Author: swansong26

I was talking to one of my oldest friends today and she reminded me of a few strange ‘symptoms’ of mine from years ago. I’d mostly forgotten about these but when we got talking about it, some tiny fragments of memory came back.

When I was at junior school I would have these periods where I would become emotionally overwhelmed or over-stimulated. My friend remembers having to sit with me in a quiet place until I felt better. I would appear distant and confused for some time, and then I would be ok again. Knowing what I know now, the only thing I could describe it as would be some sort of anxiety or panic attack, but the weird thing is I only have very vague recollections of these periods. Obviously it was a long time ago, but why wouldn’t the school tell my parents about these episodes?

In later years when we started going out to pubs and clubs, my friend says I would sometimes become nauseous, unable to deal with the noise/lights/etc, my body temperature would rise and I would either pass out or become emotional. I had forgotten all about this but I do remember one occasion where I had tried to go to the toilet but had left it too late. I remember that my friend had a spare pair of knickers in her handbag and so I had to borrow them. She was convinced that my drink had been spiked and insisted on calling an ambulance but apparently I had just wanted to go home.

Now I don’t know if any of this was related to my epilepsy or my Cyclothymia or if it was something else. I was only diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 36 so I’m used to being a bit late to the party.

I decided to write a list of the symptoms I get on my worst days and here it is. I’ve had a few of these over the weekend:

• Uncontrollable crying and not being able to explain why
• Brief spells of feeling ‘not really here’ like a mini absence seizure
• Anxiety/nervousness/panic attacks
• Very low self-confidence
• Very low self-esteem and feelings of inadequacy
• Unable to use initiative
• Unable to think clearly (‘brain fog’)
• Unable to follow and remember complex information or instructions
• Low mood/irritability that affects people around me
• Bad temper/anger issues
• Unmotivated: less likely to exercise or do things I know will make me feel better
• Apathy
• Unwilling and unable to socialise
• Feeling mentally and physically exhausted
• Poor short-term memory and concentration
• Occasional poor personal hygiene (mainly forgetting to brush my teeth)
• Loss of interest in things I normally like
• Restlessness
• Not wanting to talk to people on the phone
• Interrupted sleep or difficulty getting to sleep due to overthinking
• Feelings of being confused or overwhelmed
• Poor diet/prone to over-eating unhealthy food
• Feelings of being under intense pressure
• Unable to cope with conflict or confrontation
• Unable to make decisions
• Low-risk self harm such as nail biting or hair-pulling
• Thoughts of wanting to ‘run away’
• Feelings of malice or resentfulness towards others
• Thoughts of suicide

The physical symptoms I get are:

• Migraine which can last up to 12 to 18 hours
• Nausea
• Stomach pain/diarrhoea
• Seizures

So through my research I know that a lot of these symptoms are related to Cyclothymia. Until a month ago I had only vaguely heard of the condition but now it all seems to make sense. I need to go back to my GP next week and tell her that this illness has now been a contributing factor to me losing my job. I worry that if I get another job, the same thing is going to happen again in a couple of years. I am seriously beginning to wonder if work is something I can do at all, judging by that list.

I lost my job yesterday. I just kept getting it wrong. My confidence, concentration and accuracy had improved somewhat since going back to work three weeks ago, but it was too little too late. Other things have happened this week which are not work-related which I will write about at a later time, but for now I just wanted to say that although I was supported at work because of my Cyclothymia, it seems to me now that maybe I should have gone to the doctor sooner and I wouldn’t have been in this position. But there’s not really any point in thinking about things I should have done differently.

I’m having to re-evaluate my working options and consider what would be best for me. I could afford to work part-time and top up my wages or something. The whole benefits system is a complete mystery to me and I don’t know where to start.

The way I look at losing a job is it’s an opportunity to re-evaluate what’s important in life. Currently, family is my absolute priority. If I never work again it doesn’t matter.

When I’m in a hypomanic (or ‘up’) phase of Cyclothymia, I seem to have a lot more creative energy. I can write for hours, or another of my favourite hobbies is cross-stitch, so I can sit and sew until I can’t see. I love being creative and artistic.

I also become completely engrossed in something. A while ago I was going to gym classes after work almost every night and I loved the feeling I got after finishing a class. It was like a huge sense of achievement because I’m generally not the fittest person in the world. One of my favourite classes is Body Combat. The best way I can describe it if you’ve never heard of it is it’s boxing moves combined with dance music. It’s a full-on high energy class and it makes you ache in places you didn’t know you had. It’s an amazing way to release some pent-up anger or stress too. You just imagine the person who’s annoyed you standing in front of you and you just give them a right hook or a left upper cut.

I also love going to dance classes at my gym. I’m not the best dancer in the world, but I love music and the feeling of freedom that dancing gives me. Nobody cares if you get it wrong – it’s all about feeling good.

A couple of years ago I went to see my favourite singer on his solo tour around the UK. I won’t mention any names because for the time being I want to keep this blog anonymous, but for the people reading this who know me – well my name on here is a massive clue). Anyway I digress. I was with my best friend in a town neither of us had ever been to before, so I suggested finding the venue. My friend assumed that I wanted to see if ‘He’ was there yet, and with it only being early afternoon I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t be there yet. I took her comments to mean that I was being stupid. I wanted to go home. I knew I was over-reacting but I was annoyed at her for thinking I was stupid. I know now that this is typical of a depressive phase – the strong feeling of wanting to run away. I ignored it and carried on.

The town also had zero phone signal so I couldn’t even let anyone know I’d arrived safely so that pissed me off. I already hated this town. We went into a Costa for a coffee and something to eat, but I was trying to lose weight at the time and Costa is lovely, but not really suitable if you’re counting the calories. So naturally I was annoyed that there was nothing I could have and took it quite personally.

We went to our hotel and I don’t know what started me off, but I could not stop crying. I was absolutely sobbing and I didn’t know why (I do now, obviously). Knowing what I do now about Cyclo and Bipolar Disorder, it was screamingly obvious that I had it. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and my friend couldn’t help me. I couldn’t explain to her what was wrong because I didn’t know. I just knew I had to let all this emotion out of me. She decided to leave me for a while and I agreed that we could both do with some space. I still had this really intense feeling of wanting to be in my own room at home.

No matter where I’ve lived over the years, my bedroom has been my sanctuary. Surrounded by my own things, and curling up on the same creaky old bed I’ve had for years is just my idea of comfort. I’ve stayed in a lot of hotel rooms since I started following the band around and mostly they are comfortable and clean enough, but you can’t beat your own bed.

A couple of hours later my friend texted me and asked if it was ok if she came back to the hotel room. I replied that of course it was, and I had no idea what the hell all that crying was about. Everything was fine after that and the gig was one of his best ever. If I’d gone home I would have missed it, and been even more upset. Funny how I never consider that at the time when I feel like running away though.

Another thing I’ve done when I’m low or going through a depressive phase is eat my body weight in biscuits. I’m ashamed to admit it but I get incredibly greedy and sneaky with food. For example I buy two massive bars of chocolate, kidding myself that one of them is for my housemate, but then I hide them and keep both of them for me. I have done that so often it’s unreal. I’ve literally eaten an entire packet of Rich Tea (which are the most boring biscuits on the planet) in one go. I can eat my dinner, then a little while later go and get some crackers and hummous for example and eat the entire lot. From personal experience I wouldn’t advise eating a whole tub of hummous. It has quite an effect on a person’s digestive system I can tell you.

I simply do not allow myself to buy Jaffa Cakes or Nutella anymore. It’s practically carnage if I do. I tell myself ‘Sod it, this will make me feel better,’ when I know it won’t. I’ve binged for years and it’s never made me feel better. All it does is make me feel like crap about myself for being so greedy.

When I’m levelled out mood-wise, like I think I am at the moment, I’ll eat normally. I might try keeping a food-diary again because when I did that a few years ago I managed to lose three stone. If you can ‘see’ what you’ve eaten during the day it really does make a difference.

So that’s a little bit more about my experiences with Cyclothymia. Hopefully I’ll be able to remember a few more examples to put up here so if anyone is reading this, they might get the answers they’re looking for like I was for so long.

I used to bite my nails but a lot of kids go through a phase of biting their nails so I don’t really count that, but I used to do some pretty odd things during my early teenage years and some of them have continued until now.

I remember sitting watching Coronation Street with my Mum and I’d be biting the skin off my fingertips until they were sore. My thumbs were best as I’d get a nice big piece of skin and peel it off in one bit. Then the skin would go a bit weird until it healed and grew back. I know – quite gross when you think about it but at the time it felt normal. The even worse bit is that I used to swallow the bits of skin I’d bitten off. Can you imagine the germs and bacterial shite there must have been on my hands as a 13-year old?

I can’t remember how or why that habit started but I think it was around the same time as my obsessiveness started. I don’t know how or why I stopped doing it either, but it seemed to only ever happen in my early to mid-teens.

There are certain phrases that people use like ‘tearing my hair out’ and they aren’t meant to be taken literally. In my case it is literal. I have stood in front of a mirror for HOURS and pulled strands of my hair out, one at a time, and not felt a thing. If I get a particularly wiry hair or one that’s a bit thicker than the rest I’ll examine it closely and play with it for ages. When I talk or write about it, this hair thing seems like the most bizarre thing to do but when I’m doing it, it feels normal.

A few years ago when I was going through some financial difficulties, I sat up in bed one night and pulled every single hair out of my eyebrows and laid them all out in a neat row. Again I didn’t feel any pain when I was doing this at all. It’s lucky I have a fringe so that nobody noticed.

If I rub my eyes and an eyelash falls out, I save it for days. It’s like I have this crazy compulsion to look at it. I’ll build up a little collection of them over several weeks and every now and then I’ll closely examine the longest or thickest ones. Then I’ll chuck the lot in the bin, deciding that this habit is just too weird, and a few weeks later I’ll start all over again. I wonder if there’s a connection between this and my moods….? It might be worth keeping a note in my diary.

My first ‘real’ job was in an electronics factory. I started there just before my 19th birthday and left when I was 31, so this job made a lasting impression on me. At this time I obviously had no idea I had Cyclothymia but looking back, it’s clear that there were some issues surrounding how I dealt with pressure and stress.

I would get so wound up by other people that I worked with because I could see that they weren’t pulling their weight. One certain person was particularly clever. She made out that she just couldn’t do certain jobs even though she’d been there for years, so I ended up doing everything. Then I got it into my head that I had to do everything, and I had to get everything right. Of course, we all know that is impossible so when the manager would have a go at me for getting something wrong, I’d keep it bottled up. The immense pressure I was feeling would build up so that by the time I got home I would be ready to explode, and it was my poor Mum who usually got the brunt of my temper.

I’ve heard this phrase used by other relatives of people with Bipolar Disorders and my Mum says this was what she felt like with me: ‘It was like walking on eggshells – I never knew what mood you’d be in from one day to the next.’ I feel so bad now that I put my Mum through that because none of it was her fault. She now understands that it was my Cyclothymia but at the time it must have been pretty awful.

I don’t know how often I got like that. I can’t remember a lot of it as it was so long ago, but my Mum must have been so relieved when I moved out and got my own place.

Later on in my working life, I ended up in the endless boredom-fest that is working in Call Centres. I don’t think it would be possible to find anyone less suited to that type of work than me. I hate talking on the phone to people I don’t know, I hate doing the same thing for hours and days on end, and I hate working unsociable hours. Customer Service (whether it’s face to face or on the phone) has to be one of the most mentally draining industries to work in. You have to be this lovely, kind, helpful person all the time and you just have to take it when people are being absolute assholes to you without retaliating. You lose all sense of personal identity and you are micro-managed to within an inch of your life.

I was going through what I now understand as a depressive phase about ten years ago while working for one particular call centre. It’s the one with the two guys with moustaches in their adverts…yeah, that’s the one. We used to call it ‘One One Hate’.

One Monday morning I went in even though I was feeling like crap. I was crying a lot and feeling really anxious but didn’t know why, and everything just seemed so futile. I knew I didn’t want to stay at home on my own because I’d just end up feeling worse, so I dragged myself in to the call centre. I told my team leader how I was feeling but I just got told to do my job or go home sick.

The last thing I felt like doing was taking verbal abuse off people just because they thought they were better than me. All my job involved was looking up phone numbers for people and you’d think that was straight-forward enough. Anyway, I went on the phones for about half an hour and started to think it wasn’t going to be such a bad day after all. Then I got a tap on my shoulder from my team leader and was asked to go and see her.

The last caller I’d spoken to had had a very thick Scottish accent and I was having a bit of trouble clarifying what she was saying. I wasn’t rude because, well why would I be? I just asked her a couple of times to distinguish between the letter ‘A’ and the letter ‘E’ which can sound very similar. My team leader wanted me to listen to the call. I couldn’t hear anything wrong with it at all. I was confused as to what point she was trying to make. Long story short, I got suspended for a week for ‘unacceptable conduct’. I had done NOTHING wrong. I couldn’t believe how unfairly I’d been treated but to be fair, I was glad to get out of there for a few days.

In another job a few years later, I had a manager who would delight in making fun of me whenever I got upset. She would call me a ‘silly girl’ (I mean, talk about patronising – I was older than her) and laugh at me in front of my colleagues. I was going through a particularly stressful time with my family at the time looking back I can see I was in quite a long hypomanic phase. Then I ‘crashed’ down into crippling depression and anxiety which lasted for several months too. She would be really passive aggressive and leave little notes on our desks instead of saying things to our face. I used to take the notes home and highlight all the spelling and grammar mistakes to make me feel better.

I’m in an administration job now and I can honestly say I’ve been so well looked after by my manager. She has been so supportive while I’ve been going through a depressive phase which seemed to creep up on me while I wasn’t looking. I was hypomanic, working longer hours and trying to do as much as possible (again) but I was making more stupid mistakes. Then I went through this weird phase where my self-esteem was so low it was through the floor, and I believed that I didn’t deserve my job because I had no initiative and I couldn’t make decisions. This was only last month but the difference in me now is quite amazing.

My manager knew this behaviour was out of character so she made me ring the doctor. I got an appointment and she walked to the surgery with me. An hour later the doctor was telling me I had Cyclothymia and it was like the missing piece of the puzzle. As I said earlier, I always knew I was different. I knew that my emotions whether good or bad, always seemed a hundred times more intense than they should have been. I knew that I had strange thoughts when I was feeling ‘good’ and that I would get obsessed with something for a little while then completely lose interest in it. I knew that I was highly sensitive and that I had more empathy than I knew what to do with. I knew that it had to be more than just depression and anxiety. I knew that although it might not be classed as ‘self-harm’, I used to go through phases of binge-eating, biting my fingernails or the skin on my fingers and pulling odd strands of hair out. (I think I’ll do another post on that subject as it’s quite interesting.)

So here I am – a survivor of Call Centre imprisonment. I would never want to do that sort of job again. I would rather be unemployed. I know that there are really stressful jobs out there which deal with life and death situations every day and compared to those, working in a call centre must seem like a walk in the park. However dealing with customers who think they are entitled to stuff just because they want it and think they can call you all the names under the sun when they can’t get their own way has to be one of the worst jobs ever created. Because of this I always make sure I’m polite and friendly to waitresses/bar staff/receptionists etc because if I can make their day a little bit better just by saying ‘thank you’ or ‘oh ok then, no problem’ when they can’t do something for me, then all well and good.

My housemate has had a lot to put up with me and my moods over the years. We used to work together and we’re good friends so it made sense for us to house-share. Six years on and she still isn’t fed up with me…!

Anyway yesterday she bought me a little present. It’s a little book that I can put on my desk at work and it has 47 different ‘mood’ emojis to choose from. I just pick one that suits how I feel and that helps my colleagues to immediately see if I’m ok or not. It’s such a simple, fun idea but I think it’ll be really useful.

So today I decided that I was going to feel ‘fabulous’.

I decided to tidy up my room today and clear out a load of old stuff I no longer need or use. It was something I’d been meaning to do for weeks as the room was starting to get cluttered and disorganised, and I just felt like I had way too much ‘stuff’. So I got a large bin bag and some cleaning cloths, and I was ready to be completely ruthless.

We all hold onto things we don’t need and they end up just being shoved away in a cupboard or in a box on a shelf for years. I was beginning to find my room uncomfortable as I had nowhere to put my new things, so the old stuff had to go.

I think it’s the same for holding onto negative ways of thinking. We keep them because they’ve always just been there. We don’t know how we got them or when, we just did. So in order to make room for new ways of thinking, those old ones have to be binned.

I realised recently that I was keeping myself anxious because I never allowed myself to be optimistic. I was always waiting for something bad to happen, because I thought that if something good happened instead, I’d be even happier. I had always told myself that it was better to expect things to go wrong, so that it would be less painful when they did. I don’t know where or when I learnt that way of thinking. I guess at some point I must have been really optimistic about something and then when it didn’t turn out how I’d expected, I blamed myself. I really can be my own worst enemy sometimes.

So I’ve made some space in my room for the things that are still useful and relevant, and have some space left over for new things too.

Well I got my days a bit muddled up and went back on the wrong day, but it was fine! I had a long meeting with someone from the Health and Wellbeing team (who also has Cyclothymia – small world eh?!) and we went through all the things I can do to reduce my stress levels and improve my self-esteem. I’ve got a bit of homework to do over the next few weeks but if it helps me then it’ll be worth it.

I’m just doing simple things at work for the time being until I get settled in again. I’ve told the other people in my team about my condition as I thought it was important for them to be aware of any changes in my behaviour. We’re a really supportive group of people and if one of us is having a hard time then we all look out for each other. Honestly I’ve never worked in such a place where people actually cared about their colleagues.

I also thought it was important to share my diagnosis so that it might help other people. As I said before, I always knew there was something different about me. I just had this feeling that I can’t really explain. My wild temper, my intense emotions, my obsessive behaviour, my depressive episodes that seemed to come and go really quickly, my moments when I seemed to have a lot of energy and big ideas…it all had to mean something.

If anyone is reading this then I’d love to hear your experiences of the condition and how it affects you. Leave me a comment and I’ll make sure I reply 🙂

I’m going back to work tomorrow, two weeks after having my diagnosis. In that time I’ve done a lot of research (and I can highly recommend Polar Warriors YouTube channel!) and everything just makes more sense.

Luckily I work for an organisation where health and wellbeing is their number one priority so I think I’ll be fine. My doctor has recommended that I do ‘amended duties’ for the first month, then go back and see her to let her know how I’m doing. I got a bit anxious earlier but a quick phone-call to my friend for reassurance was all I needed. That and a nice cuppa.

I’m not expecting any special treatment but I would hope that people would be understanding. I don’t want to hide my illness from anyone as I’m not ashamed of it, and I think it would be helpful both for me and my colleagues. They might be able to spot signs of my behaviour changing.

I just want people to know that I’m not a bad person. I’m not naturally disruptive or insensitive. I hate rude, obnoxious people so why would I want to be like that? I’m not using Cyclo (as we’ve become known to each other) as an excuse, but it sure as hell explains a lot of things.

I recently watched a very good video on YouTube which explored the ten main signs of hypomania. Here they are:

1. Feeling unusually motivated or having more energy than usual: Recently for me this meant doing extra hours at work and staying late when I didn’t have to.
2. Creative bursts: I often have these random ‘big ideas’ like starting my own business or writing a novel. I never think about the time it takes to plan things like that or at least do some research.
3. Feeling paranoid: I started thinking that my colleagues at work were laughing and talking about me recently. This can also manifest itself in wondering why your friend hasn’t replied to your text or phoned when they said they would. You start questioning whether you’ve done something to upset them.
4. The ‘brain/mouth filter’ is off: You say things that could be taken as offensive or rude, when you know you wouldn’t normally be like that.
5. Bad time-management: This could mean taking on too many tasks or turning up late for things when you’re normally fairly organised.
6. Spending too much money: This one is self-explanatory but as an example I recently needed new glasses, so rather than spend a reasonable amount on a decent pair I spent £250 on the top of the range ones. I also spent £75 on a book recently on the off-chance that I might win a guitar. I can’t play guitar, and funnily enough, I didn’t win one.
7. Feeling angry/irritable: This one really resonates with me because I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve completely lost the plot over something that other people would see as trivial. Certain noises can irritate me, or being around too many people, or being too hot…the list is endless.
8. Talking faster than usual: I can’t say I’ve ever noticed this one but it’s certainly something I’ll look out for.
9. Rapid or racing thoughts: My mind can be thinking about three hundred things at once, so it’s little wonder that I have trouble concentrating sometimes. I’ll start thinking about say, a song for example, then I’ll pick up on a line or a word and that will lead me off on a tangent thinking about something to do with that word, and so on, and all of this happens in a few seconds. It’s like I can’t keep up with myself.
10. Feeling overwhelmed: This is a really big one for me. I get very emotional but I literally can’t explain why I’m crying. All I know is, I have to let it all out.

So there’s the list of the ten major signs of hypomania. It’s crazy to think that I was doing most of those things over the last few months but not noticing anything was wrong, but apparently that’s part of the illness – you aren’t aware that anything is wrong.