Who I Am

15 Aug 05

A Belated Contact, Dear Esteemed Friends

Since I have received notes from many people (and I appreciate them very much), I thought I'd do the polite thing and tell everyone who I am.

The name is Jinnah Mohammed, and I am forty years old. I live in Trinidad and Tobago, an island paradise in the Caribbean. Although I would prefer to live in idle luxury in a hammock under a coconut tree, I hold the post of Director, Operations in our family business. I'm a City Planner by profession, but have not been able to practise since 1997 because of the disruptions caused by being manic depressive (bipolar, bp).

I've been manic depressive since I was 18, but was not diagnosed until 1997 since it had not been a substantial interference in my life. Or rather it had interfered, but I survived those thirteen years in a manner that did not arouse major concern from friends or family. Even I never considered the problem substantial because it always went away (though it always came back).

However, over the years the mood swings associated with being bipolar became worse and worse until finally in a series of domino like effects from 1996 onwards I lost my lover, then my self control, then my job, and almost my friends. I also seriously considered suicide.

I am a rapid cycler - which means that without medication I spend about one week mildly manic (hypomanic, up) and one week depressed (down). The two week cycle is continuous; I have no days of normalcy. Although my mania and depressions generally have been relatively mild so that I can pass as normal, living on a two week cycle where I am alternately efficient or incapable is enough to drive me crazy.

I started going to therapy in 1997. It worked well, but not well enough on its own, and I started taking medication in 1998. A lot of the drugs I tried didn't work very well or produced unexpected and annoying side effects. For quite a while, stopping old drugs, starting new ones, and trying to deal with the ever present mood swings inflicted its own brand of madness upon me. It wasn't until January 2003 that I finally found a drug (Wellbutrin) that worked fairly well in alleviating the depression and the mania.

Since then, life is pretty reasonable. It's not normal by any standard; I still have my periods of depression and mania and my days when I can barely get anything done. But it's a lot better than it used to be.

I've learnt to control any mania to a point where I no longer think of it is a problem. I still get depressed, but these days it rarely throws me off for more than a few days, and getting back on track rarely takes more than two weeks. Compared to the early days after diagnosis when it would take months for me to get back to "normal" after a bout of depression, two lost weeks is quite acceptable.

I'm still manic depressive. This won't change - it's something I'll have for life. The mood swings are just there under the surface and if I relax, they'll come right back. I can be mostly normal because I constantly monitor for signs of being manic depressive and take action to counter any emerging symptoms. And I take my medication every day.

I've accepted that each year I will spend about two months in total being non-functional due to the mood swings or in catching up on tasks not done while I was depressed. It's a lot of time to lose from my life, but it is a vast improvement over the early years after diagnosis.

I suppose I could try other drugs to decrease this lost time, but for each drug that I try, it would take three to six months for my moods to adapt to the drug and settle down, and there is no promise that other drugs would work better than what I currently have. I'll stick to what I know.

Even after six years and even on medication, my mood swings still make it difficult for me to predict what I will be doing or liking or thinking next week or next month with any certainty. I used to say that I lived only in the now, with the future in view but not really accessible. That has changed somewhat - I have set systems in place to stabilise my day to day living and I have a list of long term goals displayed prominently near my computer to keep me on track. The future is no longer beyond my reach.

But even with all my experience, it is still difficult to plan long term, or plan a trip six months into the future, or realistically say I will attend five weeks of classes.

About a year or two after being diagnosed, I had to come to the very difficult realisation that perhaps my original goals and dreams for my life might not be realistic any more. I have gone through the traumatic experience of evaluating each of my goals, determining which ones I probably won't attain, and discarding them. It wasn't easy - one of the goals I had to discard was opening my own office as an Urban Planning consultant - I don't have what it takes to be that reliable.

Back in 1997 / 1998 I thought it would be hopeless to try to plan a career, or organise my life. Thankfully, that is not true and I have been able to set new goals for myself. These are no less ambitious than my original ones, but they are different.

I regret that I will not achieve some of the dreams I've had since my early twenties, but I've learned to accept that and move on. That may be a sign of learning to live with being manic depressive, or perhaps it is just one of those things that one does as a thirtysomething.

Over the last few years, I've made peace with myself and I am no longer consumed with guilt over my failures. I still get anxious about many things, but the anxiety is down from an intolerable level to a manageable level. I've developed an easygoing attitude to life and I am happy with myself most of the time. My self confidence is finally recovering and in spite of the many setbacks I have had and will have, I refuse to lower my ambitions. My life is going to be great.

After a few rocky years, C. and I have learnt to make our relationship work and we are in it for the long haul. I live a few minutes away from my parents and my brother, and I belong to two groups - a Scrabble club and a cycle club. Taken together, they provide me with a network of family and friends that I can call on for support without burdening any single person.

I'm very open about being manic depressive. All my friends and family know I'm manic depressive so they aren't surprised by my behaviour any more. My mood swings are just one of those things they know about me, just as they know that I am a pretty good cyclist. To them, my being bipolar is nothing special.

The persons at work now know that I have mood swings, but it took me a long time to tell them. It is still not really a discussed topic and I'm not sure I want it to be. There are too many issues of responsibility and reliability at work for me to be comfortable about admitting that I have an illness that frequently makes me neither. I am lucky to be in a family business - I don't get into trouble for missing days frequently - and my boss is my brother.

This website started as an outreach program. After I was diagnosed, I didn't know any bipolar persons living close by to talk with. The people who e-mailed me prevented me from feeling lonely, helped me out, and kept me sane (well, as sane as I get). The site has since taken on a momentum of its own and I keep it going because there are people who were once in my position. It's my turn now to provide support.

One last note. I'm a guy - my name confuses many people.

So, there you are. My experiences are all accessible from the home page.

Jinnah Mohammed
www.livingmanicdepressive.com
jinnah@alum.mit.edu

Additional Contact Information
For privacy reasons I do not put my full contact information on the website. However, I do own this domain and the registration information is publicly available should you care to look.