Last night I went to a bipolar support group for the first time. This 3 months after my diagnosis.
There were 9 people including me. One of them was a guest speaker, telling his life story. He has BP 1. In short, the hypomania gave him everything and the mania took everything away. The great thing that he did when he still had everything and saw a manic episode coming, he went and put 98% of what he had in a trust fund for his daughters. He now lives off a disability grant.
But the way he described himself and the stigma about mentally ill people, made me for the first time feel mentally ill. It made give more thought to the stigma. Given he comes from a completely different culture where people sometimes have very backward beliefs. He mentioned briefly when they realised he was mentally ill back when he was 20, they tied him to a tree with a dog for days, where he had to fight the dog for his food. The reason for this he didn't mention.
There was a woman with her 14 year old son who left halfway. She made it seem that she didn't want her son to hear all these things, but from the way she was talking, I think it upset her more. I could relate. This man's story was frightening. Especially knowing that this is a life long thing. He was telling a story of a 28 year battle with BP. I felt scared. Scared sh!tless.
"Is this what's in store for me?" I asked myself. I later asked them the same. I cannot remember their response now.
Most people there were middle aged or older. There was one girl about my age, in her mid twenties. She's been struggling with BP and deppression for years. Everytime some talked, I wanted to go hug them. This girl has BP 2 and there was another women who had it too. I tried to relate to their stories. They were struggling with deep deppression. It was difficult to relate to their struggles, as my meds are working and my symptomes are being managed, and I haven't had a deep deppression for a long time.
They had a lot of questions for me. I'm guessing since it was my first time I was only diagnosed 3 months ago. I told them everything that I'm doing to manage. Stopped drinking, stopped doing drugs, sleeping enough, taking my meds regularly. Alcohol was the big one for me to drop.
It was scary for me when I left there. I didn't feel more hopeful than when I went in there. But I guess I needed to get a reality check.
What really moved me was when I left, the guest speaker was waiting outside. He said that after he heard what I did when I had to give up alcohol, he decided to stop smoking. That really moved me. I never imagined that I'd have an impact on someone that.
Today I'm feeling baffled, not knowing what ot think. I'm guessing I need to process everything that I heard last night.