“It’s really disabling on a daily basis.”

I started seeing a therapist/psychologist in December 2020. In September 2021 my therapist told that I have mood swings coming from a mood disorder, but she didn’t tell me which one since I’m still young. In 2022 I saw two psychiatrists, and it didn’t go well. I met one who was really nice and gave me Abilify and Xanax, but it went really wrong. I was in a depressive state for two months, it was horrible. I was always on Xanax and I became really dependent. I stopped taking meds and I stopped seeing her.

I continued with my psychologist, and then in November I started seeing another psychiatrist. That was when I got my cyclothymia diagnosis . He gave me Lamictal. I started taking it, but then I stopped because under it I was very irritable.

Now I don’t take meds. I see my therapist once a week and I’m learning to live with it. It’s hard but I manage it. The process to find the right medicine and dose is hard because you can have bad experiences.

It was kind of hard when I got my diagnosis but I was also relieved, because everything became more clear and my psychiatrist gave me a book about it. I actually don’t tell people about it. Since I’m young, people my age don’t understand. Actually, they don’t even try. There is also a lot of stigma.

It makes me sad that people only see my mood swings and forget about how I really am. They only see that one side and forget that I’m a person too; that I’m sensitive, loyal, empathetic and so on. The first thing my therapist told me is that my mood disorder doesn’t define me.

It was hard in the beginning. I’m still growing up and having such intense mood swings makes it kind of difficult. But now I know that my moods are one thing and my personality is another thing, but other people don’t know that. And it’s hard being seen as mental, depressed etc rather that someone that is just sick, you know? But I think that’s the case for all the people who suffer from a mental illness, not being treated the same as someone with a physical illness.

With the mood swings I’m still struggling during the ‘downs’, but I try during the ‘ups’ to be productive and anticipate what I can’t do during the downs. I try to make the up phase longer by going out, doing something I like, seeing people, that kind of thing. I try to not drink too much but I tend to drink during the downs, honestly. When I feel myself getting down I try calling people to change my mindset.

With the other symptoms of cyclothymia, it’s more delicate, but it’s definitely getting better than it was a few years ago. I’m still trying to learn. Having an activity/passion can also help. In my case that’s kind of hard. I can’t do it because of my anxiety, and also with the mood swings, one day I want to paint, another day I don’t . In fact I don’t want to do anything. So yeah, I’m trying to find something to hold on to.

I wish people would stop associating my mood swings with me as a person . At my school people see me as the depressed girl and I’m like no, it’s not me- I’m more than that. Because cyclothymia is less intense than Bipolar Type 1 or 2, it definitely doesn’t mean that it’s not difficult. It’s hard and most of the time you have cyclothymia with another disorder (for example OCD, PTSD, bulimia or BPD). Apart from the mood swings, we have other symptoms which are actually really similar to BPD and there is a lot of overlap between the two disorders.

People with mental illness are not crazy. We are not attention seekers, we are not bad people. We are sick, more than anything. We suffer. We have a different view of things. We feel things differently than mentally stable people do. It’s really disabling on a daily basis. And sometimes I’m scared of myself- what I can do to myself, and to the people around me. People make us feel so guilty about being unwell mentally and I don’t know why they do. I never asked to be sick.

I so often hear, “Yeah but people with physical illness can die!” So do people with mental illness. We can be suicidal, have destructive behaviours, take substances, act on impulse. It’s risky and I wish that just like we help people with physical illness day to day by being there for them and help them to live with it by being patient and understanding, I wish people could have the same behaviour with us. I feel like sometimes people make it more difficult, honestly.