Living With Mood Swings

Recently, I was asked what my experience is like living with the ever changing highs and lows of extreme mood swings. So I thought this would be a good blog topic to give others a picture of the reality of life with unpredictable mood swings. To provide a window into what it is like for those of us who have these sort of mental health challenges.

My mood swings began in my teens and developed over the years. They played a huge part in my debt addiction, as during the highs I would spend vast amounts of money and convince myself I had the grandiose abilities to settle the amounts owing. When I sought help for this addiction, and faced the reality of my situation, we had to re-mortgage the house to pay off all the credit card bills and loans.

I loved the highs. They gave me a sense of freedom and power. I was passionate, exuberant and people adored being around me. They said I exuded a spectacular energy. Except this wasn’t a real existence. I had ever stretching boundaries that gave people the wrong impression about me. No one can be this high and be well. 

What goes up has to come down. The dark times smothered me and left me in such a dire place I found it hard to be around people. I cried constantly. Wretched unhappiness that was not situational. Without explanation. No one seemed to really understand how I could be so alive one week and then so down for weeks on end. The lows lasted much longer than the highs.

For years I did my best to manage my mood swings with the aid of therapy and the various well-being tool kits I’d developed. This became increasingly harder as the years went by., when the mood swings became more debilitating and extreme.

Having discussed my mood swings with a Psychiatrist, a couple of years ago, he suggested that I have bipolar II, which is a milder version than bipolar I. I’m now taking a mood stabiliser, so the low periods have less ability to pole-axe me. In this way the highs are also contained.

He also thought that the childhood sexual abuse had activated the bipolar/cyclothymic gene I’d inherited from my mother. I’m not a fan of labels, but today I can perceive a diagnosis as a way of understanding myself better, rather than as a box that defines me and excludes crucial parts of myself.

Thankfully I now live a much more balanced life and can make sensible decisions. But I do miss my highs.

Learning to develop some kind of relationship with my darkness has helped me in dealing with the extreme mood swings. Owning the parts of myself that aren’t shiny.

This required adopting a new way of living, which demanded I treat myself with respect and compassion.

I’ve become more realistic about how to adapt socially in order to live a more fulfilling life. Withdrawing into the underworld does offer some protection, when I need to regroup, or plot a different course. Falsely trying to cheer myself up rarely works.

I no longer perceive my mood swings as a curse I’m stuck with. I refuse to be defined by them or the label bi-polar.

Without doubt, I’ve been blessed in finding my loving and creative partner Jonny, who as my husband has stood by me for 34 years and counting.. I must have done something right to have deserved all that this relationship has given me.

Most of the time I’m comfortable in my own skin and the medication I take has helped this materialise.

If I had a choice, or magic wand would I rather be a person without my emotional volatility? Probably...Perhaps...I don’t know.

What I do know is that I no longer abuse myself. I am no longer a victim. I have moved beyond survival. I do my best to stop fighting the demons.

As I wrote in the Epilogue of my book, ‘Wearing Red – One Woman’s Journey to Sanity,’-

I am who I am at whatever time of day, with the myriad of my changing emotions.

I find myself, lose myself, arrive in a different place and begin all over again.

Can I roll with myself? Not fully but I’m getting closer to that state of being.

What I do know is that I have never been abnormal.

What I do know is that I am not defined by labels. I am uniquely different.

I’ve had to find a way to embrace the parts that aren’t shiny and accept the ‘all of me.’ The complete package.

Author of memoir, ‘Wearing Red One Woman’s Journey to Sanity.’

Available at www.amazon.co.uk and www.browndogbooks.uk