Beyond Blue: May 2008 Archives

For this week's segment of my series, "How Do You Move Beyond Blue?" I thought I'd reprint the interview with the author Marya Hornbacher in the "Washington Post" by Post staff writer Rachel Beckman. You can get to the interview by clicking here.

Hornbacher has just written a second memoir, "Madness: A Bipolar Life" about her life with bipolar disorder I. "That I have made it all this way without dying or killing myself or someone else is a miracle, or a joke," she writes in the book. Her first memoir, "Wasted," chronicled her struggle with anorexia and bulimia, was translated into 14 languages and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Hornbacher first experienced symptoms of bipolar disorder at age 4, but wasn't diagnosed until 1997, when she was 24.

Here's the Washington Post interview:

In the book, it seems that your bipolar gets worse after the diagnosis. When I knew I was bipolar, I was still drinking myself to death and wreaking havoc on my relationships -- like a little tornado going through life. That was immaturity and fear. My own misperceptions. Me not wanting to be manic-depressive.

When did you get the condition under control?

I wouldn't say that there was any real stability until I was 28. That's when I got sober. If you're drinking, if you're using drugs, the meds won't work. The drinking and the substance abuse trigger everything to go haywire.

When I cleaned up, I had, honestly, a year of stability and then the bottom fell out. I spent two years in and out of psych wards.

What they finally sorted out was because I hadn't taken my meds for so long, and I had gone undiagnosed for so long, and I had been drinking so much, that I had addled my brain chemistry pretty substantially. It had to bottom out before it was time for me to take care of myself.

What are the most important things you do every day to manage your mental illness?

The most important thing -- above all else -- is to take my meds. The second is sleep. Without the sleep, the meds won't work, and without the meds, the brain won't work.

What's your average day like?

I keep a very regular schedule, which is not my style, but chemically it keeps the homeostasis in the brain going. I get up at the same time every day and take breaks at the same time. It's a rigid schedule.

I have what's called ultra-rapid-cycling bipolar, so my moods cycle many times a day.
I get up at 4, so I can be fantastic from 4 to 7 a.m. but by 2 p.m., I can be having suicidal thoughts. And at 6 p.m., I'm doing all right again. During a day like that, it's very difficult to sit at my desk and do my job.

Here's an excerpt from "Madness: A Bipolar Life": by Marya Hornbacher

Sometimes I just run as far and as hard as I can, until I can't breathe, until my heart is about to explode, or until, stumbling drunk, I fall and hit my head on a tree stump or the curb and lie still.

Sometimes, though, I get in my car.

I peel out of the driveway, roaring up 36th Street, away from my pretty house and sleepy neighborhood. Slow down! I am screaming at myself, Marya, slow down!

And the madness screams back, I won't!

It slides under my skin, borrowing my body without asking: my hands are its hands, and its hands are filled with an otherworldly strength. Its hands feel the need to lash out, to hit something, so it tightens its white-knuckled fists on the wheel, its bare foot slamming the gas. My head jerks back. Half in abject terror, half in awe, I watch the lights streak across the sky, bending as we careen around corners, up Hennepin, down through the seething nightlife of Lake Street, past the spectrally brilliant movie theater marquee, the crowds a blur, stoplights are not for me! Streetlights smear behind me like neon streamers. I hurtle forward. The only thing that matters is motion, forward motion, propulsion. I veer onto the freeway, playing chicken with the cars. The road comes at me full speed, it looks as if it will hit me dead between the eyes, but then it veers around me just in time. The other cars, the median, the guardrail flash around my face, and I in my roller coaster am clattering and screaming along. I wind up in some unknown neighborhood, over by the river or on the north side of town. I turn the car around and, my rage spent, find my way home.

As I read through the comments posted throughout Beyond Blue and on the discussion threads at Group Beyond Blue, I realize that a lot of readers are mourning the loss of special relationships. This prayer, by Henri Nouwen, had me in tears the other day. Because he articulates this process so beautifully, and calls us to stay with our pain, because, believe it or not, it will deliver us to a better place. Thanks, Henri!

While you may feel physically and mentally strong, you still experience a forceful undercurrent of anguish. You sleep well, you work well, but there are few waking moments when you do not feel that throbbing pain in your heart that makes everything seem up in the air. You know that you are progressing, but you can't understand why this anguish keeps pervading everything you think, say, or do. There is still a deep, unresolved pain, but you cannot take it away yourself. It exists far deeper than you can reach.

Be patient and trust.

You have to move gradually deeper into your heart. There is a place far down that is like a turbulent river, and that place frightens you. But do not fear. One day it will be quiet and peaceful.

You have to keep moving, as you are doing. Live a faithful, disciplined life, a life that gives you a sense of inner strength, a life in which you can receive more and more of the love that comes to you. Wherever there is real love for you, take it and be strengthened by it. As your body, heart, and mind come to know that you are loved, your weakest part will be attracted to that love. What has remained separated and unreachable will let itself be drawn into the love you have been able to receive. One day you will discover that your anguish is gone. It will leave you because your weakest self let itself be embraced by your love.

You are not there yet, but you are moving fast.

There will be a bit more pain and struggle. You have to dare and live through it. Keep walking straight. Acknowledge your anguish, but do not let it pull you out of yourself. Hold on to your chosen direction, your discipline, your prayer, your work, your guides, and trust that one day love will have conquered enough of you that even the most fearful part will allow love to cast out all fear.

To read more Beyond Blue, go to www.beliefnet.com/beyondblue, and to get to Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.

In his book, "How to Break Your Addiction to a Person," Howard Halpern first explains what an addictive relationship is, then gives guidelines for recognizing if you're involved in one. Then, he offers several techniques on how to end an unhealthy relationship (or an emotional affair).

I’ve compiled and adapted all of his suggestions into the following dozen techniques, excerpting what I found to be the most important passages for each.

1. Keep a Relationship Log

Keep track of the events and happenings of the relationship, but above all, and in as honest detail as you can, set down your feelings about the contacts with your partner. The reasons this can be extraordinarily helpful are (a) It compels you to notice what is going on and how you feel about it, (b) It can help you to look back through it and see the shape of the relationship, what it has really been like and felt like, what have been its patterns over time, and (c) It can curb your tendencies to distort the relationship by either twisting events, repainting your feeling and forgetting either the unpleasant or the pleasant.

2. Find the Patterns

It can be eye-opening to see if there is a pattern in the people you have tended to get involved with and the types of relationships you have formed, so unless your current partner is the only love relationship you have had, I suggest you do a Relationship Review. First, list the names of each person with whom you had a romantic attachment, going as far back as you can. Then set down the Physical Attributes of each--his or her height, build, hair color, movement, voice, general attractiveness, etc. Then write down the Personality Characteristics of each person on your list. What do you feel is the most striking feature of his personality? What adjectives best describe him: Introverted or extroverted? Passive or active? Warm or cold? Intimate or distant? Self-confident or self-effacing? Successful or ineffectual? Hearty or frail?

Even more important than similarities in the physical and personality characteristics of people with whom you have had close relationships are the Relationship Characteristics, the repeated patterns of interaction in which you have been involved. To get some idea if your relationships have had repeated patterns, it can be useful, under the name of each person with whom you have had a relationship, to write the answers to questions such as these:

a) Exactly how did the relationship start? Who was the initiator? The pursuer?
b) Was one of you more dominant? Who seemed to control when and where you would get together, and how you would spend your time?
c) What was the emotional tone of the relationship for you? Loving? Angry? Contented? Depressed? Anxious? Boring? Insecure? Romantic? Desperate? Or what?
d) Emotionally, did you get your needs satisfied?
e) How did your relationship end? Who ended it? Why? What were the feelings of each of you about its ending?

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Oh yeah. Here we go again. As I've repeated on Beyond Blue, I live my life in a state of constant addiction. So I'm getting pretty creative in how I manage to control them. Here's a refresher on five basics. Listen up!

To view my YouTube video, "Beyond Blue: 5 Ways to Zap an Addiction," click here.

To read more Beyond Blue, go to www.beliefnet.com/beyondblue, and to get to Group Beyond Blue, a support group at Beliefnet Community, click here.