“You’re so good to me, I know, but I can’t change.” Meredith Brooks, ‘Bitch’

Sleep deprivation is no joke. For about four nights in a row I was up all night. By the fourth night I was in a very strange mood. I felt high, I felt reckless, and everything seemed funny and absurd, as though I was on drugs (a documented symptom of sleep deprivation, I found out). I go on Facebook and look at the aftermath of my episode. I posted a total of eight songs that night and morning:

I came up with a list of the stupidest, most reckless things to do at night when you can’t sleep, and also during the day, just to fuck up society: ride around the streets in a shopping trolley, ride on top of a car wearing a spiderman suit, tell the checkout chick all your problems when they ask how you are. I had a nighttime dance party planned with a friend, and I tried to rally another friend to join us. I also came up with a list of crazy (and I must say, creative) ways to get revenge on the mental health system. I wanted to return to “PAPU”, the hospital unit I was bullied out of recently, and chalk what the ward really stands for: “Patients Are Pushed out Unit”, or “Pathologically Abusive Personnel Under roof”. I wanted to call up my friend’s old doctor who caused her a lot of grief and leave a message saying that I’m calling to let Mr [insert doctor’s name] know of Justin Bieber’s next tour and by the way thank you for being such an active member of the fan site, much appreciated. I wanted to glue cups, saucers and plates to the doors of these services, fill the cups with coffee, smear the plates with butter and jam, and leave a little note saying “I was hungry because I’m on so much Olanzapine” (Olanzapine is an antipsychotic notorious for increasing people’s appetite and making them put on weight). Looking back now it was probably the funniest episode I have ever had. My friend told me to see a psychiatrist and get my meds fixed before my brain melts out of my ears. I must admit she was probably right. I have no idea how my brain came up with all of this but if it had of gone on for much longer I probably would have ended up psychotic. I worried I was being too full on though and was going to lose her as a friend. In my experience there is a fine line between mania and anxiety. I call it “manic panic”. This is the point where I wanted it to end. It was late morning and I started taking anxiety meds and drinking. I can’t remember exactly what I took. I think some diazepam. But it knocked me out for the rest of the day and the following night. I slept through appointments and phone calls. I was woken briefly by my dad at various points, then fell asleep again. When I got up it felt like I’d lost an entire day, like some kind of time warp. But at least I finally got some sleep. My room stunk of coconut rum (I knocked it over when I was tipsy), but I think I’ve managed to get the last of it out of the carpet now.

I saw the Crisis Assessment Team, still hung over. We sat in the courtyard outside, on dirty chairs to match my dirty, cluttered home.

“Looks like things are pretty stable”, the doctor concluded.

“You call this stable?”, I felt like saying. What a fucking joke. So this was his grand conclusion of me, after countless years of study: that I am “stable”. I told them I was planning on going to a theme park later that day, but didn’t know if I was up to it. The lady who accompanied him clapped loudy in encouragement. That’s the point where I couldn’t stand it. I got up and wandered back inside, no word, leaving them out there. Finally the lady came back in and asked if I was terminating their interview. I told her I am extremely noise sensitive and the clap was too loud. She apologised. They then spoke with my dad, left (I didn’t care to say good bye to them) and have now discharged me from their service.

I regret going to the theme park so much. It was loud and full of people and screaming kids. I went on one ride, the lazy river, and their screams as we went under a bridge with dripping water were deafening. I was much more afraid of their screams than the dripping water. My ears haven’t been right since. They hurt, my tinnitus is driving me insane, and last night one ear felt muffled. I have wanted to kill myself many times because of my tinnitus. The noise overwhelms me and I can’t get away from it as it’s in my own head. I am constantly overstimulated. I lie in bed at night overstimulated. It is a horrendous condition to have, and people do kill themselves because of it.

Today I feel absolutely horrendous. I’m angry and depressed all the time. I did end up seeing a psychiatrist, but I don’t think he can help me. He’s just as lost as everyone else. He wanted to give me another antidepressant, despite me telling him all the problems I’ve had with them, and a mood stabiliser/antipsychotic. I came home with a script for the olanzapine which I have just spent months coming off. I don’t remember it helping that much. It did nothing for my depression. I don’t remember being as reckless and for a while my sleep was a little better, but then that packed up again. So I decided to come off the drug as it seemed to be doing nothing to help me. I may have needed a higher dose of it, but I started getting some bad side effects when the dose was increased in the past such as incontinence. So for now I am probably just going to resign to being a vampire, putting up with the sleepless nights. I usually manage to get some sleep when the sun rises. I was also given another script for Largactil, an old antipsychotic which seemed to help a little with my sleep when I was in hospital. I was told it could help with my sleep but would not help with my crazy mood swings. But I think anything that helps me sleep would indirectly help with my mood swings, as sleep disturbances can trigger mood episodes, especially in people with bipolar. According to Dr. Ellen Frank, for reasons we have yet to learn, people with bipolar seem to have more delicate internal clock mechanisms.