Living With Cyclothymia

I am living with cyclothymia. This is described by the NHS as “a mild form of bipolar disorder (manic depression)”. While it's true that the symptoms are not as severe as other types of bipolar, it's still an illness and it needs to be taken seriously. It's not a lifestyle choice and I will not just snap out of it; if I could do that, I would've done it by now because I really do not enjoy living like this. It causes me to lose interest in everything I care about, makes me anxious, paranoid and irritable, and I struggle to keep up with my own thoughts. I struggle to concentrate and can find basic tasks hugely overwhelming. I do stupid things. I can't cope with responsibility. I get very scared of the world sometimes. I take medication that makes me tired and weak, causes sleeping problems and gives me headaches. This makes most days really, really difficult.

I decided to put all this out there on the internet because this Time To Talk thing has got me thinking. I do very little proper talking about my illness. It just doesn't come up in conversation – I don't know how I've allowed that to happen, given that it affects me every minute of every day. And when it does, it worries me how little control I have over the discussion. I don't like being told how I feel. What right does anyone have to assume they know that better than me? Especially when they'd never even heard of my illness before I told them I had it. You do not know me better than I know me. I will tell you how I am feeling, not vice versa. And you will listen. That is how this is going to work from now on. I've spent too long struggling to get my point across, even to those closest to me. All I want is to be understood. For me, that's the next stage of learning to cope.