For the first thirty-seven years (now 56) of my life I was a relatively happy person, who used to suffer the odd bout of depression in no meaningful way (it never had a telling emotional effect on me). I then became involved with a gambler, and no sooner had she revealed herself to be my deep depression suffering began.
To cut a long story short this gambler broke my spirit, and she broke my heart, and it was the breaking of my heart that caused me to become diagnosed as a BP sufferer.
Off medication BP for me at least is a heavenly experience, on medication though I no longer experience heavenly bouts, and instead I bottom out as I’m doing now, with it being the reason why I write this post. Being depressed depresses, does that make sense?
I don’t like BP related depression because unlike natural depression it is almost impossible to get rid of, in fact as I type away here it brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it, I feel absolutely powerless to prevent it. I have to resolve to the fact that I will be a BP sufferer on and off for the rest of my life, and I did what wrong to deserve it?
Natural depression is when you feel down, and find an almost immediate way to get back up again from. BP related depression fails to work that way, when it gets you down it forces with all of it’s might to keep you down, and here’s the things, I used to be really good at bouncing back up, whereas BP related depression has a different effect on me, I find it impossible to get back up from, and I instead rely on it going away of it’s own accord.
The difference with natural depression and BP related depression is, that with natural depression you know you have an ultimate answer for it, with BP related depression there is seemingly no answer for it, hence the reason why it is so depressive experiencing, you are powerless to stop it, thus you are at the mercy of it.
In recent times I went off my meds altogether, they made me overweight which depressed me. I am back on them now albeit in different dose form so hopefully the way I feel now will improve as time goes on.
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I have also had ECT, making it more clearer to me now that the reason why I required it was because I was brain damaged, and although on medication, I suspect I am in some way permanently brain damaged, why else do I need to take medication for the rest of my life if no?
Almost twelve months on and things have changed dramatically for me. I’ve had no more depressive episodes and because my meds are now right it’s as if I no longer have BP at all, the only downside being I’m still some 26lbs overweight, I’ve lost 31lbs though. On the happiness scale of 1-10 I currently rate 8.