A Combustible Life by Keegan O’Connell (.ePUB)
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A Combustible Life, My Ongoing Struggles with Manic Depression by Keegan O’Connell
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Overview: At age 10 I had my first depressive episode. I was driving with my parents, and a deep sadness overcame me. I could not stop crying, but I had no idea what was going on. The feeling subsided after an hour of so, and from that point on my life has been plagued with paranoia, extreme nervousness, anxiety, depression, and mania.
During my pre-teens, I became paranoid that my father would be killed in a car accident, and that my brother would die in his sleep. On top of this, I felt desperately sorry for people, who didn’t need my sympathy, such as my hairdresser, whom I though was poor.
The paranoia faded as I progressed through high school, but in athletics season, I spent every day battling nerves in anticipation of training, and competition. Academically, I was above average, but I was extremely lazy.
When I turned 18, and finished high school, I gave up athletics, and the nerves that came with it. I was doing really well, and at the end of my first year at university, I fell in love. The paranoia returned; and I was extremely fearful that my girlfriend would fall pregnant. Monthly bleeding made the paranoia fade, but it would always come back before she had her period.
Then, on new years day 2004, I woke up overcome with anxiety. My heart raced, my body shook, there was a constant lump in my throat, and a constriction flowed across my chest and down my arms. When the depression hit, I was tremendously embarrassed, and kept it as secret as possible. Other than attending lectures, I spent the days sleeping, and the nights with my girlfriend. The anxiety and sadness would always fade by late afternoon, however from the time I opened my eyes in the morning, I was stricken with these strange and awful feelings.
I went onto medication which did little for the anxiety, but did dull the melancholy, and although I was deeply troubled, I could handle the pain, aided by excessive drinking. After university, I broke up with my girlfriend, and began working at a summer camp, when everything came right. I was elated, energetic, excited, and reluctant to sleep, so I stopped my medication. Two weeks later I had been fired, and spent my days sleeping on and off, while daydreaming about blowing my face off.
After seeing my doctor, my medication was re-introduced, and I moved into an approximate four year remission phase, dappled with intermittent sadness and anxiety. There were no thoughts of suicide, however I became embroiled in excesses; junk food, alcohol, marijuana, and promiscuity. I didn’t realise at the time, but I must have been experiencing some form of mania.
It was a self destructive lifestyle, and after a break-up, I deteriorated to the point where I was hospitalized, sedated and put on suicide watch, after I came close to gassing myself. In hospital, I met my current psychiatrist. We walked a long path of electro-convulsive therapy, and medication changes, some with horrendous side effects. It took ten months to get to a point of recovery, at which time I had to sell everything I owned, except my clothes, to pay my medical bills. I moved in with my parents and as I leveled out again I was able to return to work.
Genre: Non-Fiction > Biographies & Memoirs
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