Invisible Illness

I really didn't have mental issues or even been diagnosed by one, was your day to day average Joe till it happened, September 15 2009 when a car accident happen and I was the victim.

Everything was okay and I was living my normal days doing what I did everyday, was living your normal life, the excitement the drama etc, till I had another accident but this time I woke up and I was dreaming, everything that Happened after my first accident was nothing but a dream and I had to have another accident to shake me up and wake me up from this deep state, this coma.. when I first woke up I had no Idea where was I or what was going on..

My mind was tricking me.. making me believe that everything was okay after the accident, and I should continue my normal life instead of waking up and fixing myself!

Its been months since I was disconnected with the world, when I came back to it, I didn't think that the treatment and therapy was needed to be that long,the loss of coordination and balance in my body due to the accident made it really difficult for me to do some of the things I want, no to mention the accident also had an affect on my brain, making me become a frenzied manic and always lost in thought and always have memory loss episodes every now and then.. its was like my mind was trying to make me forget everything I see or do daily.. it even made me forget about the accident and how it happened.. which is good but until this day I don't remember a thing!

Honestly, everything was fine right up until I graduated from the university.. there were no signs of mental illness however..

I was 22 and struggling with my memory loss episodes and couldn't get my head straight when it comes to doing things, my friends took me to a bar just so I can relax and enjoy the night, went up to the bar to order some drinks and bartender mixing and shaking the drinks to be served and then The rest of what happened that day is a blur. And not a blur in the sense of, “I got drunk and blacked out,” but a blur in the sense that when I got back to the apartment, my roommate said I looked like I had thirty beers. In reality, I didn’t even finish one.

I do remember feeling a rush, a bolt of adrenaline and it was like my legs and chest were on fire, I remember my body was shaking a lot and a lot of tension and anxiety was submerging, I struggled though my day to day life because physically and mentally didn't feel right.

The feeling remained with me as I drove back home from the city to my apartment on the other side of the country, The rush of adrenaline continued, the anxiety built up and I couldn’t sit still at all. My mind was racing. The drive home took what felt like an eternity.   I just wanted to get home and call anyone what was going on and possibly let them take the emergency room. 

Somehow, I managed to get home, but I couldn’t sleep or sit still at all. The anxiety multiplied.  I couldn’t even sit and watch TV or play video games which was unusual because I used to love doing these things..

My friends later on thought that the drink I had last time we went to the bar was either spiced or drugged, Either way we knew something was wrong and they took me to the emergency room. I certainly remember yelling and screaming religious words and statements as I was laying on the hospital bed,  I was admitted into the local psychiatric ward where a Psychologist had to see and try to treat me.

Almost most of the time, I was in isolation most of the time, I couldn't sleep at all! I started having voices whispering in my ears, paranoid delusions that were larger than life to me.  Like, maybe I was in here because of a crime or a murder I don’t remember committing? My mind started playing tricks on me. I totally lost stack of time it really felt like I was in that room for months. The only people I used to see were doctors and nurses, they just inject me or making me swallow medicines 3 times daily, it was CRAZY and I remember refusing it for the first few days until I gave up, my mind made me think that the drugs got me into this mess, how can they possibly get me out? Then, for about the 1st time in the 7th day a nurse told me to, once again, take my medicine, and I said no. Then she said, “You don’t want to go home?” 

Home? I don't even remember what home was like, being locked up here while my mind was racing 500 mph for like 7 or 8 days and I didn't even remember that I had a home, a home to go back to, a home where I felt like myself, a home that I had right around the corner at the end of the road outside of the hospital.

It was at that point that I began taking the medicine and slowly started recovering. At that time, it was diagnosed as a drug-induced psychotic episode, probably from drinking that drink that was drugged with angel dust also knows as PCP.  My doctor said it was probably a “one time thing.”

I stayed on my treatment and my prescribed meds for the better part of a year. I did not go out to see anything or anyone, never had the time to set out for the plans I had made for myself to do after I graduate, I needed this, I needed all of the time to mentally recover. Later on I have returned to my psychiatrist and claimed I was doing fine, fine and well enough to continue my normal life, but she slowly and carefully tried to warn me off my meds. Everything worked out to be proper and I was medicine free, for better or worse.

Its been a years if not even more since I have been off of my meds, I started to relapse while starting off my new job with a telecommunication company,  I started losing sleep again. I started to have dramatic theatrical plans that were indulgent and wasteful like building my own car. I started having racing thoughts turned into religious delusions.  During these periods, I begin to think many different delusional thoughts are in fact reality, and I was stupid to not think this way before. I remember talking my best friend’s ear off about religion on the phone. Sleep was lost night after night, Until eventually called my close friend who happens to be my ex in a panic and said something was wrong, she drove all of the to me to check on me and take me to the hospital where once again, admitted me to the psychiatric ward.

The second time was even more severe, imaginary and fantastical paranoid delusions, thinking I was ghost or a cosmic entity. I believed the news channels were broadcasting me live on TV as the ghost or the cosmic entity was in the local hospital for all the world to see.  I figured that all the people in the hospital hated me for it, as well as all the people watching the news. I had many auditory hallucinations.

Once again, I was on medication this episode was also incorrectly diagnosed as a second psychotic episode and isolated incident. I was forced to withdraw from my new job.

After releasing me from the hospital, I was on the meds this time for a longer time, its been 2 years now and I decided to communicate with my old friends, everything was fine and dandy despite being depressed and confused about my mental condition. I managed to get a promotion to be one of the tops at the company I worked in and once again a different doctor claimed that I was fine  and weaned me off my meds right around time were the company I was working in a major merger with another company and I was asked to monitor the status.

All this stress triggered my third and most severe manic episode.  Life was moving too fast for me even though I had no insight. I scared my girl friend every time we were together with my erratic behavior.  I was unfit to drive and got in a serious car accident.  I lost the job in a week, lost my girlfriend and best friend and was admitted to the local psych ward on my 26th birthday in September 2014.

This time, this episode lengthened mania, or disorder or whatever you wanna call it, didn't only used to occur when I was in the ward, it included me having fist fights with the closest to me randomly, and having a very risky behavior imaginative ideas, random shopping sprees, auditory hallucinations and even visually seeing things when I closed my eyes, like strobe lights, music visualizers and even aliens or weird creatures.

After that I was diagnosed with a severe bipolar 1 and 2 mixed with abnormal effect. All three of my episodes were actually severe manic episodes with some psychosis involved. I was put on medicine again, this time for good.

Its been 5 years now, but at this point of my life Over the years I have become used to being Bipolar and I'm aware it will always be a part of my life.