Bill Maher once said; Suicide is man’s way of telling God that; ‘You can’t fire me; I quit! There are a gazillion reasons why a person living with bipolar mood disorder would want to quit living. The extensive mood swings alone are enough reason. Extreme depression makes you feel isolated and want to end the isolation by way of suicide. Then there are the social, financial, emotional, and religious reasons why you may want to end your life. Suicide is a real eminent danger for us, the people living with bipolar. That is why bipolar patients need medical treatment and therapy.
On the social front, you may find that you are unable to build lasting relationships with anyone. I do not mean that you are unable to make friends. People living with the condition are often likable at first glance. Take me for instance. I am a fantastic networker. I can really work a room in any event. I can go into any event and get out of there knowing half the people by first name. I also like to follow up with calls and connect over social media. Then the depression sets in. The same people who thought I was likeable quickly learn that there is another side to me. I kind of go cold and shut them out. I do this involuntarily. It happens because I am depressed. People tend to walk away at this time, yet this is the very time when I need them around.
Then there is the financial impact of the mood swings disorder. The implications of not being able to hold down a job, due to extreme mood disorders and depression cannot be fully expressed ever! This means that even if I do get a job, it is often short lived. In my last job, I worked a whole miserable six months and that was it for me. Even if the boss had not fired me, I would have simply stopped going to work, due to depression. I did that with my first job. One day I just could not get out of bed. I could not get out the next day either. Soon, I had been in bed non-stop for two weeks. It was pointless to ever go back to work. Studies show that most bipolar patients are financially unstable.
On the religious side of things, most people believe that God the creator made man to be equal, to live on earth and to thrive, it is not hard to also believe that the reason why you are not thriving is because you have done something wrong to the almighty. If the creator is punishing you with such a terrible feeling for such a long time, why not just quit the damn job of living? Right? Trust me, I have felt like this a few times, since I was nine!
The bad feelings that bipolar people have on the inside often show themselves on the outside too. People living with bipolar are more prone to accidents and self-harm. My therapist explained that when you feel dead inside, you may want to prove to yourself that you are alive, by self-harm. I bipolar patients are not always suicidal. They are not always depressed. There are those episodes of mania, which are often characterized by high energy and excitement. I find that during these episodes, I feel more compelled to go on a shopping spree and go partying than to hang on a tree.
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