The late Sakanashi Sensei, my aikido master in Argentina, once said that an ‘open guard’  is neither good nor bad in itself. It depends on the kind of attack you’re facing, the timing, the speed, the energy and a number of other things. This isn’t a post about aikido, though. I’m only using the concept of ‘guard’ for the sake of analogy.

Likewise, in life we may have to face conflicts or situations that require a very closed guard, a semi-open guard, and so on and so forth until you face your adversary fully disarmed and with open arms. That is the way I have taken my bipolar condition on board, with open arms. It was a sad relief to find out at the time, but a relief nonetheless—not something to be resisted, or denied, or used as a ‘badge of honour’. As Professor Kay Jamison wrote in her autobiography An Unquiet Mind: Memoir of Moods and Madness, ‘The Chinese believe that before you can conquer a beast you first must make it beautiful.’ I’ve striven to do precisely that and I can only say that my condition is ‘part of me’, it isn’t the ‘whole me’. And it doesn’t make me ugly, or defective, or stupid, or unemployable, or eccentric.

Speaking of work, in a rather unexpected way, it became a stressful place for me … again! My ‘day job’ turned from a safe place into a clusterfuck of disasters that I won’t go into, except to say that with a drastic reduction of hours came a drastic loss of income, and with a rather drastic and hypercritical supervisor (let’s call her that) came a frosty meeting back in 2012 where my performance that year was systematically trashed. I didn’t lose my job, but the years 2013 and 2014 brought in a fair amount of tension. This is hard enough for anyone to manage, and for someone like myself, who suffers from bipolar disorder, it can trigger mood swings and other health issues.

There were other personal circumstances that I won’t discuss for the moment, but their impact was also considerable. To cut a long story short, I got to July 2014 feeling that my brain had come to a screeching halt. I had a ‘sweet’ first half of the year, what with the publication of my novel and having completed a whole semester of postgraduate studies. I would have never anticipated that the second half of the year would be so ‘bitter’ and that I would find myself staring at burnout and depression in the face.

How did I experience depression this time? As a daily grind, an extra effort to stay on the ball, an insidious exhaustion that would creep upon me at a certain time of the day even if I’d had a good sleep the night before. Thoughts of all the positive events that took place in the first half of the year would leave me cold. I managed to keep myself going simply because that’s what I’m used to doing. I could even laugh at other people’s jokes. My depressions don’t manifest themselves as melancholia. I understand they fit the definition of the so-called atypical depression.

When Jenny Mosher interviewed me in July, I resolutely denied my looming inner shadows and even avoided talking about bipolar disorder altogether during the interview. Don’t get me wrong: many people are aware of my condition, but I find it hard to discuss it in public. I’m even finding this blog post hard to write. I had a very bad experience disclosing my condition at my last full-time graphic design job. It was used against me and I believe it contributed to my termination.

The good news this time is that even though I’ve lived a whole life of ups and downs, they frighten me considerably less now. I know what works and what doesn’t work in the event of a persistent low mood. All my insight and self-awareness allowed me to write a work of fiction. In any case, I did my research to make sure I wasn’t restricting myself to an account of what happened to me using a sockpuppet. I’m not Lena Foch, even though some of her external traits coincide with some of mine (for example, her place of birth and her bipolar condition).

In my next post I’ll expand upon how I was able to overcome this depressive state. I couldn’t possibly say I’m totally off the hook, but my thinking and reasoning are clear again, and I’ve got most of my energy back.

Thanks for reading this post. The next one will soon be coming your way. Cheers, FFJ 🙂

PS: If you don’t know what bipolar disorder is, or you aren’t sure, here’s one of my most trusted sources, the Black Dog Institute website.