bad way in a dangerous way I had trouble remembering words my skin broke out and I gained weight my mood kept sinking I didn't know what depression was and what the side effects of the medication were and even that was intensely disturbing.

I had always considered myself a healthy, brave and rebellious person, an underground, rebellious and outlaw cartoonist, but I also swam and lifted weights and dark green leafy vegetables, but now I had no idea how to take care of myself. I felt like I felt like I was. I felt like I would never get out of that muddy hole if there was anything outside of that muddy hole because that's what it feels like in the middle. from a depression it feels like nothing changes I never borrowed hope where I could my psychiatrist told me that if I just waited the depression would end and I didn't believe it, but I knew she believed it and I trusted her. so I let her hope hang by a thread for me and then there were a couple of memoirs: Kay Jameson's Restless Mind about her bipolar disorder and William Styron's Visible Darkness about his suicidal depression that kept me company when I felt so alone in my head.

They nailed my demons with their birds, with precision and showed me that someone could overcome this and be creative and even in the case of Kay Jameson about the medications I wrote and drew during my depression, but I didn't believe anything he said. I was doing the creative thing. I drew a feeling that Styron called infantile dread, like a big, old, ugly baby who couldn't take care of himself. I drew what it felt like to wait for my rumbling anxieties to come down and crush me like it felt. Trying and failing to find a sense of calm, I drew what it felt like to try to hide from myself in the prickly nest of my own head, curled up in a ball on the rug and under a blanket on the couch, hiding when I really wanted to. was going to disappear drawing was a comfort to me if I briefly trapped the invisible demons that were inside my head and made them visible where I could see them pinned to the paper that depression lasted a year and a half and when it finally disappeared it was what a relief, I really didn't anymore I knew what it was like to not be submerged under that muddy water and see the sun and feel the breeze, however, the medications I was taking at the time were not enough to keep me from getting up. and getting up even higher I could feel how close I was to being dragged into another manic episode that for the first time I wanted to avoid, so lithium was just the beginning of my litany of medications, at one point I was on side effect medication for my side effects medications, about which I had a considerable, if ambiguous, sense of pride, I was depressed on both at the same time, even when I felt good, I didn't trust it, when feeling good is a good thing and when it is a symptom, when I feel happy, too happy.

For the next two and a half years I devoted myself to trial and error, mood boards and attitude adjustments, and the unconditional support of my friends, family and psychiatrist, and four years after my diagnosis I stabilized, of course, There is no cure, so my next task was to maintain that stability, so for years I was very private about my bipolar disorder. We received so many messages about mental illness that were weak, broken, and even violent. I felt like if I told someone my dirty secret, they might be surprised. I have a major mental illness and they may not take it so well, but I am a storyteller by profession and I wanted to help people, if possible, in the same way that those two memoirs had helped me and I would do it with words and images.

A mood disorder is something so internal it's about emotions and ways of thinking and images can express the way something feels in an intuitive, immediate and visceral way, so I wrote and drew my graphic memoir that came out as bipolar, especially in such a public way, was exciting. and scary, I steeled myself to feel vulnerable and judged, but what I discovered is that I have so much company, so many people told me about their experience with mental illness, whether it was theirs or someone close to them, all our stories are different, but many of our struggles are similar, in particular, that demon, the frustration of trying to take care of ourselves.

I've been stable for 17 years and I wish I could go back to my younger self and I wish I could go back to my younger self. Especially in those first difficult years after I was first diagnosed, I told myself that things were going to be okay and that I would figure out how to take care of myself and that I would even come up with a fishel system and, like any respectable civil servant, system I would give him a inscrutable acronym and my system would have a pet SMED Mertz so this is what I would tell myself about what med Mertz means s sleep sleep is your number one priority M medications not everyone needs medications and they are definitely over prescribed but If you take medication like me, take it well, it's okay, what you eat affects the way you think.

D Consult your doctor or continue with any therapy that works for you. mindfulness and meditation because calming the mind is difficult and requires practice and exercise. Just like with eating, what affects your body affects how you think our routine is your solid rhythm section, so you can do it with the melodies. T tools, a lot of coping tools so you can do all these things and it's a solid support system because it's just too much for one person to do on our own and that's okay with Mertz so the main thing about SMED nerds It's that all of these things are integrated, we tend to think of them as separate, but they work together like spokes on a wheel. and the words SMED are for anyone whether they have a diagnosis or not because we are all human and we all have mental health and we all go through times of pain, anxiety and insecurity and just times when we feel un

balance

d, taking care of yourself is difficult and complicated . sometimes it is normal and most of the time everything will be fine or mostly fine or can be fixed, it takes diligence but also flexibility because sometimes there is a curveball like an injury or a friend in crisis, sometimes it is a choice like moving to a new city or traveling when you deal with jet lag or weird food and SMED Mertz needs a little readjustment, so stability doesn't mean not changing, it means

balance

, very few people can see my tattoo in its entirety, it's my whole back, so I don't get to see it much every once in a while I'll take a hand mirror and stand in front of the full length mirror on the closet door and look at it.

I still love my tattoo and it represents such a monumental turning point in my life, a turning point that was so overwhelming, confusing and terrifying and yet ultimately a great teacher, because after having been so scared that I would lose my whole sense of self, what I discovered is that a stable life is actually a balanced life. feels like me