Recently I have had to confront the consequences of my ill health and begin to tackle a huge element of the sickness that falls upon me with ever-increasing frequency: my inability to compartmentalize the good from the bad. This is hardly unusual. I challenge anyone who can do this with a great deal of success. But, because I have little time between depressions, hypomanias and mixed episodes, I find it impossible to try to break down some of the content and connections, the webbing, that underpins the dangerous and irrational thoughts that I experience.

Today I returned to my old faculty to begin a series of assignments for a student I am supporting. The place vibrated with memories: stark lighting, the smell of books and coffee, the shuffling doors and an element of a school about it all. It was too much. Inevitably, I began to recall my last foray at the faculty.

I started the two years full of optimism. This time it will be better because I’m well. I hadn’t had a serious episode in 18 months and, although I felt a great weight of sadness that the last time my attempted postgraduate study at the university had gone so spectacularly wrong, although it did result in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder which made sense of so much of the pain and disruption that I had experienced for so many years. However, I was determined to make this time count; I was adamant that I would not let anything get in my way. And for the first year, everything went, well, joyously well. I was just about euthymic and had the presence of mind to finish my work on time, carefully composed and with a great deal of success. I had put the demons to bed and believed that I could finally put everything behind me; I could put it into a box labeled ‘shit happens’.

The second year also began well. I had a good relationship with my supervisor who was encouraging and supportive. I even explained that I was bipolar and she didn’t even bat an eyelid. I worked hard, alongside a full-time job as a secondary teacher. And perhaps this was my undoing because, even for a person in their right mind, juggling these two things would be very difficult. But I pushed on, on and on and up and up. Being promoted only served to fuel my drive and self-belief. I knew I was hypomanic, but I didn’t care because I ‘could do all the thingz’. My viva went magically. But by the November I had become psychotically mixed and brought chaos with me wherever I went. I recognized by the December that I should go on sick leave and later I applied to defer study for a few months in order to get myself well.

I did get better. But this wasn’t strictly true. I had been given leave to return to work, but this was very difficult and I found readjusting very painful. During the summer, I began the task of picking through my thesis notes and re-reading my literature review, which I had been assured was very good and needed only a few tweaks. I was however struggling to focus due to the potent medication I was taking. So, in a moment of idiocy, I stopped taking them. Within a terrifyingly short length of time, I was psychotically manic and became confused, furious, violent and driven by such a malevolent force I couldn’t keep up with myself. After trying to understand something ludicrously simple, I attacked my laptop. I crushed my hard drive and effectively destroyed all my research and a good portion of my novel. Some of it had been on my memory stick, but not nearly enough of it and only a small fragment of the introduction, literature review and conclusion.

Now, with precious little time until submission, I attempted to recreate my thesis. I was back on my medication, but was still not myself. Eventually, I conceded that I couldn’t do any more and handed it in. It was only OK and I knew it. I also knew that there were parts of it that were undeniably not good. And it was not good enough to continue. I could have asked for some concessions due to my illness, but I began to worry that that, in and of itself, would be too stressful. And thus ended my (second and more painful) attempt at MPhil/PhD study. I wonder, was this my fault for failing to see the signs? Again.

So now I’m back at the faculty and I worried that I might be seen. I cannot compartmentalise the past, particularly when I was standing in the middle of it again. I felt like a scarecrow, stuck in the ground, arms pinned up and riddled with sharp, scratching straw. All the other pieces that should remain silent have awoken; the memories and flashes that pierce the chest and burn the lungs. The past few days have been difficult and I have found it difficult to contain something heavy and solid that in its darkness has been dragging me down. And now this return to old ground has opened a door to a flood of all the other thoughts of uselessness and self-hatred. It’s welling up with such alacrity that I fear I could get washed away in its wake, that I might drown. The pieces of my past that sit permanently in the corner of my eye have joined forces. These are the pieces that refuse to be placed in boxes, sealed shut. These are the blocks that cannot be compartmentalised. I wouldn’t know how to do it anyway. There are no boxes in my world, but these pieces are me and perhaps hiding them away serves only to deny me the opportunity to learn from them. All the same, if there are any going, could you keep some boxes aside just in case? This return to old haunts is proving to be hauntingly painful.