Bi-polar is a common misdiagnosis for autism and something I do not recognise from my youth, sure I’d been depressed but manic highs were not something I knew.  I’d known my brain was different from a young age and when I discovered autism, I felt I had found the explanation. I carried it with me as my own secret super power for years. An autistic mind that had mastered social communication. 

For three years I told the services I was autistic, for three years they would not acknowledge it. I got a private diagnosis. The words “severely autistic” shined at me out of the pages of the report and I was armed and ready to take it to my psychiatrist. 

I just had to get something finished at work. I was sad and elated at once. Elated that I had been right and devastated that my folks had just forwarded me the report without comment. I held it together at work until a woman, noticing my upset refused to leave me be, refused to accept “fine”. More and more people came. Surrounding me, not giving me space, things escalated, I called the police on myself then was threatened with them, my care coordinator arrived and added to rather than alleviate the stress. I got myself away. Went for a drive. 4 hours later I was picked up by the police having been reported missing. I was 38 years old! I had been gone for 4 hours. I wasn’t missing, I was at B&Q buying an automated cat feeder so I could get away for a couple of days to recuperate. 

A terrifying sectioning followed and they finally sent me for an NHS assessment after my 5th release, which of course came back positive.  I should not have had to be noticeably autistic before I was believed..  

In an effort to heal myself, I attempted to get private trauma therapy and was turned down by three separate trauma specialists as soon as I mentioned the word “sectioned” for having “too much trauma” and “requiring a whole team of doctors and psychiatrists”.  Too much trauma? For trauma therapy? 

Struggling on my own, I used alcohol to numb my brain. I had always enjoyed drinking but this was different, I now no longer drank with friends but on my own, drinking to try and stop the constant thoughts invading my mind, to feel just okay.  I tried to confide in a friend that I thought I’d developed a problem.  To which she simply told me that I couldn’t have, as I didn’t buy two bottles of wine and go straight back to bed as her aunt does.  I smiled and nodded, but inside I wanted to scream…

Don’t say I’m not a drinker 

For that I really am 

The outward face of sobriety 

Well, that one is the sham 

  

For when I am on my own 

It’s all I think about 

The luscious golden liqueur 

That takes away my doubt 

  

That allows me to forget 

That leads to fitful rest 

That takes the days asunder 

And clears them off my chest 

  

Don’t say I’m not a drinker 

For I drink every day 

I don’t know how to carry on 

I cannot stay this way 

  

Don’t say I’m not a drinker 

But take my hand and laugh 

And tell me that we’ll change this 

That I’m on the right path 

  

For sure I will defeat this 

I’ll do my very best 

But now I’d like some vodka 

And fitful awful rest.

After losing my two dearest friends from my life in the course of a week, my happiness reached rock bottom and I became properly suicidal for the first time in my life.  I kinda knew I wouldn’t do anything, but for the first time, I didn’t KNOW and felt I was unsafe being on my own.  I begged the services for medication, anything to take the edge off, but they will not prescribe antidepressants to someone with a bi-polar diagnosis in case they trigger a manic episode.  

While every time I got close to feeling the self-belief of 2016 I was whisked away with no say, when I was poisoning myself to stop me jumping off a bridge, I was just left. 

Desperate, I took to sourcing my own medication from the dark web, nothing I hadn’t been prescribed before. Do not recommend; very slow delivery times. I would also invite strangers to my house as being with a stranger was safer than being on my own and by this time I had precious few friends I could call on as seeing me ill would tend to end my friendships.  I dreamed of comfort and being in a place where I was not the most fucked up person in the room.

So I wander to the crack den

Cos that’s where my pain ends

I’d thought it’d be a happy day

I thought I’d make amends

I booked a nice hotel suite

Thought I would treat myself

But there’s no one here to share it

I’ll stay here by myself

So, I’ll wander to the crack den

Maybe then I’ll ease my pain

That all the friends I still cherish

Don’t feel for me the same

I’d walk many a country mile

I’d knock right on their door

If that was what was called for

I’d even do way more

But I invite them round for dinner

Or just a cup of tea

And yet everyone’s too busy

Too busy to see me.

So I’ll wander to the crack den

And drink the cheap red wine

And drown away my sorrows

Until they think I’m fine

It may take many moons

It may take many years

To alleviate the terror

To soothe the constant fears.

I have smartened up my terrace

The place is looking tight

But no one there to visit me

Well isn’t that just nice?

So I’ll wander to the crack den

‘Cos that’s where my pain ends

I thought it’d be a happy day

I thought I’d make amends

Both psychoactive medication and recreational drugs work to alter the brain chemistry on either a short term or long term basis.  Drinking and drugs should be an enhancement to life not a prop, but don’t judge lest you be judged.  Trauma or a life with nothing in it is hard to live without stimulants that make it seem okay.  A huge area of difficulty I faced was being expected to process my psychological pain sober while knowing that those demanding that behaviour indulged themselves.

Fuck you you middle classes  

Doing coke on a Saturday night  

But golly that’s alright  

Darling what a fright- 

Fully good night.  

“get the prosecco sweetie 

And some chips and dips”  

While the white line insists  

They’ll go untouched  

Fuck you middle classes  

With your sneaky mid week joints  

Helps calm the nerves  

After a stressful day  

In between Pilates and radio 4 

There’s no thief knocking or your door  

Your bed isn’t on the floor  

But jolly dear, what a giggle 

“Anyone for stone baked pizza?” 

Fuck you middle classes  

Drinking wine by the carafe  

Hungover again  

Damn my head,  

another bottle of red?  

How much is that this month?  

But it’s not white lightning or special brew  

So that’s okay and it was such a hoot  

It is not bad that they do these things, life is hard and drugs can be a delight, it is the one rule for them and one rule for others that is unacceptable. It is not the drugs, it is the over indulgence that is the problem, but there is a wealth of distance between overuse and complete abstinence and if you preach abstinence, you must be abstinent yourself. 

You can’t on one side force people to take psychoactive medication and damn them for taking other psychoactive substances. I hoped to do this show medication free but that is not the case, I am in an invisible prison where I am injected once a month with meds that I know not what they do.  I am on no order, they can not legally force me to take the medication, but they can make your life very difficult if you do not and after a few sectionings, the threat of a community treatment order requiring you to take medication,  is always there, hanging over your head, if you have the audacity to try med free and then slip up.  You are forced to comply with interventions that make you feel worse because the alternative is being labelled as difficult.  The alternative is possibly being locked up for long periods for short emotional blips or worse being ignored when you need assistance.