The world is never as it seems

Brene Brown says that the greater person is the one who chooses to share hard and difficult things personally and not broadcast them out into the world.

I do not think she means to downgrade people who share hard and difficult things on social media and other platforms but to say: “Give yourself and others the chance to create true connection”. It allows you to be affirmed for example by the person saying "I'm so sorry, that must be so hard for you. What can I do to support you?" or "I'm so proud of you for being brave enough to share this with me". It is sparks closer relationships and gives people the chance to truly understand you whilst you in return feel like you’ve been seen and understood.

With all that said, it is just so hard. Not only because sometimes you are not met with the connection you expected or desperately needed. But sometimes just because of how hard it is to request a connection, even with the closest of friends, on topics never shared or talked about. There is still a stigma around mental health that we all try to talk about, however we seem mostly ending up waving around flags/banners and awarding badges to each other on how great we are in supporting mental health issues but without actually talking with each other in real life. I mean face to face. Wrinkle to wrinkle. It is one thing to show your support via posts and efforts through organisational activities, it is a whole other to truly have that open and vulnerable conversation on mental health, with another person.

The first person I told after my husband and my two best friends (two of whom have both lived with me and therefore saw the worst of it) was my neighbour. That conversation was one of the easiest I have had throughout my illness because she opened up about her mental health first. The playing field levelled so quickly by that candidness, and afterwards we could share and talk about anything without reservation.

You do not have to be diagnosed or feel that you have mental health issues to partake in a real conversation about mental health. What we all should be doing is contrary to what I am doing right now - and that is asking real questions about the struggles that we are going through. It sounds so simple, yet it still seems to be so difficult.

I have somehow always known that I was bipolar. I can remember that I cried every day for an entire year when I was 12 years old. I also remember watching a documentary about Stephen Fry and bipolarism and how well it fitted with my predisposition.

On the surface I am incredibly good at hiding my condition. Even my doctor says that I portray this organised, calm, and formal person, someone you cannot break the barrier of, which makes it very hard to diagnose. This is probably a shield and a coping mechanism I have created early on because I've always felt like my polarities are something very unnatural and something to be ashamed of. Being high functioning in my illness is not a blessing in disguise. It has allowed others to convince myself that I was doing OK, that I just needed to fix myself. Sometimes even I believed that too.

On the contrary, it has also created a lot of disappointment and anger towards myself when I cannot live up to this high functioning frontier of mine. You have no idea of the shame that is associated with not living up to other people’s expectations. As a friend. As a wife. As a colleague. Every last-minute cancel, every radio silence – it’s like breaking a bone, healing it (when I’m in neutral or on my way up) and then breaking it back again. The depression can be crippling, but the guilt and the shame of the mismatch (the person you want to be and the person you are because of your illness) is absolutely paralysing.

I do know how I have been able to live my life for so long without medicine (I have had a stable relationship and a semi-stable work life since I was 20), but I do not know why. Being without medicine has meant that my twenties, which should have been filled with fun and light most of the time, have been dark and filled with anguish. I have had to carry stressful situations in my personal life and at work at the same time whilst battling my highs and lows, like a rollercoaster that never stops and a rollercoaster you are riding completely in the dark and you cannot see where you are going.

I have been described as two people. The first one, at work especially, has been voted to be so efficient, smart, fast, super organised, and a whirlwind whilst I’ve been on my highs. With the efficiency comes snappiness (mostly in a funny way) and irritation. The other one is mellow, quiet, dark, and close to tears. I sometimes like this person the most because she is the one who sings and plays the piano with her heart. But this person is also the one who does not want to live no matter how well life is going. No matter how much future I have to look forward to, there is a voice in my head saying, "Just give up, there is no point in living".

It all culminated when a year ago got into what is called rapid cycles (probably what triggered it was leaving what I thought was my dream job because of circumstances I cannot bring up here). I could never be just me. I was up or down and nothing in between. I just could not live with it anymore; it burnt me out in a way I had never felt burnt out before. Early this year I fought myself through the bureaucratic and stubborn healthcare system (you would not believe it of Sweden, but yes, it is true) and got a great doctor and got some medicine. Life does not change dramatically but it takes the worst edges of my illness off. And the more I get to recover from being without medicine for almost 20 years, the more I find out who Lovisa is together with Bipolarity, not because of it.

I have been inspired by recently by a few people talking about their diagnosis. Henrik Wahlstr?m is one of them – as we share the same illness it has been so easy to relate. Therefore, I hope that this text will show that I am open to talking and that I wanted to share something that is very hard for me to share in a work environment that is still not mental health friendly so that maybe others feel like it is ok to share.?

All the best,

Lovisa