NOTE: Written while in a mental health crisis. Please read with caution to keep yourself safe and please keep all unsolicited life hacks, toxic positivity and inspirational quotes safely inside the vehicle at all times.

The last few times I wrote, I was pretty convinced I was in an OCD flare.

At the time, it made sense. The anxiety was intense, my thoughts were running circles around themselves, and OCD has a habit of turning up, setting everything on fire, and then standing in the corner pretending it had nothing to do with it.

The problem is that things didn’t stop there.

Instead of settling, they got worse. The weeks that followed brought restlessness, agitation, cleaning so much I injured my hip and gave myself blisters on my knuckles, and my son repeatedly threatening to duct tape me to the sofa so I would stop moving. Alongside that came a lack of appetite, severe almost paranoid anxiety, crying fits, feelings of worthlessness, and a growing conviction that my life has been and continues to be completely and utterly pointless.

I ended up phoning NHS 111 option 2 for mental health, the service that exists in Wales, and it wasn’t until I after I spoke to the very nice lady on the phone that something clicked.

At the time, I was actually getting a bit irritated. She kept asking questions about mania and hypomania, and I remember thinking, “Why are we talking about that? That’s not what’s happening.”

She asked the questions anyway. I answered them.

It wasn’t until after I hung up that my brain replayed the conversation and I realised I had answered “yes” to an alarming number of them.

That was the moment I started wondering whether my original explanation no longer fit.

The extreme anxiety was still there, but there was also the restlessness, the agitation, the racing thoughts, the impulsivity, the needing less sleep, the lack of appetite, the feeling that I constantly needed to be doing something, and the crushing deep lows in between.

For the first time, I found myself wondering whether this was actually a mixed episode.

Which, unfortunately, made me wish it was what I originally thought it was, an OCD flare.

The Night I Called

I called the NHS because I was frightened of myself and my emotions. It was 3am. My son was in bed. I could not stop crying.

I was having impulsive thoughts, intrusive thoughts, the worst thoughts. The kind that make you realise you probably shouldn’t be sat alone trying to white-knuckle your way through the night.

The strange thing is that by day, I could barely sit still.

I had spent that day, and many days before it, cleaning like I was in the military. Simultaneously on a VERY IMPORTANT mission and being punished for crimes my brain had invented that weren’t even real. I cleaned so much I injured my hip and gave myself blisters on my knuckles.

My son started threatening to duct tape me to the sofa so I would stop moving. At night, however, everything changed. When I finally stopped, it felt like falling into a giant pit of despair. The thoughts became loud, fast, impulsive and intrusive. All I could think about was how my life had been and continues to be pointless.

I know this is what depression does. I know depression lies. The problem is that when you’re in it, the lie feels completely true. Even writing this now, a large part of me still believes it.

Raising my son is the best thing I have ever done with my life. He is funny, kind, thoughtful and everything I could have hoped for. But when I am like this, he feels like the only worthwhile reason for my continued existence.

I struggle to find any others. It’s not for a lack of trying. I’ve tried playing The Long Dark. I’ve tried Paralives. I’ve finished a book. I’ve bought hair dye. I’ve tried writing. I’ve carried on doing all the self-therapy things I’ve learned through recovery. I’ve even done that DBT trick of putting very cold water on your face.

I just couldn’t see the point in any of it. The only point has been the VERY IMPORTANT cleaning.

So I called the NHS. The lady on the phone was very kind, which was a relief after my previous experience had left me frightened to call again. She listened. She asked questions. She told me to contact my mental health team after the weekend and to get some over the counter sleep aids until I could speak to them.

The irony is that I couldn’t face contacting my mental health team afterwards. I was too busy cleaning. That probably should have been a clue.

I see my psychiatrist in two weeks and part of me had already convinced myself that everyone would simply tell me to wait until then anyway. I’ve often been made to feel like a burden for needing help when I’m like this, and I couldn’t face hearing it again.

It isn’t because I don’t want help. I do. It was because I don’t trust that help will actually be there when I ask for it.

And because my life is full of dark comedy, my flat chose the same month to fall apart as I did. I have a broken toilet. I have a leaking tap. I’m waiting for people to come and fix both of them.

None of those things are major crises on their own, but together they feel like one more thing I don’t have the capacity for.

Apparently my plumbing and my mental health have chosen the same month to fall apart.

There’s other things too. My son is dealing with something, and I’m worrying about him. He was worried about telling me because I wasn’t well, but I am just so glad he told me.

Recovery Is On the Back Burner

My appetite has been really low. My body feels like it doesn’t even need food. The only thing it seems to want is fluids. I have never been this thirsty in my life.

Usually I forget to drink enough. Now I mostly want coffee. I’ve stuck to decaf because I don’t particularly want to throw petrol on whatever is already happening in my brain, but if left to my own devices I’d happily spend the day drinking cold brew and little else.

Food feels like an interruption. It gets in the way. Having to stop what I’m doing to buy it, prepare it and eat it feels strangely irritating.

I am still eating, though. The only reason I am eating as much as I am right now is protein.

Over the last year I’ve built muscle in recovery, and my blood sugar relies heavily on protein intake. Fat and fibre help many people, but for me protein has consistently been the thing that keeps my blood sugar stable. I’ve tested it enough times to stop arguing with the results.

At the moment what I actually want to do is pick at random food and get eating over with as quickly as possible. The problem is that I already know where that road leads. My blood sugar becomes a complete nightmare and then I have to deal with the consequences.

I’m strangely angry about that.

I don’t want to be making anchor meals. I don’t want to be thinking about protein. I don’t want to be maintaining habits I’ve spent a year building.

But I also know that abandoning them would make everything worse. It has taken me a year to build this muscle. Being perimenopausal, eating very little protein and continuing to lose weight is hardly a recipe for keeping it.

The strange thing is that I don’t think my eating disorder is driving this. It would be delighted to take advantage of it, of course, but that’s different.

The main problem is that my internal cues seem to have disappeared. Hunger is gone. Enjoyment is gone. The only thing left is thirst. I have lost weight from eating less and moving far more than usual, but I find myself reacting to it with a shrug.

My weight is still in the healthy range, so part of me keeps asking, “What’s the big deal?”

Two months ago I would have cared far more. That’s what feels so strange. A few months ago I was obsessed with food. Now I barely think about it. I’ve even tried all the foods that normally work. Greggs cookies. Croissants. Biscoff ice cream. Previous favourites.

Nothing happens. I eat them, get bored halfway through, and feel relieved when the eating is over.

Why I Wrote This Post

This post isn’t a complete picture of where I am right now. It was difficult to sit here and write any of it with my current need to be duct taped to a sofa because of the restlessness and agitation.

I have a tendency to disappear when I’m struggling and wait until the weather is clearer. Part of that is shame.

There are no “10 tips to cure a bipolar episode” I can write about. No lessons learned. No inspiring recovery arc. No neat ending waiting for me at the bottom of the page. Right now there is only waiting, trying to get through each day, and waiting for my psychiatrist appointment.

I am very aware that the internet prefers tidy narratives. It likes suffering to arrive with a lesson attached. It likes transformation. It likes before and after photos.

It increasingly feels like suffering must be neat, aesthetic and Instagrammable before we are allowed to talk about it. The problem is that suffering has never been aesthetic. It cannot be tied up in a pretty bow. It cannot be fixed with an Instagram filter.

So this post is me choosing to do the opposite of what my brain wants. My brain wants me to hide. My brain wants me to isolate. My brain wants me to disappear until I can return with a more acceptable version of the story.

Instead, I am choosing to exist as I am. Not as someone who has figured it all out. Not as someone who has learned a profound lesson. Not as someone who has a list of tips to share.

Just as I am.

Without pretending my Sisyphean rock has an uwu face painted on it. Right now the rock is too heavy. But I am still pushing it. I keep pushing. I keep cleaning. I keep organising. I keep trying.

This is me trying.

And by the way, sorry if this post is all over the place. It was the most difficult thing I’ve written in a long time. It took ages.

My brain is currently moving faster than I can think. I went off on about fourteen separate angry tirades while writing it. Apparently my agitation is now capable of becoming agitated at sentences I wrote myself.

I listened to this piece while writing this blog post over and over. It spoke to me.