Andrew: Hey, I’m Andrew Hales. Welcome to another edition of chatting with I’m here with Paloma. You have bipolar disorder? Okay. When were you diagnosed?

Paloma: I was diagnosed in February of 2016, which was about a year and a half after I started showing symptoms of mania and depression. I was diagnosed at that time with bipolar one, PTSD, and anxiety with OCD and intrusive thoughts. I was… 22.

Andrew: What triggered it? Like, why did you go to the doctor, were you just feeling shitty?

Paloma: It started kind of happening around 19. I started feeling really depressed, but I wasn’t really taking it seriously. I guess a lot of us can feel sad and like we can’t get out of bed, but you know, society kind of tells us, ‘Oh, you’re just lazy, you’re just being sad.’ And so it’s one of those things that you can really demean within your own self and be like, ‘Okay, you know, I shouldn’t tell anyone, I’ll just act like I’m fine.’ So I started feeling really depressed when I was 19. Basically, bipolar disorder can be triggered by certain events. It usually comes up between the late teens and early to mid-20s. So you can experience something traumatic, or it can be some trauma from childhood that is triggered as an adult, or it can just randomly start from stress or not sleeping.

Andrew: So it’s like up and down, like really extreme moods?

Paloma: Yes, so basically there are different kinds. Bipolar one is when you have that extremity in both realms of mania and depression. It’s a mood disorder, so you feel really high and then you feel really low. Then there’s bipolar two, which is where you have depression, and it can be extreme depression, and hypomania, which is a milder form of mania. So that’s kind of like the euphoric feeling that people experience.

Andrew: What kind do you have, bipolar one?

Paloma: I have bipolar one with rapid cycling, which basically means that for me personally, I had it where I had a few weeks manic, and then a few weeks depressed, and then it got into the realms of a few days manic, a few days depressed, and then even within a day, I would feel mania and depression. So it can be a few months here and there, or it can be every day you feel that.

Andrew: And you’re on medication now, and that controls it? So you don’t have too many ups and downs?

Paloma: No, I actually haven’t had an episode for a year and a half, so that’s been really nice.

Andrew: An episode of depressive or mania, you mean either? Okay.

Paloma: Either.

Andrew: Sometimes I wonder if I have that. A lot of people probably do, everyone has ups and downs, that’s normal. So why do you think yours were more severe than others?

Paloma: Definitely. I feel like a lot of people can relate to depression and kind of understand that loss of interest in activities. You know, you can’t get out of bed, you can’t go to work, stuff like that. And obviously, it goes to the realms of self-harm and suicidal thoughts. And so for me, I was very much going to the extremes in both realms where I did have suicidal thoughts, and at the same time, I’d have that for a few weeks and then for another few weeks, I’d feel manic. It’s interesting because in both realms of hypomania, which is mild mania, and then in what they call full-blown mania, you’re feeling definitely different than normal.

Andrew: Well, yeah, I hear it feels good. The euphoric feeling, you haven’t felt that?

Paloma: Oh, I did at first, and then it went into…

Andrew: Yeah, I loved it. I’m sure. Yeah, you feel like you can conquer the world. Yeah, I know, that’s what’s so interesting, is that some people don’t even kind of want to, or they may not even know something’s wrong because they just may be feeling, and it feels so natural to you at the time. Like, ‘I’m just feeling great, I’m on top of the world, life of the party, I just got a good night’s sleep’ or something.

Paloma: With full-blown mania, the difference is… well, I guess how I can describe it… hypomania and mild mania is very much like you take the perfect drug that just makes you feel great. And then how I can describe full-blown mania for myself is as if someone’s just force-feeding you a handful of drugs and you have no idea how you’re going to feel. My heart would be racing, I would actually pass out, like faint, because it was so intense. I would be pacing back and forth in my room and I would think it’s 20 minutes and it had been like three hours. My mind would race so fast that I wouldn’t even be able to talk properly because it would just be too intense. So it’s just such a wild feeling and it’s very hard to explain, but it really makes you so you’re not able to do anything, kind of similar to depression.

Andrew: You had friends witness this? They would tell you, like, you’re being really weird, or no?

Paloma: Yeah, at the time I didn’t have many friends, but I did have my current girlfriend. Usually, knowing that there was something wrong with me, I would just lock myself in my room and be like, ‘I can’t interact with anyone socially.’ But she saw me one time when I was manic and she was just like, ‘Are you okay?’ because I would be talking super fast, I wouldn’t be making sense. I told her, ‘You know, my heart’s beating so fast, I think I might need to go to the hospital,’ which can actually happen in mania where you have to be hospitalized. So definitely, but after she noticed, I was like, ‘Okay, never being around her again like that,’ because I don’t want her to think there’s anything wrong with me.

Andrew: We’re scared of people being like, ‘There’s something wrong with you,’ and not wanting to be close to you in any way. Yeah. You’ve been hospitalized? Okay.

Paloma: I haven’t. I kind of haven’t had a choice. I definitely felt like I needed to on several occasions with depression and with the mania, but I was working full-time, going to school full-time, and I was very worried, you know, if I go to the hospital, if they put me in the mental hospital, then I’m going to get let go from work. It’s very scary, or I can’t make money, which I need to make. So it’s one of those things where it’s like, you know, tough it through, just get through it.

Andrew: You came to the doctor and you’re like, ‘I’m having these weird episodes,’ and he’s just like, ‘Yeah, you have it’? Did he have you take a quiz or how did the diagnosis happen?

Paloma: Yeah, with him, it was really great. He’s a really great psychiatrist. Unfortunately, some aren’t. Some, for example, will have you in for a few minutes and you just say, ‘Oh, I feel this, this, and that,’ and then they mark you as like six different things and give you six prescriptions, which is so unhealthy. For mine, I was very lucky and he really took the time. I explained to him past trauma and stuff like that and he really tried to understand what it was. And obviously, he has a degree in it, so it was a few sessions.

Andrew: What was the past trauma? You don’t want to share? It might be too long of a story, but it’s fine.

Paloma: Well, basically in my case, it stemmed from childhood trauma which was brought up as an adult. It was ongoing abuse from when I was a toddler to like 13, and then from 14 to 18, I very much tried to zone it out and disassociate. And then when I was 19, I got into an abusive relationship with one of my first girlfriends and that was physically, emotionally abusive, and it was the same as when I was a child, and I felt so much helplessness, and that triggered the depression and then the mania.

Andrew: What medication are you on?

Paloma: I’m on risperidone, which is actually an antipsychotic. It sounds so bad.

Andrew: Risperdal.

Paloma: Risperidone. It’s interesting, a lot of people with bipolar actually don’t take that. It’s kind of more specific to people diagnosed with schizophrenia. They take a higher milligram than I take. And basically, under, I’m pretty sure it’s under one milligram, people diagnosed with bipolar will take it. For me personally, it’s because when I was in the manic mode, I would experience hallucinations, as in hearing things and seeing shadows. It wasn’t too much visual hallucinations. And also, since I experienced intrusive thoughts, which is very much like when you see a scary movie and you have a scary scene in your head and you can’t stop replaying it. That can happen with past trauma. So it was specifically for me.

Andrew: Lamictal is a mood stabilizer, which is very common for people to use, you take that one? So yeah, that one’s kind of more like lithium a little bit? Or is it lithium? I don’t even know. I always think of Nirvana when I hear lithium.

Paloma: And Lamictal, which is a mood stabilizer, which is very common for people to use. My doctor actually prefers Lamictal. Lithium has been around for a long time, but it can have negative side effects. And also, you do have to have blood work done, I think like every month or every few weeks. So we decided on Lamictal and it’s been really great. I think that’s the newer one that a lot of people use.

Andrew: So it’s just those two for now?

Paloma: Yes.

Andrew: Okay. You said you mentioned self-harm? What was that about, you were suicidal?

Paloma: Yes.

Andrew: It’s not really funny.

Paloma: No, I know. It’s something where I’ve gotten to the point where I can talk about it. I think there’s comfortability with kind of accepting how things were, and so you can not necessarily laugh about it, but… it’s a good story.

Andrew: So this is before the diagnosis or during or after, when did that happen?

Paloma: Yeah, it was definitely before, it was a depressive episode. So basically, as the mania got higher, the depression got lower, as in, you know, higher depression. So when I was at my highest in mania, that’s when I started self-harming.

Andrew: Bruising, like just hitting something, just hitting your arm?

Paloma: I would actually do a lot of bruising. I’ve done that since I was younger, since I was a kid. Yeah, usually with… yeah. I think because I did it as a child, it was very much something ingrained in me, like almost a reflex. And that’s the interesting thing about self-harm, maybe people don’t realize that sometimes that even comes as a reflex when you’re feeling worthless, when you’re feeling depressed.

Andrew: It’s like, anything, hurting yourself felt good?

Paloma: Um, yeah, it’s such an interesting thing to talk about. I’m sure a lot of people can understand, and I think a lot of people may not get it, but it’s basically when you’re filled with so much emotional pain, to be able to take that away by some type of physical pain, it distracts you completely. And also when you feel worthless, the big thing for me was when I felt so much self-hatred, I would just be like, ‘I deserve this. I deserve to self-harm, I deserve to be harmed.’

Andrew: So bipolar and what else?

Paloma: So bipolar, PTSD, and then anxiety.

Andrew: How often do you go to counseling? Or therapy, it’s all the same.

Paloma: I go to my psychiatrist every few months. Before, it was every three weeks when I was first getting started, for about the first year. And now I only have to go every few months because I have the medication that I feel is best for me. At first, it was very much trying out different medications.

Andrew: How many did you try out?

Paloma: About five.

Andrew: Wow.

Paloma: Yeah, it was interesting because they were each for different things. So I took prazosin, which is for PTSD nightmares.

Andrew: That makes you sleep really good or something?

Paloma: It’s supposed to stop your body from having adrenaline rushes, which is what you experience during nightmares. And so that was really helpful at the time.

Andrew: I feel like that would give me a nightmare, like I’m in a comatose or something.

Paloma: No, it’s very interesting. For me, it was worth it because I was deliberately not sleeping because my nightmares were so bad. And so it did help me, but in the morning, I would feel so groggy and I would stand up and almost pass out.

Andrew: For weird nightmares as well?

Paloma: Uhm, very much just trauma from my past. It’s so interesting because if you’ve had a nightmare where it feels so real, it can be very damaging in the way that you’re reliving the trauma. So that’s why I wouldn’t want to sleep. I would try to sleep two hours a night before I got the medication, just because I really didn’t want to fall asleep and dream about that.

Andrew: Do you think you’ll ever be off medication? That’s an interesting question.

Paloma: My doctor says a goal is to eventually have patients either get off their medication or at least lessen the dose. For me personally, since I’ve only been on them for a year and a half, two years or something, I feel that I’m so comfortable that I wouldn’t really want to mess with it as of now. But I guess it’s just something where I’d have to see. It’s just so hard to think of going back. Also, I’ve had withdrawals when I haven’t been able to get my medication on time and they are so painful, like brain zaps. So I’m just kind of like, I’m good.

Andrew: I know, that’s how I feel. Like, I’m fine where I am. And it’s not too much of a hassle. Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, it’s hard to take a pill every day.’ It’s like, well, you take food every day. It’s just one more thing. It’s not that big of a deal. Takes like, literally half a second. But yeah, so you experience some stigma? People are just like, ‘Oh,’ or have your parents been like, ‘You don’t have bipolar’ or I don’t know?

Paloma: Completely. That’s what’s really sad, is when people demean it and say, ‘Oh, you don’t have depression, you don’t have bipolar.’ When I first kind of accepted that I may have mania and depression, I wasn’t trying to diagnose myself, but it was more just, ‘Okay, I’m reading about this and researching and it does kind of fit.’ And so I was trying to accept it, which is really hard. That’s definitely part of the stigma with mental illness. The first person I told, they were actually like, ‘Oh, no, you’re just sad.’ The hard part was I thought I could trust them, and then when they said that, it was like, yikes, I’m not telling anyone. Because if the one person I trust can’t even validate it, then it’s like, who would? And then with the stigmas around it, I think bipolar is misused all the time. It’s definitely one of those things where I think it’s very much associated with just being crazy. And a lot of people think that you can kind of implode at any time and just have an episode and go crazy. And also something that I’ve gotten which is very sad is that you’re unsafe, it’s unsafe to be around you because you could explode at any time. And so that’s obviously very hurtful.

Andrew: Have you ever wondered if you’re a narcissist?

Paloma: No.

Andrew: You’re a brat?

Paloma: No, I actually definitely exhibited signs of a sociopath, to be honest. I think I was very cut off because of the abuse.

Andrew: You’re like emo?

Paloma: No, I was actually one of those people who seemed perfectly fine, and then inside had no empathy. I think when you’re experiencing that pain, it’s kind of like you have to pretend as if you don’t feel pain. So I think I just… it was a very interesting thing. But then when I got older, I think I became like, too empathetic to the point where I would just… I felt like I… maybe you can feel too much in a way. And then, you know, the depression and mania start happening.

Andrew: What kind of abuse are we talking about? It’s really up to you. I just don’t know. I mean, it’s not live, so.

Paloma: Yeah, some podcasts do that. That would be scary.

Andrew: I know anything live is terrifying. Yeah, I’ve been on TV a few times, it’s pretty scary. Well, like back when I did the pranks. Yeah, I actually saw the one where you danced. Oh my gosh, it’s so cringe. The producer before was like, ‘Alright, you have to be way more pumped up than how I’m seeing you now,’ got me all freaked out. The Doctors. Okay, what were we talking about? Yeah, I’m just curious.

Paloma: Um, so basically, from when I was like a toddler to like 13, I was actually used in child pornography.

Andrew: Holy shit.

Paloma: So yeah, so that’s why it’s very much…

Andrew: From who, like your parents?

Paloma: From some people very close to my family.

Andrew: Like uncles and aunts and what not? Oh my gosh. And up until 13, how did you… like what happened? Did someone find out and you got out of it?

Paloma: No, he was very much that it just stopped. I don’t know, it sounds so sick, but maybe I aged out of it in a way.

Andrew: Couldn’t you get them or did you get them arrested?

Paloma: No, because they threatened if I said anything. They threatened a lot of things. And especially as a kid, you feel so helpless. So much pain and all this stuff, and that’s why I felt very suicidal as a kid because I was just like, I don’t want to experience that.

Andrew: Oh my gosh. That’s crazy. These people are still out there and you still haven’t told on them? That’s crazy.

Paloma: Wow.

Andrew: Yeah.

Paloma: So it’s very much something that I didn’t even accept until recently. It’s very much something that you try to just disassociate from completely.

Andrew: Yeah, I can’t even comprehend that.

Paloma: Yeah, so that’s why the PTSD nightmares and everything were so rough. But it’s really something that I have just been accepting within the past year, to be honest. Obviously, it came up and I knew I had to accept it because of the mania and depression. I knew that it had something to do with that. But I really haven’t accepted it until this past year, and I’m still in that process because it can be very difficult to go back to that and try to heal from that.

Andrew: Yeah, well, you seem perfectly normal. Holy shit. Well, I guess I just met you, but no. Are you vegan or anything? All these documentaries coming out are claiming, you know, you go plant-based and a lot of these symptoms and diseases will disappear, you know? So that’s one thing I want to try out, for me, like maybe hopefully get off Lexapro.

Paloma: Yeah, I don’t eat too much meat or dairy products and whatnot in general, and I try to have a healthy diet because that’s definitely…

Andrew: The exercise?

Paloma: Yes. Not as much as I should, but yeah, definitely that really helps. And then obviously, just sleeping really helps. When I don’t get a good night’s sleep, my psychiatrist says that your emotions can just be anywhere. So it’s really important to sleep, so I try to at least follow that.

Andrew: Yeah. You’re a YouTuber?

Paloma: Not full-time. I do make YouTube videos, but they’re pretty silly and stuff like that. It’s a hobby now-ish. Yeah, it’s very much a hobby. And then for full-time, I work in television production, and then I’m a writer. I just published my first book, so that’s been pretty cool.

Andrew: The poems, yeah. I haven’t… there’s no link on your Instagram, I couldn’t find it. Is it on Amazon? Okay, I’ll just type it in. Yeah, and I can put it on this video too. When did it come out?

Paloma: Um, it just came out last week. Basically, I was doing it kind of undercover because I wanted to get some reviews by people. And they say that’s good to have reviews before you publish.

Andrew: Alright, any last words? I think I covered everything that I wanted to ask.

Paloma: Um, well, thank you for watching. If you would like to purchase my book, or if you don’t have the means to, you can DM me and I’d love to give you a special code for it to get it for free. It’ll be in the link in my bio and maybe the link here. Yeah, definitely. If you want to subscribe to my YouTube channel, I make silly videos, or to my Instagram.

Andrew: You’re a pro. You did it all for me, I usually do that part. I just say thanks for watching.