So I absolutely love the band, Dream Theater. During my senior year of high school, when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, their CD Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence came out. The are six songs on it and they pertain to the following mental illnesses: (1) About to Crash [bipolar disorder] (2) War Inside My Head [PTSD] (3) The Test That Stumped Them All [schizophrenia] (4) Good Night Kiss [Post partum depression] (5) Solitary Shell [Asperger's syndrome] (6) About to Crash Reprise [mania aspect of bipolar disorder] (7) Losing Time [Dissociative Identity Disorder]
I love this CD as it really speaks to my experience. Here’s a Wiki article that describes the CD, and specifically, the songs as they chronicle bipolar disorder. Below are the lyrics of the song. I’ve bolded the parts that I identify with:

About to Crash

She can’t stop pacing
She never felt so alive
Her thoughts are racing
Set on overdrive

It takes a village
This she knows is true
they’re expecting her
And she’s got work to do

He helplessly stands by
It’s meaningless to try
As he rubs his red-rimmed eyes
He says I’ve never seen her get this bad

Even though she seems so high
He knows that she can’t fly
and when she falls out of the sky
He’ll be standing by

She was raised in a small midwestern town
By a charming and eccentric loving father
She was praised as the perfect teenage girl
And everyone thought highly of her

And she tried everyday
With endless drive
To make the grade
Then one day
She woke up to find
The perfect girl
Had lost her mind

Once barely taking a break
Now she sleeps the days away
She helplessly stands by
It’s meaningless to try
All she wants to do is cry
No one ever knew she was so sad

Cause even though she gets so high
And thinks that she can fly
She will fall out of the sky
But in the face of misery
She found hopefulness
Feeling better
She had weathered
This depression

Much to her advantage
She resumed her frantic pace
Boundless power
Midnight hour
She enjoyed the race

The Reprise:

I’m alive again
The darkness far behind me
I’m invincible
Despair will never find me

I feel strong
I’ve got a new sense of elation
Boundless energy
Euphoria fixation

Still it’s hard to just get by
It seems so meaningless to try
When all I want to do is cry
Who would ever know I felt so sad

Even though I get so high
I know that I will never fly
And when I fall out of the sky
Who’ll be standing by

Will you be standing by?

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So as you can see, I have a lot bolded. I love the Wiki article linked above because it describes each phase of depression and mania.

I grew up as a highly motivated and independent person, always trying my best, and I graduated Valedictorian of my high school class even with the immense depression and manic episode I experienced my senior year. When it was all over, I was so surprised I even graduated, as I felt like I had failed out my senior year (in reality, I only made on B, which was in weight training, and due to my having to miss classes because of psychiatry and therapist appts, and a car accident).

I feel my Dad and mom were definitely wondering how it got so bad. The way my depression was, it lasted three months, and then I was “better” but that turned out to be hypomania. I do not believe I had a “stable” aspect of that year until I got off Lithium and was put on Depakote.

For me waking up and losing my mind, it was gradual and did not just happen all at once. I started, I believe, right after I stopped attending a summer academy at a local university before my senior year. I wanted out of the conservative town I lived in, and I wanted to leave and go to college. The prospect of applying to colleges, is what triggered my mental illness. I had a presdisposition for it, but the stress is what “flipped the switch.”

The “No one ever know she was so sad” definitely embodies a lot of that year. I was able to hide it well, and my “friends” weren’t all that close anyway, so I would just stay home all weekend. I would do the family dinner/movie night, but I lost interest in everything, and yet, I was able to fake it well. (This also parallels an abusive relationship I was in, as even my own roommate wasn’t aware the abuse was really going on and as bad as it was, but that’s another story).

I was super excited in December 2003 when I felt better, I stopped sleeping and I went away to this church camp and I loved it. I felt I was attracted to this one girl and started opening back up to my feelings for women. (When I was depressed, I identified as a heterosexual/asexual). When I was hypomanic/manic, I was more in touch with those feelings, and also had to reign in the loss of impulse control when manic. I never did anything sexual, but for example, I wrote notes to this girl thinking she might like me too. In reality, she did not, and she probably thought I was crazy.

The next lines in the Reprise are about mania and hypomania, which I experienced both. Luckily, I’ve only had one manic episode. I had numerous hypomanic episodes, where I would cycle in and out in the period of a week or two. This can be called ultra rapid cycling bipolar disorder. It did not happen throughout the course of a day, which is more characteristic and one symptom of borderline personality disorder.

Who will be standing by? Will the people that I love still love me? My parents? Most definitely. My partner? She’s never experienced my change, but I know she will. Friends? In high school, I lost all of my friends. I scared them. Rightly so, they had never experienced anyone with mental illness. So as I become really close to someone, I tell them about my mental illness just in case I become symptomatic, so they will understand. Thankfully, now that I’m older, and in the mental health field, people understand more. If they didn’t, then they are not worth being my friend.

I created a video for my lifespan development class in graduate school chronicling my mental illness, so if you want to check it out, here and you won’t have to read this long post! :)

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I actually was not aware that Losing Time, the last song on the CD was about DID! But now I’m excited to listen to it again! I always thought it was depression. Those lyrics can come in another post. I’ve started reading blogs chronicling people’s lives with DID, so they may find it interesting. A link to the lyrics are here

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