Guest Blog- I Have Bipolar Disorder

 My name is Afrika and I’m a 23 year old musician who was diagnosed with bipolar a little over four months ago.

Pre diagnosis I kept up a busy life holding down three jobs as well as trying to climb the music industry ladder. My illness affected me by driving me to become over productive, filling my entire day with work, anxiety when not working, manic episodes and irritation. On the 4th of November 2013 I was admitted into hospital with hypomania.

For me being hyper manic meant that my thoughts raced and I had a constant nauseous feeling. I found that I couldn’t settle and felt like I wanted to leap out of my skin. I also had obscure views about the world, which the doctors said was bordering on psychotic. I couldn’t switch off so the doctors had to restore the balance by medicating me with antidepressants, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers. After a while they started to work and I was discharged 2 months later.

I got readmitted after one month of being on the outside, after feeling at my lowest and taking an overdose. I used to think that bipolar was only having mood swings between ‘happy and sad’ but actually that’s not entirely true, for me my depression had manifested itself as being over productive as opposed to inactive. Bipolar is on a sliding scale and is one of the only mental conditions to have such vast differences person to person.

Bipolar doesn’t have to be debilitating if someone can learn to read their body and mind better, picking up on the subtleties within mood and how we react to different situations.

Hospitalisation played a huge part in my on-going recovery but there’s plenty someone with a mental health condition can do without needing to be placed in a psychiatric unit. What I have found to be useful is taking care of the boring stuff like exercising daily, eating healthy and getting a good night sleep. I also found writing to be cathartic and provide psychological relief. Failure to take care of these basic needs could play a big factor in someone’s mental health declining.

I have struggled to slow the pace of life I lead and still find that I cram as much work into my day as I possibly can. I know this is something that I need to work on and will do so with the help of a care coordinator and community Psychologist. The one piece of advice I could give to someone diagnosed with bipolar or any other mental condition is to take each day as it comes and try and change small things one step at a time. Be kind to yourself!

Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/pages/My-Bipolar/1440778362825424

Twitter- https://twitter.com/mybipolaraffy

Website- http://www.my-bipolar.com

I would like to personally thank Afrika for Guest blogging for Youth Of a Nation. Everyones story has pieces that we can learn from. Education is key.

~DarcSunshine~