00:01if you don't know my situation you might think oh hey this girl is really fun she's really great
00:08when in reality I'm going down more of a destructive path logic brain is telling me
00:17this will end soon you'll get out of this it's just a cycle and then the emotional side of my
00:22brain is like nothing's ever gonna be okay again you're gonna be stuck like this forever this is
00:26the rest of your life having bipolar is like white knuckling every day of your existence the highs
00:34can be really great and the lows are always very terrifying during a manic episode the longest time
00:43I've gone without sleep was either seven or eight days a lot of fast talking and grandiose feelings
00:49like you're a superhero when I was in a very deep depressive state I would just spend a lot of
00:55time
00:55in bed not feeling like myself it is something that is just so oppressive that you literally can
01:03do nothing to shake it I feel bad there's nothing I could do helpless as a parent when I was
01:09first
01:09diagnosed I wanted to do it without medication it turns out it's very very difficult this is a mood
01:15stabilizer antipsychotic and an antidepressant that perfect cocktail of medications that help keep me
01:22stable my name is Andrea and I live with bipolar type 1 my name is Alistair and I live with
01:30bipolar type 2
01:51usually I'll roll over when the first alarm goes off take the pills roll back over and go back to
01:57sleep for a while I try to take them at
01:58the same time every day even if I miss like one dose I start getting this is Effexor that's the
02:06only bipolar medication I take during the day except for anxiety medication the first minute that I take
02:12at night is Zyprexa it's an antipsychotic and mood stabilizer and then this is a just a vitamin D because
02:19I'm super vitamin D deficient bipolar is a mental illness and it's characterized by mood swings that can
02:27last anywhere from a week to a couple of months if you're bipolar type 1 you have a lot more
02:34highs
02:34and mania than you do lows and depression and if you're bipolar type 2 you generally have more
02:39depression than mania personally I have a rapid cycle so I can go from one to the next really quickly
02:46it
02:47can range from having all the energy in the world to the next day feeling like you can't even get
02:53out of
02:53bed to go to the bathroom I don't want to be bothered I don't want to hang out with anybody
02:59it feels like
03:00everything's closing in around you and it's impossible to break out of it I'd say the most frustrating part
03:08for me about having bipolar because it is different for everybody has been the medication dance it took
03:19years of trial and error to get to a point where I was even somewhat stable you're trying all these
03:26different meds and you really have to trust your psychiatrist and you really have to trust in the
03:31process you know halfway through it it's very hard to do that because you're not feeling better but
03:36you're taking all these pills and you're paying all these co-pays and it feels like it's never gonna
03:42end as somebody that's stable like I know that at any time one of these meds could stop working and
03:49I'm gonna have to go through all that all over again this is my planner from 2019 can see what
04:03I
04:03was handling at the time I was taking maybe six different classes in addition to being a varsity
04:09student athlete I was also involved with our campus newspaper and working for a sports team on top of
04:16clubs so you can see I was handling a lot one joke I have with my friends that there's type
04:23A and then
04:24there's type Andrea planners for me help keep me stable say if I'm a little more manic it gets all
04:31my
04:32racing thoughts out so just that way I can start my work day with a very clear mindset
04:39bipolar one is when a person is most likely to have a more manic episode manic episodes manifest
04:47differently for different kinds of people for me they tend to have a lot more energy I tend to be
04:54more irritable and I would go maybe up to a week without sleeping I tend to feel like I'm still
05:00on top of
05:01the world but also I was gambling I was over drinking I was spending money that I didn't have
05:07left and right that's kind of the dangerous thing about mania is that you're engaging in really dangerous
05:12behaviors but you don't recognize them as being dangerous when it comes to balancing the mania and
05:19the depression there is definitely this overarching theme of what comes up must come down often it can
05:27rather be more of a crash than a smooth fall sophomore year college in my spring semester I hit a
05:37major
05:37depressive episode I was on our school's rowing team and one February winter practice we were out on the
05:45water and came across a dead body that one occurrence triggered a series of panic attacks during workouts
05:52and practices that eventually led into a very deep depressive state and a lot of suicidal thoughts that
05:59eventually landed me in the psychiatric hospital it was quite honestly very scary they had taken all my
06:09belongings including things that I could have used to hurt myself the doctor prescribed me an antidepressant that is
06:17obviously meant to cure depression but in cases of bipolar it actually raises the manic symptoms it's
06:25actually a very common thing to have a misdiagnosis before getting diagnosed with bipolar disorder my mood
06:32went from zero to like 1,000 and without proper medications I was spiraling out of control
06:48so I think communication is one of the most important parts of recovery
06:52Gian is one of the closest people I have in my life and he is the owner of Jackson's automotive
06:59he's known that I've been bipolar pretty much since the jump I'm very open about it I don't really hide
07:04it
07:05from anybody and he was just like oh okay cool so that's just something that you deal with
07:10I get excited to come up here because being around somebody that I know
07:13well you know gets it and that doesn't judge me and I count myself very lucky not a lot of
07:19people have that kind of outlet
07:23I'm gonna bang really loud is that a problem
07:25no
07:26okay
07:30over time I learned how to help him in different ways by just being there and being a good friend
07:35and asking what
07:37the right thing to do is in the right situations even when he says sometimes like no I'm okay like
07:43a couple hours later it's worth checking in again being like all right you still feeling that like
07:47are we still good and then if it seems like it's like tilting in one way you know we got
07:51to do something
07:52about it or hang out or do something
07:57I've dealt with my own anxiety and depression in my lifetime which is nowhere near the level or
08:02magnification of what he deals with but it definitely makes me a lot softer to it
08:07it's helpful to help other people you know you feel better at the end of it so as much as
08:12I feel
08:12like crap if I can help him and then I see he feels better I'm like all right cool yeah
08:16and vice versa
08:17I feel the same way when we're both having a really tough time we tend to break stuff whether
08:22it be breaking hockey pucks against the uh the wall out there we've flipped trucks we've cut trucks up
08:28we've uh parked trucks on top of cars parked trucks on top of cars that was a fun one
08:32and it always ends in us being like hey man I'm not feeling great today like let's talk about it
08:38so it is constructive as much as it is destructive see some of my manic episodes are great because
08:44I'll buy hockey tickets and then he's just like all right cool let's go yeah it's not the worst
08:55I love to run running has been this huge release for whenever I'm depressive or manic
09:02so when I'm depressed I can feel those endorphins immediately improving my mood but when I'm manic
09:09it helps me release all this extra energy that I would otherwise just be sitting with
09:14running is just peaceful it's possibly the most peaceful part of my day
09:20currently I train with a track club based out of Brooklyn I've spent my entire life being an athlete
09:27of some sort so when I finished college I missed having that sense of community I love the way sports
09:36can bring people together my dad and I will talk a lot about baseball and basketball growing up he was
09:42always the one to bring me to different sporting events nothing feels better than when I can just sit
09:47back and watch a game and just relax
09:57you want to pick one all right I want to try that um vanilla mocha chunk okay cheers
10:08we'll usually come here we cook dinner we like to cook together we do cook
10:12we'll watch the hockey games especially the rangers ever present throughout my life
10:18he was a good kid good thing because then I wouldn't have had any more if he wasn't but
10:22he spoiled me but he was a very good kid I had him when I was very young so it's
10:28always been me and
10:29him you know the firstborn I guess it's always special
10:35the first sign of really like bad mental illness was when my father passed away it was very sudden it
10:41was a car
10:41accident it just happened when I was 13 and like that's when I started getting like really depressed
10:46for the first time I think I was 16 I was having heart palpitations you to take me to the
10:51hospital
10:51that night yeah that was like the first time I ever had a panic attack I didn't know about like
10:56anxieties and this and that like he had to tell me I didn't like see it especially growing up with
11:01parents that were born during like the depression years it was shut up and get through it like
11:05grandma jean shut up and get through it they didn't talk about nothing no everything was
11:10you know you just put on pull on your bootstraps and you go through it and that's the end of
11:13it
11:13exactly there's obvious signs of you know depression or anxiety throughout the family
11:19but nobody ever talked about it I'm the first person that's kind of stood up and said this is
11:23what's going on guys so as far as mental health stigmas go I think we're in a better place than
11:29we were
11:30a decade ago there's still a lot of room to grow in terms of how people see mental illness they
11:36might
11:37think of you know the crazy person locked up in an asylum but in reality it's a very real and
11:43very
11:43common experience if mental health was taken a little bit more seriously in this country or if we
11:51had maybe a medicare for all type deal it might be a lot easier for people to get help and
11:56then you
11:56wouldn't have so many people living on the streets because they can't afford their medication you
12:01know the worst case is they end up living with a mental illness and they don't have the money or
12:06the education or even the support system they need in their mental health journey
12:16would you choose to live without it
12:21that's a good question honestly i don't think i would change having bipolar disorder it's hard to
12:28say i would pick to live with an illness over not living with an illness but retrospectively it's part
12:35of what makes me me and it's something that i identify with now while it's terrifying to even think
12:44that tomorrow maybe my anti-psychotic stops working and i need to go on another med merry-go-round
12:51at the same time i don't think i would give that up because it's an integral part of who i
12:56am and
12:57i don't think i would want to be anybody different at this point
13:01you
Comments