Fear

 

 

For some reason today I feel like writing about fear. I know that fear is a huge motivator or de-motivator for so many people, sufferers of depression or not. There are so many pressures in day to day life, and so many decisions are based on fear.

For me, fear drives so many aspects of my personal life.

Firstly, there’s the fear that I have that my depression leads people to judge and misunderstand me. This is probably the one that affects me most every day. There are people out there that believe the depression is a choice. These are the worst kind of people to me, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want you to have to live through my depression to understand it, but don’t make a snap decision about how my brain works and that I choose to live like this. You are small-minded people. My old housemate believed that depression was a choice, and that if I just lead a healthier lifestyle ( I should mention at this point that although I am a smoker, I eat healthily and exercise regularly) then I wouldn’t have depression and that instead, I choose to have it and that I use it as an excuse.

While that is an extreme point of view, there are still so many stigmatisms attached to being a sufferer of depression. The belief that you’re just miserable, that you’re crazy, that you’re too fragile, that you can’t function as a normal member of society. All these I believe are myths, and although my depression has affected me terribly in my past, it doesn’t make any of these statements true, in fact, these statements can be applied to others as well, and you don’t have to have depression to feel sad or fragile.

This probably leads me to hide my depression more that I would like. Sometimes I find myself being brutally honest about it, but that’s probably only around people who’s opinion I couldn’t care less about. The people in my life that I do care about, I am much more guarded about my depression with. I don’t want to be judged on it. I want to be judged on who I am. And I am afraid so often that by being honest about my depression that people will be far too quick to attach a label to me, than to take the time to really understand me.

This leads me to my second fear, and this is closely attached to the above. I am afraid of being alone. As I grow older, I find it harder and harder to believe that I will find someone to share my life with (and for those of you wondering, I’m about to hit 30). My relationship history is fairly brief; I’ve spent most of my life single. My one major relationship broke down because of my depression, there was a complete lack of understanding in that relationship. He wasn’t ever really keen to understand what it really meant to be bipolar, but he was always quick to judge. If he ever did anything to wrong me, and cause me to be upset, he would immediately conclude that any anger or distress was a result of my depression, and never his actions.

I will admit that I don’t think that I will ever meet anyone, and I’ll never be afforded the opportunity to get married and have children. To the point where I heard my mother tell my grandmother on the phone that I didn’t WANT to get married or have kids. Not true, I just can’t see it ever happening for me now. But don’t be dissuaded readers, this is more the result of walls that I have put up of my own, and a belief based on past results, that actually opportunities. It’s not my depression stopping me from finding someone, it’s me and the fears that I have of never being understood.

The last fear, and possibly the most overwhelming, is that I will always be this way. As I write this, there is no cure for bipolar disorder. The simple fact is, my brain is wired differently. There’s may not be a solution for this, but there are ways of controlling it. At the moment, I feel that I have my depression in hand, I don’t feel that my moods are out of control, or that they are not the result of external stimuli. Sometimes I still get an overwhelming sense of sadness, and I’m still fairly antisocial. I’m also extremely cynical, but that’s just me. As well as this all is, it doesn’t mean that I will stay this way. It’s true that the older I get, the better I know myself, and the better I am at controlling my depression and asking for help when I need it, but I still often feel like a ticking time bomb, with my bipolar just waiting to explode.

Right now, this is how my life will always be. I’ve never been delusional enough to believe that my brain will just magically repair itself, that simply isn’t going to happen. There is no remedy for being bipolar, there are simply treatments. Recently I learnt that a study was done on people who suffer from a mental illness and they discovered that they have a life expectancy 17 years less than the average Australian. That stat is pretty scary to me. I know that doesn’t mean I’ll be affected, but it doesn’t help with the overwhelming feeling of doom that I have. To me, being bipolar is terminal. I may have completely misconstrued that word, maybe being bipolar will kill me, maybe it won’t, but there’s one thing for sure, when I do shuffle off this mortal coil, the likelihood is that I will still be a bipolar sufferer, and have always been that way.

Until next time readers…

 

S