My Diagnosis, My Superpower, My Kyrpotonite

BY: ADIANA RIVERA

TW: suicidal ideation, drug usage

PREDIAGNOSIS 

I told my pre-pandemic therapist, “There is something wrong with me. There is something else going on. I am 0 to 100. I don’t have any inbetween.” I had written a journal entry late-middle school to early high-school with those exact words. Despite the consistency, she was insistent that my only diagnosis was emotional trauma and PTSD from my childhood.

I have been riding emotional waves since I can remember. The ups were so high I felt like I could fly. The dips were so low I didn’t know where to go. It felt like someone had dug a hole to the core of the earth, stopped halfway, somewhere really cold, and put me down there. Until their counterpart decided I belonged in the sky and flung me out of the hole towards the sun. 

Looking back, college is really where these highs and lows ran RAMPANT inside of my body. 

Self Portrait by Adiana Rivera.

I was on the back of a snowmobile driving around a frozen lake when I was going to school upstate. A seemingly beautiful event outside of the city life I had known. As I leaned on my college ex, staring at the snow and lake around us, I thought, “Is this it? Is this all we do? Drive around in circles.” I didn’t know how to feel joy. I was praying the snowmobile would flip and my life could be over right then. 

Suddenly, I would come to life. The Adiana who could feel again wanted so much. All that want went into drugs, alcohol and sex. All of that life went into chasing things that would make me feel in a painful way, which is exactly what my hypomania needed. She didn’t care about going into a stranger’s home or taking a strange drug. The stranger the better! 

Self Portrait by Adiana Rivera

I needed to know I was alive and I did that by testing God. 

When I am hypomanic I have this strong belief that I am untouchable. Not because I am invincible but because I am watched by God and the spirits. I am so filled with magic that no ill actions can fall upon me. “Show me you love me, God!”

I met this man selling coke out of a bar bathroom. “I’m growing menthol crystals in my room. Wanna see?” He asked me while we were smoking my cigarettes outside. “Oh yeah, absolutely.” We headed to his house. I was hooked hearing about his past dalliances with prison, foster homes, infertility and an abusive father. 

I stood outside his house as he walked in, a GIANT grin on my face. “So you love me God? I am favored by you? Let’s see if you can protect me in this stranger’s home.” 

‘Lo and behold, He did.

The stranger was genuinely kind and walked me back to a safe location for us to split up. No harm was done to me but I still sought it out. Loving to play on that fine line of living and dying.

DIAGNOSIS

When the pandemic hit, I wasn’t able to see my therapist anymore. After a couple of months, I tried my best to survive without therapy, but after a few break-downs, I reached out to the same practice and requested another woman POC therapist. 

It was with her that I started monitoring my moods and taking medication. I explained how I could stay up for 48 hours with no need for sleep. Sometimes getting nothing done, purposely avoiding important tasks or the extreme opposite; accomplishing something I couldn’t in a week, now completed in a day. 

Self Portrait by Adiana Rivera

I expressed how numb I could get, how empty I could feel. I went into detail about the rage I felt and the way I would be set off by small things to the point I would start breaking and kicking things. The rage grows to a point where I begin to get physically hot, a fever begins to grow in my body. 

The rage was always what shook me the most. “This isn’t me! How can I let myself get like this?” I would ask her. Feeling genuinely disgusted with my actions. I felt alienistic. 

I began to reach out to my Titi who was always pretty open about our family’s history on mental illness. Something everyone else in my family was trying to ignore. I had researched a ton of different mood and personality disorders. Something always brought me back to Bipolar 2. I told my Titi this and she revealed that Bipolar disorders run in our family. 

I took this information along with quotes from my sister’s DSM-IV book to my psychiatrist and therapist. After a lot of discussion and time, they diagnosed me with Bipolar 2.  

I always considered this diagnosis a blessing. Finally, there was something tangible to my mood cycles. I wasn’t this magical anomaly. In fact, there were family members and people just like me. 

Being Bipolar is my superpower and my kryptonite. My hypomania has allowed me to reach a confidence my upbringing would have never let me reach. It rips away any doubt and allows my creativity to run free. And if it wasn’t for my depression, would I ever come down? Would I ever sleep? She lulls me down into my hole, letting me make up for lost sleep. Having me slumber for weeks. 

Now, it is a matter of learning to coexist with my power and wounds. I think the most beautiful thing about that is knowing that I don’t have to do it alone and you don’t either.

Self Portrait by Adiana Rivera

Written by Adiana Rivera:

Adiana Rivera is a Bronx born & raised artist with a focus in documentary work. The drive behind her passion is to highlight the beauty and power in her people. To see more of her work, find her on instagram @adishoots 

If you find this post valuable and believe in the mission of Mental Health Tings and would like to partner with us financially, you can make a one time donation by buying me a coffee! 

You can also make a recurring monthly donation by signing up for our Here for the Blog $10 a month Patreon Tier.

All donations go toward the subscription cost of maintaining the website as well as payment for the various guest bloggers.

Thank you!