Living on a Roller-coaster: Bipolar and Me (Part Ten)

It was October when I really started coming apart at the seams, big time. And I mean big time. Once again, the Christmas layout planning had fallen to me, once again, I’d come up trumps (I’d also been given responsibility for the January layout changes, too, only I never got the chance to see those through). I had a big plan that was worked out with military precision - and even though I was due to be on annual leave the week of the implementation, I generously offered to give up two days of holiday to work a 15 hour shift overnight to get it done. I offered mainly on the basis that the whole thing would fall apart if I wasn’t there to see it through. Let’s face it, at that point I actually believed I was indispensible. I also thought it would be a good idea to open a bookshop on the moon - if that isn’t a clue to the state of my manic thinking, then nothing is. I was even toying with the idea of opening an academy in Memphis to teach Elvisology. Yeah. I was that bad. But I’ve got sidetracked. I’m not too good at thinking in straight lines right now. But bear with me. October. The famous 15 hour shift (okay, not exactly famous, but within my world it is). I started off with buckets of enthusiasm. Tons of the stuff. I was virtually bouncing off the walls with enthusiasm. At that point, I’d already been awake for around about 36 hours solid. It was, no doubt, a recipe for disaster, but I didn’t know that. Tony had given me full control of the whole operation, which, incidently, put me in charge of Bob (and that went down really well!). I had about 8 or 9 people at my disposal, but I found myself driven by fear that they weren’t working quickly enough. I felt as though everyone around me had slowed down to an extent that it was like one of those slowed-up action replays on TV. I was the only one working at a proper speed (though in actuality, I was working at warp-speed and everyone else was working at a normal speed). I could feel the anger building in amongst the fear. It was all I could do to hold myself together when Bob announced we should take a break and get some food. Everyone went up to the canteen, but I stood my ground, working frantically. The only thing I consumed that night was copious amounts of black coffee.

By 2am, I’d whipped myself up into a kind of frenzy. I was sending myself dizzy. Tony virtually ordered me to take a break, so I found myself alone in the canteen with another paper cup of coffee from the machine. How exactly I ended up straddling the window sill, preparing to take a graceful dive, three storeys down into the river, I’m not really sure. That incident is one of the reasons I fear the black manias so much. For me, at least, they are a thousand times more dangerous than depression.

For the next month, I just got more and more out of control. I was working a ridiculous amount of hours. I just couldn’t stop. Literally - I felt as though my whole world would implode if I stopped even for a short while. And I couldn’t bear to let anyone else do anything - I had to take control, I had to do it all. I thought I was being terribly dedicated and efficient, but in reality, I was just causing chaos. Inbetween all the chaos-causing, I was also making frequent attempt to break bones in my body and visualising myself hanging from the stairwell, or plunging three storeys down into the basement. I discovered that it is virtually impossible to throw yourself down a flight of stairs - I tried it many times.

In the end, my world did implode, most spectacularly. By the end of November, my behaviour was too bizarre to ignore, and I found myself out of a job. My manager’s advice was that I seek medical help.

In a sense, what happened was perhaps the best thing that could have happened. Losing a job that I loved more than any job I’d ever done was the kind of wake-up call that I needed, even if the shock of it all did plunge me deep into a depression that sent me a little way over the edge. For the first time in seven years, I had to admit that all was not well in my world.