'Pouring Water' by me, via Flickr

The last few days have been stressful, to say the least. I was so worried about what the psychiatrist would say when I saw him on Monday that over the weekend, I hardly managed to get anything done at all. It has been terrible to think that there were two possible reasons for the delusions I’ve had over the last few months, and one of those reasons was that my mind had created a wild but highly intricate fantasy.

I hoped that the psychiatrist would say everything was fine with me and that the reason I had thought I had been working for months now when I had actually not been doing anything was because the antidepressants I had been on had given me terrible side effects. I hoped he would say I would be fine once the medication had been given enough time to leave my system.

He did not say that. He told me the evidence I presented suggested I was mentally ill and that I had created the delusion due to a combination of stress and mania. Not just normal, everyday mania though, he called it hypermania. I had to look that up because it’s not on Wikipedia or my normal haunts. Basically, it’s state of “full-on psychotic mania”. Great. No diet crazy for me, then.

He told me I was likely to be mentally ill and suffering from Bipolar Affective Disorder. This is something Jennifer and I have suspected for a long time but which I never had confirmed in the past because I was unnerved by the stigma associated with mental illness. Yes, I know. That’s terribly shallow of me but that’s just how it is.

Even though I knew in the back of my mind that he was going to tell me it wasn’t the medication that caused my problems, I didn’t want to hear it. The actual diagnosis came as a shock to my system. The fact that he wants to start me on lithium to treat the illness, and the fact that he handed me forms to get blood, thyroid and cardiac tests done immediately so that I wouldn’t have a big delay before treatment could start was an even bigger shock. Am I so badly damaged that treatment can’t possibly wait a second longer than absolutely necessary? Damn. I don’t do anything by halves, apparently. When it comes to the chuckle factory, I go all in.

I talked a little about what this might mean for my intended career in law in today’s vlog. The short version is that I might not be able to become a barrister even if the resits in April go well. I’ll have to check up on whether mental illness bars me from practicing at the highest levels in the court system or not. I hope it doesn’t but I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that you need to be all there if you’re going to represent someone in the higher courts.

Monday wasn’t all bad news, however. On the way to the hospital, I checked my emails and found I had been asked to licence one of my images from the 365 Days of Photography project to the company making 2012 olympics commemorative stamps. They want to make a stamp bearing an image from each city the olympic torch is passing through, which includes Bolton. Specifically, they want my photograph of Bolton Town Hall to represent Bolton on their stamps. I said yes. How could I not?

Tonight we’ve had Jen’s parents and grandfather around for a meal. It was nice to see them again, and nice to chat with everyone. Jen told them what the psychiatrist had said and it didn’t seem to affect how they acted around me, which is great. I knew it wouldn’t change anything but there’s always that worry in the back of my mind, as I’m sure you can understand. It’s that stigma thing rearing its seven puss-filled, greasy heads again.

Still, the evening went very nicely and we all enjoyed it. Jen showed them her YouTube videos via the wonders of the YouTube app on the Xbox 360, which was fun. It’s interesting to see images I recorded on my telephone being streamed across the ether onto our TV screen. The future is a wonderful place to live, isn’t it?

Speaking of videos, I think I’ve spent enough time rambling at you all today so I’ll leave you with a brief episode from the Nobmouse channel. Today marks the end of the New Funkytron saga, so expect regular programming to return tomorrow.

Bye for now!

Tags: doctor, Jennifer, mental illness, nobmouse, psychiatrist, stress, videos, vlog, worry

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 at 00:36 and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.