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I am diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). They affect my communication in speech and writing, which become disorganised and hard to follow. I write best in hypomania episodes (mood elevated but not full mania). When I am fully manic, my writing and speech become incoherent to others, because it is all loose associations, flight of ideas and symbolism. My mind races and my speech is fast (pressure of speech). Below is my handwriting, which changes in mood episodes. Large and messy when manic. The messiness is mainly because my mind goes fast. I write small when depressed.  Left: hypomania and trying to write nicely. Right: mania and unable to write neatly.
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I recently published a memoir, Bipolar Cringe, about the hypersexuality at the end of a marriage (open in final year). Written, at the time, before I was diagnosed bipolar 1 disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I published it minimally edited so that it was still raw.
For the past few years, I have been subjected to targeted harassment because I no longer identify as autistic. When I wrote the memoir, I identified as Aspie/Aspergers and autistic. Social justice warriors on Twitter took offence over their identify politics and targeted my book with malicious reviews. This was part of a massive mob cyberbullying attack by strangers. The following screenshots are only a small sample of the abuse. This was one of the many insults, when I supported an autistic woman with different political views to the mob: 
I originally wrote this blog post in December 2018. Reposting here as I won't be renewing the domain name on the other blog. I published my first novel, Pet Purpose: Your Unspoken Voice in 2021.
It's now 8am. Alarm has gone off for me to take my morning meds. Usually I would crash back into a deep sleep. But currently I've been in hypomania and awake since 2am being productive with creative projects. I woke up early a few days ago and typed for 6 hours straight writing the first draft of the final chapter for my semiautobiographical novel, Pet Purpose. Usually I struggle to get out of bed before midday because of how bipolar 1 disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and my medication affects me. I originally wrote this blog post in January 2019 on another blog. Moved to here after deciding not to renew the domain name. I completed my first novel, Pet Purpose: Your Unspoken Voice in 2021, which took a long time as it involved weaving in meaningful coincidences.
This kind of thing happens to me frequently - meaningful coincidences aka synchronicities. I find them fascinating. But them my analytical mind starts wondering if I'm getting manic again because they happened A LOT when I was in a mania episode - think something or hear it in a song then something would happen at the EXACT same time that fit it. So then I believed I could see the future. It felt very spiritual. My brain is currently struggling to be organised enough to speak or write, so I will probably keep this short. Because I am exhausted and I have been getting breakthrough mania and mixed episode symptoms. And also because I am waiting for sedation to kick in enough for me to go back to sleep as emergency self-care.  I Sea Red by Xanthe Wyse I grew up in a fundamentalist christian church that preached that illness was demon possession and oppression. They also preached that gays were going to hell and other things that I don't believe in anymore. Many years later I was diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder, which has episodes of full mania and severe depression. I have also been diagnosed with PTSD from trauma. When I was involved with the church, I was a very sincere Christian. When I had euphoric highs, I was told I was filled with the Holy Spirit. It certainly felt very spiritual. When a psychiatrist first asked me if I had 'highs' I told them that it was God. People in the pentecostal church I grew up in enjoyed getting 'high' on God. When I was suffering from internal torture and distress, I was told it was demons and that I needed 'deliverance' (exorcism).  Angels and Demons by Xanthe Wyse I had a big bipolar mania episode two years ago. I'm still recovering. I told my psychiatrist that the medications were like putting a bucket under the Huka Falls. The Huka Falls is a powerful waterfall in Taupo, New Zealand that could fill an Olympic sized swimming pool in sections. You can hear the roar before you see it. The intensity and energy of emotions being released that had been shut down with PTSD was so powerful that it was a huge challenge to try to harness.  Whitewater Roar. Acrylics on canvas by Xanthe Wyse. Today I burned 15 journals I'd filled during a bipolar mania episode nearly two years ago. I flicked through them and condensed the essence of the journals into one page of some of what mania with trauma was like. I have been diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and they amplify each other. I was back on medications but it took MONTHS to try to get the mania under control. I've summarised some of what it was like below, based on skim-reading the journals before I burned them:  Crashing by Xanthe Wyse Today I burnt 15 journals. Journals I had written during months of a mania episode after going back on medications for bipolar 1 disorder two years ago. I was encouraged by my psychiatrist to journal rather than blurt out all my disjointed thoughts on Facebook. So I filled over 20 books, mostly school exercise books and scrapbooks with colourful scribblings, often in felt tip pen rather than biro. I had felt an extreme need to express myself at the time. I understood what I wrote, but it would have been complete nonsense to anyone else. Trauma was a recurring theme in amongst all the mind-maps, associations and symbolism. I was trying to process my trauma and calm my racing brain. Often my brain was racing too fast and was too disorganised to write, so I painted brightly coloured abstracts instead.  Burning dozens of pages from manic journals |
Xanthe WyseXanthe finds creative expression including writing and painting to be therapeutic and helps her to manage her diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Archives
June 2022
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