🚧 my first submission on mental health, and beyond. Proceed with caution!
I should write more, don’t we always tell ourselves that? Today, I am waiting for my billings to be done at the hospital and chose to use this moment wisely. It’s been less than a month since I got my diagnosis, I am medicated and thriving, I think. So I want to walk you through my path of inconsistencies and medical drama.
In de beninging…
It all started when I was 6. I think. It was August, I guess. I hate August. It’s one of the months that remind me of so many bad things. I digress. So August. I was not in school that day, that’s why I’m convinced it was August. I was at my grandparents’ house. That’s where I grew up. And suddenly I heard shouting. Lots and lots of shouting. From my mum mostly and my grandfather. My mum was trying to convince him she needed to leave my grandfather I think was concerned? I guess?
All us kids were scared. I was with my two cousins and my grandmother made us go to the other side so as not to witness the debacle. But we had already seen too much. And to be honest, we were already scarred. I had never witnessed such a harsh interaction. And later that night, we found my mum, tied up - so she would not escape. And that memory forever sticks in my mind. Never leaving.
The reckoning…
It was not until recently that I learnt what all that was. My ignorance sometimes is astounding, even to me. And to make it worse, the episodes kept reoccuring, sometimes after two years sometimes longer. To protect me, I guess, a year later, I was shipped to boarding school. So our interactions became limited and I had no insights to the going and comings at home.
Almost 20 years later is when I would put a name to what all that was happening was. Bipolar. That was the name of the monster that tortured my childhood. And I only learnt about it when I got an almost diagnosis of the same. And my world was flipped. All the memories of my childhood came back, yes, it ended in tears.
The impact, because there always is
The first time I knew something was wrong, was in 2014. My mum had passed a few months earlier and to take care of me, my family decided I needed to move to a different school and location. Earlier in December, I had gone up to acquaint myself with the new location and there I found my grandmother unwell. A lot had happened in 3 months. And my desire to go back to school, which was a safe haven I had built, was extinguished.
I just wanted to sleep and not do anything else. I failed all the interviews I went to. But the universe conspired together and early January I was in a new school. I failed at almost everything and when I got home with Ds and Es, I was suddenly awoken to reality. I had to pass exams and figure this school thing out. And it worked. All through high school and uni, everything was perfect. I survived and thrived, everywhere.
Taking the bull by the horns
Until I got my first big girl job. I no longer had distractions like funkies or clubs to keep me busy. Then it was just me, my new apartment and my thoughts. I ran, far far away. I tried to escape. I got hobbies, I climbed mountains. But the same things plagued me. I decided to try therapy, maybe a psychiatrist. You have mild depression. They said.
But I knew there was something more. Beyond the depression, there was something more. So I rejected most of the diagnosis. But still kept going back. I got back to therapy. Journalling. It came highly recommended. That’s what I did. Grief. It came up, we tackled it. But still something lingered. There was a gap, that needed to be filled.
Clarity at last!
The back and forth became vain. Why am I not getting answers? In an epic return to therapy, the therapist suggested bipolar. And my world came tumbling down. My walls fell. Then and there I knew I needed a diagnosis. Chiromo, the place I remembered visiting my grandmother, became my next stop. Immediately, I was given and ADHD diagnosis. Finally, my tormentor had a name.
But who is Bethany? I dispute everything. I went on vacation and decided to do another assessment. This time, ADHD & PTSD, were given. I am in the process of accepting and embracing it. I am in the process of embracing my ebbs and flows. I am in the process of understanding it. I know it to be true. I am back in therapy with now a clearer view. I am learning to live and embrace.
Another beninning, because the drama does not end.
And I will take you on the journey, because a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. And one step at a time, we will reach the end. So, as I sit here, waiting for the bills and my meds. I am grateful, that I now understand myself better. And I am now on a journey of embracing myself wholly, and learning how to live again.