Being "Functional" With a Debilitating Mental Illness

Yesterday was hard for me. I was dealing with anxiety and the onset of what could have easily become a manic episode. I was repressing a panic attack from the moment I woke up until about mid-afternoon. And I fought myself every second throughout that day to keep from physically running away from work, and hiding somewhere to let the episode take me over. But I didn't because we were short-staffed, and that would have been devastating to my store.

There are people everywhere who struggle through daily activities with mental illnesses that are classified and diagnosed based on (among other things) their detriment to a person's life and livelihood. I am one of those people, my illness took years to be properly diagnosed, because of my ability to push through and "deal" with it. One of the main factors in determining the difference between Bipolar 1 and Bipolar 2 is whether the patient is able to function and manage daily life. Imagine how hard it can be to have a workplace or a relationship take you seriously when not even a medical professional can determine the severity of what you are going through from the outside.

This happens to me on occasion. I think I am pretty open now about my mental illness, whereas I used to keep it to myself. There are still days where the internal chaos is almost too much for me to hold down. It requires energy, focus, and restraint to keep from turning impulses into actions. Sometimes I want to destroy things, sometimes I want to curl up under a table and rock back and forth with a blanket over my head crying, Sometimes I want to unleash the forces within me like a goddess of fire unbridled by her humanly restraints. Sometimes I don't actually want to do anything, and the impulse to do something dangerous is purely physical with no thought or plan of action at all. These are all actual thought patterns I have had due to my disorder. I can usually manage. I credit this to being lucky in my ability to compartmentalize. I am also lucky in that my mind has a highly logical side, which, if I choose to inhabit that area, I can push my feelings far far away from my conscious mind. However when I do this the feelings and thoughts that were in my head don't go away, they just get stuffed down and I can still feel them affecting me. Most often they manifest in physical ways, but this way they don't affect YOU.

When I do this it doesn't feel good. It usually feels a lot like someone has physically stuffed wasps into my skull, and put it over a flame. It helps to put cool objects against my head or cover my ears. But when I am standing there holding cold things against my face or covering my ears with my hands that's when people start to actually notice that something beyond the norm is going on with me.

But everyone knows me. I'm always on time. I couldn't possibly be THAT kind of person. If anything I'm a role model of normalcy and proper behavior. I articulate my thoughts clearly, and I'm never seen losing my cool. I get along with everyone.

At times the focus that is required for me to stuff down my feelings and impulses is so great that I start to see spots and become dizzy. On the outside this looks like a person standing there daydreaming, maybe having not gotten enough sleep. It is "in my head," but if I control myself, which I usually do, then it turns itself into physical problems that I can feel in my body, and which affect my ability to act normal despite all my efforts.

I am a very reserved person who is able to speak their mind with a clarity that makes most people unable to believe that I could have a mental illness. But I do. I am a very stubborn person with an awareness of my surroundings, and a strong sense of duty to my co-workers that makes it possible for me to work through near-debilitating mental conditions. I also know that if a person like me, who on the outside appears perfectly healthy, calm, logical, intelligent, and self-disciplined goes to someone and states that she isn't feeling well enough to work through the day... That's pretty difficult to believe for anyone outside my own body. And so often I just push through it at my own expense, because I am afraid of being judged on that criteria.