Electroboy Looks Back: 10-Year Diagnosis AnniversaryAndy "Electroboy" Behrman
For more than ten years, I was consistently misdiagnosed with depression by
more than eight mental health care professionals. I only learned later that
this was typical for the bipolar patient. It all began with my first visit to
a therapist who diagnosed me with "adolescent depression," and from there I
met several doctors along the road who continued not only to diagnose me with
depression, but to treat me with medication for depression. Needless to say,
this was a disaster, as the medication only served to fuel my mania. In a
nutshell, I was being diagnosed improperly because I only visited these
doctors during my "low points" or depression, I was not accurately filling
them in on my symptoms, and they were not asking enough questions about my
mental illness. In retrospect, had I shared more information with them,
perhaps it would have been easier for them to diagnose me with bipolar
disorder much earlier than any doctor did.
But this is all water under the bridge now.
When I was finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder (or what I only knew was
referred to as manic depression), I was shocked by both the diagnosis and the
label "manic depressive." I was a manic depressive. What did that mean? First,
I didn't know anyone else with the illness, and I panicked because I thought
the illness was degenerative. "Will I make it to my next birthday?" I asked my
doctor. I was reassured that I would, but that I would also need to begin a
regimen of medication to control my symptoms. Yes, the common ones, which I
had not only taken for granted to be "normal" but which were slowly destroying
my life. These included racing thoughts, insomnia, overspending, sexual
promiscuity, poor judgment and drug and alcohol abuse. All of a sudden, my
"lifestyle" was no longer acceptable and had to come to a screeching halt. How
could I live on medication with my raging personality tamed? Would I become
dull and boring? After all, I had always been "Mister Fun," the guy standing
with a lampshade on my head, a margarita in each hand and doing the merengue
at parties.
Treatment began. In the course of the next decade, I would try more than 37
different medications to control my bipolar disorder and experienced almost
every possible side effect from each medication: muscle stiffness, headaches,
agitation, sleeplessness and grogginess, to name a few. Ultimately, when we
realized that no combination of medication was going to work for me, I opted for
the last resort - electro-convulsive therapy or ECT - which provided me with
some relief in the beginning (not to mention the side effect of short term
memory loss) until I relapsed three months after the last treatment. It was then
that my doctor ordered me to continue "maintenance treatment." I had a total of
19 electroshock treatments, until I realized I had become addicted to the
premedication of the procedure and asked my doctor to bring the treatment to a
halt.
Needless to say, these were trying years and I was hopeless. I wasn't
working, I was collecting disability and receiving financial assistance from my
friends and family, and basically I was a "shut in." I never imagined a life
outside of my apartment again. And I had been a highly functional public
relations agent and art dealer (albeit my illness had landed me in prison for a
brief six month stint for counterfeiting). Now I was barely capable of taking
care of myself and could only watch television. I didn't even have enough focus
to read or write.
But by 1999, there was light at the end of the tunnel for me. My doctor had
found a combination of medications that kept me relatively even-keeled, and I
was getting back to a more normal life. I was working again and I had
reestablished a social life. I was even able to take care of myself. But there
was a five-year block of time when I was completely disabled and I just couldn't
get over this "lost time." In fact, sometime it prevented me from moving
forward.
Of course, as soon as I become "even-keeled" and was functional again, I was
certain that my bipolar disorder had gone away - simply vanished. I was wrong.
Now I was coping with the illness, and I was tested nearly every day. And
although it's been five years since then, I must admit that I still take each
day as it comes. I'm always prepared for a relapse; even though I have five
years "under my belt" of being relatively "episode free," I'm always on alert.
I'm resigned to living with bipolar disorder for the rest of my life. The
fear and shame are gone; I speak about my illness openly with both family and
friends and have even ventured out into the public arena, sharing my story of my
battle with bipolar disorder in Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania, published
by Random House. This was probably the hardest thing I had to do with my illness
- to go public. But I did it because I wanted people to know that there were 2.5
million people with bipolar disorder diagnosed in this country - and millions
more undiagnosed. And I thought that my sharing my story - a very personal story
- would bring people out of the closet to seek treatment, help family members in
understanding their loved ones, and also help mental healthcare professionals in
treating their patients.
In the spring, the film version of
Electroboy will go into production
with Tobey Maguire and it will be the first big budget Hollywood movie with a
bipolar protagonist. I'm currently working on a sequel to "Electroboy," and I
still maintain a mental health website at
www.electroboy.com Since my diagnois ten years ago, bipolar disorder has
become my mission, an illness I had honestly never heard of until that day and
something I never would have imagined I would be doing in ten years. It's been
a long journey for me, but a very rewarding one. Learning to cope with the
illness has been tremendously satisfying for me, and passing on my knowledge
of my coping skills is the most important thing that I can do with my life.
And every day I remind people suffering, that there is hope - - you will get
better.