It took more than a decade of drafting my bipolar memoir, attending life-writing classes and residentials then other events where I listened attentively to authors, publishers and literary agents as they shared their secrets of how to get published before I gave up. I switched allegiance, joined Twitter and set about promoting my stories in 280 character bursts.
Easier said than done.
Writing about bipolar on social media
Social media is an unnavigable ocean with an undertow and random riptides that buffet you to oblivion (with a dispiriting 0% engagement rate) in the blink of an algorithm – it’s not what you know, it’s definitely who you know. Arriving as a newbie you need to take a look around before diving in and naively posting your thoughts to the first friendly avatar you come across. Then the blue ticks of those you know but have never met. If only they would Like, Reply or Retweet, you can have your ready-baked audience and, cake-like, eat it.
Even after six months the etiquette sometimes eludes me and writing as someone with lived experience as opposed to a clinician, it has taken a while on Twitter to untangle posts based on scientific knowledge from opinion.
Psychology and psychiatry
In my treatment history of over thirty years I am not sure I have been assessed by a psychologist, although I am pretty sure they will have been represented in case conferences. And on my first admission to hospital, I thought the doctor who visited me on the ward on my first day there, was a lawyer come to prosecute a case against me (see this post – Is being mentally ill normal?). I have however met at least three psychiatrists, more than several newly qualified doctors on their psychiatric rotation (three in the last six months) and countless CPNs. I have also had counselling/psychotherapy on four occasions with mixed results from my point of view. The first, which followed my first psychotic and depressive episode, was scary – I really did not know what type of therapy I had undertaken, nor what I was letting myself in for. When, after one session I asked the name of the therapist’s dog, who was sitting by the foot of the staircase as I left – “Tartuffe”. Those of you familiar with French playwright, Moliere, will know this translates as “Impostor”. That set inner hares running and weeks later I was back in hospital, now with a diagnosis of bipolar and clinical advice not to return to therapy for a while, lest it prove too stressful.
On Twitter I have discovered there are differences of opinion in the worlds of psychiatrists and psychologists. This should not have come as a surprise I suppose and my own views of nature and nurture based on my lived experience fluctuate even now. Having discovered that my grandad (who died before I showed outward signs of mental illness) had undergone ECT decades before in a hospital very close to the one where I got my diagnosis, this gave more credence for me to a biological element of my illness. Similarly the loss and grief that triggered my initial depression and lasted too long, causing me to seek help from my GP after three years, signalled the impact life events can have and I have met many people in hospital with similar stories.
When I first got the diagnosis of bipolar I was told by the ward psychiatrist I would be taking lithium as treatment. Later, hanging out with other patients, they advised me that if I took my tablets with a hot drink they wouldn’t work. I wasn’t sure if this was an avoidance from refuseniks or sage advice from expert patients. A later meeting with the psychiatrist confirmed it was nonsense.
From my own reading and questioning doctors and counsellors, there is still some way to go to understand the way the brain/mind works and what influences and promotes good health in it. I have also learnt that some things are horses for courses and what works for me may not suit someone else.