As well as writing different articles relating to my bipolar I will also be doing random monthly updates trying my best to articulate and express what it is like to live day to day with my illness.

It was not an easy decision to start writing down and documenting online my personal problems with bipolar, inevitably making it available to anyone who wants to read it, while at the same time letting people into my mad bonkers capricious world. In the end, after realising the apathy and misconceptions I’ve experienced by people over the years together with the problems and hardships I’ve suffered in both my professional and personal life, I decided to start scribbling away. Hopefully, it may help people who don’t suffer from bipolar to maybe understand and appreciate it’s destructive nature and ways. As well as to bipolar sufferers making them realise that there is another human being out here roaming the earth with dark clouds perpetually hovering over an arid landscape of a troubled mind.

Even with the reservations, I have of writing about my bipolar online I must say that the response I’ve received from people since I started has been nothing short of overwhelming, heartwarming and extremely encouraging. Thank you so much.

Anyway. How have I been?

Well, let me see!

It’s now nearly 4 months since I stopped all my medication because they were turning me into a zombie rendering me incapable of doing anything, to the point where I was sleeping most of the time as I turned into a lethargic fool. For some people medication really works and helps them, unfortunately for me, I’ve had nothing but trouble and grief which I definitely put down to my ridiculously over excessive use and abuse of drugs, later to be joined by alcohol. Over time my body has built up a high tolerance from all the drug abuse I’ve thrown at it, so too has my mind. Therefore the medication I’ve being taking for my bipolar over the past three years has not had the desired effect it would have on a regular person who hasn’t been popping pills, swallowing tabs, smoking whatever was rolled and snorting shit like a Dyson hoover.

Anyway, I’ve rid myself of all my medication and I’m feeling much better, though I have learnt only too well that if I become complacent the other Paul is lurking in some dingy dark recess of my mind waiting for an opportunity to make an appearance to bring the madness. So to combat this I now get up four or five times a week at 6.30am in preparation to run 4 miles over the hills from Yung Shue Wan to Sok Kwu Wan and back, with the aim of getting fit. I’ve learnt that with a healthy body and mind I am much stronger in fighting the other Paul. He likes weakness, preying on my vulnerabilities. I know him too well.

The amazing feeling I experience from getting up early in the morning running over those beautiful hills alone with nature all around me is incredibly exhilarating. So exhilarating I have a huge smile on my face as I take a deep breath of the fresh air, close me eyes and remind myself that I have only achieved and accomplished this because I am now four years clean and sober. Then I continue blowing out of my arse as I’m running up a steep hill thinking, “What am I doing? I should be in bed, you nutter.” Haha!

I have switched to a more healthier diet because I’ve learnt that if I eat too much junk food, drink the wrong liquids or consume too much caffeine it doesn’t bode well for me in my battle with him.

Even with the above positives, I’ve now stringently implemented into my lifestyle he’s still tapping me on my shoulder from behind letting me know he’s there and always will be until the day I depart. Suicidal thoughts continue. Sadness sweeps over me in huge waves for no apparent reason. I’ll cry from time to time though I have no clue why. I will hate myself. He will remind me I’m worthless. I will briefly hate the world and all that’s in it. The other Paul will whisper in my mind asking my why I’m putting myself through all this, it’s not worth it coz you know it was better the other way. The old way. The way of four day abuse filled cocaine and alcohol-fueled binges with me sticking a finger up to the world and screaming, “I don’t give a fuck!”

These thoughts will never go away and I have recently come to accept this because acceptance is a virtue of invaluable power and strength in my battle with the other Paul.

I love and adore my Mum. I’m so proud of my son Conor who I also love to bits. I love my two sisters Carmel and Fiona. I love my brother Mike who I don’t know very well. (It isn’t our fault, it’s from the dysfunctional childhood we had). I love my girlfriend Cassie who is very patient with me and my bipolar. I love my neighbor Gregory the Cobra who lives in a crack in a wall, but I won’t be inviting him in for a cuppa. Finally, I love my DJing and everything that is my passion in life, music

Now this may sound odd, but I don’t really understand what love is. I was deprived of love and affection when I was a child so I’ve always struggled with what it is, whereas sadness I know very well and feel safe wrapped inside it. With love it makes me feel uncomfortable.

I have this recurring bipolar thought that will spring to life in my mind when the other Paul takes over and once I’ve explained it to you it will clearly highlight how bipolar can detach me from my feelings, with effortless ease.

“If a spaceship landed in my garden right now and an alien got out asking me if I wanted to take a ride to another Galaxy, never able to return to Earth.

Without hesitation I’d say, “Yes please”!

It probably seems I’m being selfish, lack empathy and I don’t care, but it really wouldn’t bother me if I didn’t see anybody again. I’ve always felt this way coz I don’t want to be here on Earth, I’d rather be somewhere else far away on my own.

When the other Paul takes over I will always think about the weird alien and his spaceship whisking me off to some distant galaxy. Though when I’m myself I’ve no need to be traveling the universe in search of utopia.

For me this is a very good example of how bipolar insidiously effects my mind.

From time to time I will write poetry when I’m overcome by him and I’m sitting at the bottom of a dark dry well surrounded by nothing except my thoughts, trying to encapsulate in words how I am feeling while under his influence.

 

MY MATE BIPOLAR

Sometimes I get down and sometimes I do frown,

Sometimes I get sad and sometimes the world’s bad

Sometimes I do cry though I don’t know why

It’s my crazy little mate called bipolar.

 

Sometimes my heart’s cold and sometimes I’ll withhold

Sometimes I hate me and sometimes I’m ugly

Sometimes I won’t speak coz Im under his spell

It’s my crazy little mate called bipolar.

 

Sometimes my sky’s grey and sometimes I’m faraway

Sometimes I will fade and sometimes I evade

Sometimes I hold doom with thoughts full of gloom

It’s my crazy little mate called bipolar.

 

I cannot dispair, I must understand

I don’t play solo I’m a two man band

He’ll always be here he’ll never go away

My crazy little mate called bipolar.