It seems strange odd to me to be writing a blog as a Grandma-where did the time go. It seems only months since I was bopping along to Radio Luxembourg and reading Fab 208, and kissing my 86 pictures of David Cassidy good night as his eyes seemed to follow me from my bedroom wall. But now I am a Grandma-not to just one-but seven-six girls and one boy-Amazing especially as the eldest is going on fourteen? It seems to me I have somehow slipped a decade.
Bipolar-or manic depression as it used to be known well I have been a sufferer for eighteen years, and I have found that as I get older it doesn't seem to get any better. Hereditary-I think it must be. My mum god bless her soul suffered from many mental health problems. I remember when the first man landed on the moon, when everyone was sat around the television glued to this incredible event-I was watching my mum pick bits up off the carpet, and put plants in the fridge. I could always sense when she was bad-I guess it was intuition. I swore blind that it would never happen to me-I was wrong.
Now don't get me wrong my mum was one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. She completed an Open University degree in the 70's and became one of the oldest people to train and qualify as a teacher-it must have been so hard for her-especially having to watch all the TV programmes on BBC2-not on line like it is today.Still I have some terrible memories of visiting my mum in Highroyds an asylum near Bradford (Now private flats) -I remember once sat in the canteen where a woman was been restrained by staff-she was trying to jump on tables and was swearing her head off-that was the first time I had ever heard the word Fuck-not nice at a young age. The whole thing sticks in my mind and still scares me to death. Mum was not happy in there-they simply pumped her full of medicines and did electric shocks on her brain. Mum always said she hated it and eventually and against hospital advice she signed herself out and came off medication. She never looked back-choosing to occupy her time with education, it did the job-but it cannot of been easy.
So here I am following in mums footsteps-I cannot pin point exactly what triggered off my illness-it was a mixture of a few things-kids-life-work-lack of money-trying to climb every mountain-I am not sure-but one day I finally snapped and it was not pretty-calling my husband (Who is lovely) all the names under the sun-the paranoia-was awful I really believed that everyone was conspiring against me and that everyone was related to each other-and were out to get me-just me-Madness I know (Now) I even went into the local police station and disconnected all their phone lines-I thought they were trying to murder me.My poor son found me and took me to the doctors-I cannot imagine how he felt to see his mum like this-it cannot have been good. The doctor was to put it mildly absolutely useless-He looked at me like I was some sort of alien-he did nothing-he just wanted me out of his surgery.
Looking back this was an issue I should have taken this further. Instead I decided that I would- make myself better-I slept and slept and ate properly-making sure that my body was getting the right nutrients for my brain-This does not work for everyone but it helped me. I was obsessive about water-it had to be bottled as I believed that the water supply was contaminated. After a few weeks I began to get better-I tried to write down as much as I can remember, which at the time seemed very real. It is only now when I read it, it sounds like the scribblings from some sort of acid trip, but I have never touched an illegal drug in my life. Tomorrow I am going to write about the way people reacted to my condition and how I am still trying to heal myself...Hope you will follow me on my journey.
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