Author: swansong26

When I was twelve I was obsessed with Boy George. I mean, OBSESSED. This was no ordinary pop star crush, this was crazy. I literally could not stop thinking or talking about him, and I would write his name on practically every piece of stationery I owned. Nothing was safe. Luckily my music tastes changed and got more alternative as I got older and I’ll always be a Goth girl at heart.

In recent times my obsessions have been a little more abstract. Earlier this year I became obsessed with the London Underground. Having always been a little bit nervous to use it, I decided it would be a challenge for me to overcome my fears and make a journey by tube. How hard could it be? As long as I was prepared in advance and I knew exactly which line I had to be on, and I knew that I could access the stations without having to use escalators I would be fine. I downloaded an app with lots of useful information about the stations and I planned lots of imaginary journeys, to see how easy or difficult they would be.

I spent hours every evening doing this over a period of several weeks. I even watched videos on YouTube of people going from one underground station to another (yes, it’s a thing).

When I went to London in April this year I decided to travel from Paddington to Kings Cross by tube. A journey that I had previously done by taxi or bus, and which had taken forever. I was amazed at how quick and easy the journey was, and because I’d overcome a personal fear I felt pretty damn good.

Some of my obsessions have been a little ‘darker’. A couple of years ago I was completely obsessed with everything to do with prison. I wrote several thousand words of a story which I became completely absorbed by. I believed in the characters and I could even see it being made into a film, I thought it was that good. I’ve no idea how good it is now as I deleted the whole lot once I got over that obsession. Looking back now I can see that it was a distraction from some stuff that was going on in our family and how unhappy I was in my job at the time. Ironically thinking about prison was my means of escape.

Cyclothymia is a form of Bipolar Disorder, characterised by periods of hypomania, depressive states and relative stability. People with Cyclothymia usually don’t experience the same extreme behaviours as those with Bipolar I or II such as self-harm for example, but the effects of the vast differences in mood can affect many aspects of their lives including work, relationships and self-esteem.

I am 49 years old and I was diagnosed with Cyclothymia recently. I always knew there was something different about me but I didn’t know what it was or why I was different. Any time I was under stress or pressure, my symptoms got worse in the fact that I’d either be crying uncontrollably, feeling like I desperately wanted to ‘run away’ (this usually means giving up my job) or having mad fits of temper. Sometimes I even had all three.

These emotions are incredibly hard to control, and although I know I’m behaving irrationally and unprofessionally, I don’t seem to be able to help it. I’d look around and see other people behaving normally and this was what made me sense that something was different about me.

A while ago I thought it was autism but my doctor dismissed that straight away. Knowing very little about the condition myself, I accepted that and moved on. But there was still this niggling feeling that something wasn’t right. I’d always had anxiety and in recent years this seems to have worsened, but there had to be more to it than that. Bearing in mind my age, I thought it could be menopausal symptoms, but then I thought that I’ve always felt like this so it couldn’t have been that either. It was even suggested that I might be dyspraxic, having been a ‘late developer’ as a child as well as having some difficulty learning maths and not being good at sports.

Finally after breaking down in floods of tears in front of my manager at work, I went to the GP and told them EVERYTHING. This time I didn’t cover it up by saying ‘Most of the time I’m fine! I just get a little stressed every now and then.’ I told her about my weird obsessions (more about that later), my over-eating, my dramatic temper, my constant thinking and overthinking about work and everything else.

She immediately said it was Cyclothymia and although I had read about it on Wikipedia while looking up Bipolar Disorder (a friend of mine has it and I wanted to know more about it), I had never made the connection with my own experiences. This diagnosis is obviously very new to me and it answered a lot of questions. However it also raises more questions. How am I going to cope with stress or pressure next time? Am I going to be able to hold down a full time job? Is it going to get worse?

I’m on a waiting list for intensive Cognitive Behavioural Therapy but that could take another 8 or 9 months, so in the meantime I’m just learning as much as I can about the condition and take things one day at a time.