Mood update

Recently I’ve been feeling pretty terrible. My mood episode that started at the end of last year has settled into a pretty standard depressive episode.

It’s not helped that I am so socially isolated, with little opportunity for addressing this. There’s nothing out there, where I am, for isolated 30 somethings to meet each other. I’m spending most of my time around people 20 – 30 years older than me! It’s not good for me at all, I need friends my own age.

I’ve always struggled with interpersonal relationships though. This feeds into my “feeling terrible”, in particular “feeling terrible about myself”. I feel like I’m somehow defective that I can’t forge lasting connections with other people. It feels that my current circumstances are somehow a reflection on myself – that if I was someone else, I wouldn’t even find myself in this position.

I’m also seriously doubting my ability to achieve anything in life, beyond living on benefits and just existing. I’m starting to feel that I will inevitably end up back in hospital in the not too distant future, and that this is what my life looks like going forward.

There’s a lot of repair to do, evidently, from these last five years. Ever since lockdown was first announced, my life was turned upon its head. The stress has caused my mood disorder to worsen severely. Everything has been turbulent and unstable. It’s very hard to imagine any sense of stability could return, particularly after this latest episode.

I have to hope that we find the right medication, at the right dose, that offers me quality of life without being life shortening. It’s very easy to feel that a life with bipolar is a life not worth living at the moment – everything I might have wanted, I barely have.