Bipolar plays me for a fool

I had an unusal start to my day.

I was more than slightly bewildered by the lack of traffic on the road. And I got a fright as I pulled in to work to discover the parking area almost full. I was late. A quick glance at the clock in my car revealed I was very, very late indeed. An hour late. But my alarm on my phone had gone off at the right time this morning?

Confused, I parked and scratched around in my handbag, hauling my cell phone out. Hmmm…. That time was an hour earlier than the clock in my car. I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I had some missed calls and text messages from my father and my boss. They were concerned about me – is everything okay? That type of thing. They were probably worried I was hanging in my closet. I was touched by their concern but I needed to haul ass. It was a busy day. And I’d just lost an hour.

I came barrelling into the office talking about lost time and twilight zones amidst much laughter from everyone. Once I had calmed down, and scrolled through my phone, I discovered where I’d gone wrong. Miss Bipolar-can’t remember-anything-gets-all-confused-and-possibly-dyslexic (me) had set my phone to the wrong time zone. I live in Durban, South Africa. I’d set my phone to Dublin, Ireland. Durban, Dublin. Yes, similar. But really? Honestly? Dublin?

The joke was on me for the rest of the day. I played along to keep things light and funny. But the disturbing thing for me is, this time zone debacle is one of many, many confusions, errors and memory losses that befall me on a daily basis. And in a way, I can’t help but feel guilty that my ‘airhead’ behaviour today, although entirely unintentional, does reinforce some of the aspects of the stigma associated with mental illness.

Well, what’s done is done. Bipolar kicked my ass today. Let’s see how tomorrow goes.

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