Bipolar Disorder can be incredibly disabling. Mine snuck up on me, with depression rearing its ugly head before I was even ten years old. What I can’t get over now was how blessed I was to have a fantastic elementary school, more friends than most, excellent grades, I played a lot of sports, I loved my family, and they treated me exceptionally well, and my school put on events that I looked forward to all year. I was in a fog though, without realizing it.
I remember seeing the world through glasses that distorted everything. I felt the guys who I played football with at recess and after school were not to be trusted, that they weren’t true friends. I lived in constant fear and anxiety about the possibility of nuclear war. I was considered a gifted child but I never seemed to have the gumption to work hard on my studies. This was okay when I was in elementary school, but it left me poorly adjusted to the academic work I would need to master to succeed in junior high and high school.
Looking back, I can see how bipolar disorder began to take over from depression. Of course I would still have depressions, but there were times when I was bouncing off the walls. I remember loving musicals, and when I got home from school I would flamboyantly dance around the house, using furniture as my stage and my props.
What rescued my youth was the Air Cadets, which I joined at the start of grade eight. I loved the discipline and the learning. I joined the marching band and made some solid friends. Sadly, my brief reprieve from my depression only lasted a short while.
At the end of my first year of cadets I went to a summer camp far from home. Looking back, I think I should have not gone to it, it unleashed a demon in me. I was in dozens of fights, I went manic a few times and would walk up and down the corridors of the barracks, pretending to be a drill sergeant, screaming at other cadets just because I could get away with it.
High school brought on a whole new host of problems. I finally found something that would help with my depression and social anxiety, it was alcohol. If I drank, I could relax enough to ask girls to dance. I would loosen up and enjoy myself. But there were no limits on my boozing, a short time after starting drinking at the ripe old age of 14, I was blacking out chunks of time and even becoming violent and injuring people during what I thought was harmless horseplay.
My sadness carried on through school, and my grades suffered. I was no longer even seen as a gifted child; I was more viewed as a delinquent with a serious attitude problem. Help did come, but it came the hard way. It came with forced hospitalization on a closed ward. The miracle was, the hospital got me thinking and acting normally in just two months. All my delusional ideas and auditory hallucinations simply went away. But still I was living in denial of my illness. I was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder, then later it was changed to schizoaffective, bipolar subtype, with anxiety.
It was so hard to grasp the truth that I needed help, needed regular medication. For while I thought all I needed was the discipline I had built up while in cadets. I thought if I had discipline, I could filter out the strange ideas and thoughts I was having. While the first Persian Gulf War was brewing, I tried to join the Canadian Military, even though no one knew if the crisis would escalate to total war, or what the Iraqis were hiding. Thankfully my psychiatric records kept me out of the military. With my illness and resistance to treatment it could have only ended in disaster.
After leaving the hospital, I ended up travelling, or perhaps more accurately, drifting from Edmonton to Vancouver, into the states, and took out a student loan to attend flying school, another thing that should never have happened. I did get an incredible amount of joy out of learning to fly, but medically I was unfit to be a pilot. This was a difficult pill to swallow, but when I decided I could no longer fly, the good thing was that I was beaten and now would do anything to get the help I needed.
I returned to Edmonton, but no friends or family members could take me in. I had burned so many bridges that none were left for me. I had to stay in a shelter in the winter until a bed opened at the hospital.
The years that followed were difficult ones, and my life wasn’t that joyful for a while. The critical thing that happened to me was that after one particularly painful hospital stay I was placed in a group home setting. Here I finally got regular meals, regular sleep, activities, and the wonderful lack of stigma that exists when you are around other people who either suffer from mental illness themselves or are trained to help people who suffer. I finally started to heal.
What I remember most from the group home was how I felt so ashamed of the trail of destruction and broken relationships I had left. I wanted forgiveness, and so I started to write my story down. At first it was just a journal, which is recommended for anyone who has mental health challenges, then it developed into short stories, then true stories, and finally chapters of a book I later self-published. I didn’t make any great amount of money, but people really admired and respected me for putting in so much effort to something that could help so many people. You can find my books, and my email address if you want to contact me, on my website http://www.edmontonwriter.com/. Please feel free to get in touch.
Soon after I was done the book, I joined the Schizophrenia Society, even though I thought I had bipolar only, not a combination of bipolar and schizophrenia. I first took a Wellness course through them, then they hired me to teach the next two classes. After that, they had another job for me as a community education presenter. Currently, I not only do presentations, but I also work in peer support. I also volunteer with the Mood Disorders Society of Canada. I conducted some TV interviews they coordinated regarding equitable access to medications. You can find a link to one below.
With an incredible apartment which is subsidized to my low-income level, and support in my life, I have had some incredibly happy times. I even mended a few old friendships, ones I cherish, and as long as I keep on my medication, therapy and doctor’s visits, I really lead an incredibly charmed life.
References:
Leif’s interview with CityTV, Edmonton regarding access to medications: https://edmonton.citynews.ca/video/2023/11/15/report-highlights-need-for-better-drug-coverage-for-mental-health-patients/
Leif’s interview with CBC TV about his experiences as a resident and then poetry and creative writing teacher at Alberta Hospital:
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.6575117
