Good feeling...

Have you ever had that feeling in life where you think at last everything is going right…when only hours later you’re completely lost? We had just set up Onewave back in Feb last year and I was so frickin excited, because it finally felt like I had bipolar for a reason…to raise awareness for mental health and encourage others use the ocean and surfing as a way of coping.

I set up the Onewave Instagram account and it was helloo to OW Insta surfing and good-bye to sleep. I did a couple of all nighters just trying to get the Insta going. I didn’t realise at the time how much lack of sleep impacts someone with bipolar. All of sudden I couldn’t sit still and felt so so edgy. Lucky my buddy Sam was around and we just walked the streets of Bondi for a while and then just sat and watched the waves. Then the next day I couldn’t get this song out of my head…”oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, sometimes I get a good feeling yeah”. When I was getting ready for a surf I could hear it, when I was sitting out in the ocean I could hear it. It felt like there was a DJ playing up on the beach, but I was the only one that could hear it. The surf was the only place I could really relax. I didn’t really want to be around people, which was crazy for me. If I wasn’t in the ocean you could find me sitting on the South Bondi grass mind surfing with my headphones on.

One day later my parents had arrived from NZ to hangout. We were having breakfast at a café In Bondi when I decided I wanted to go and check the surf. I had my headphones on and must have been dancing too hard down the beach, because half an hour later I was getting handcuffed and taken to hospital. I have never been so angry in my life…I mean I had dealt with been taken to hospital once for a manic episode and I deserved it that time, but a second time, when I was just dancing around, not hurting anyone that fuckin hurt big time.  Why did it take 6 Police to handcuff a dude who just wants to dance around to ‘good feeling’? Seriously!

I really gave it to the ambulance staff, so sorry about that, but that’s what happens when you go from having a good feeling to having the worst feeling…for me that was arriving at the mental health ward of the Prince Of Whales Hospital in Darlinghurst.  I was out of control when I got in there. I just couldn’t believe I was back in hospital again. The only way they could settle me down was an injection in my ass, but I tried to fight it, until it felt like they were going to break my arm, then I gave up. Then I woke up I was devastated…the highest high to the lowest low. It was such a battle to get through my first hospital stint and I was a back again a year later when I thought I was doing everything right. That’s the thing with bipolar, sometimes when you’re feeling so so good things can actually go so so wrong real quick. That is such a hard thing to deal with.

I knew I had to find something positive to focus on real quick in hospital: For me that was:

• ·      Visits from my Family everyday
• ·      Music and my big headphones – When everyone else was sleeping I would just cut big shapes around the lounge. Because I couldn’t surf this was the best therapy for me. It made me laugh and kept me sane. I wish I had videos it would probs be the worst dancing ever, but man it felt good
• ·      Yoga with my music – I’m no yogi but this was my escape from people yelling in my air and asking me if I had any ciggies
• ·      Planning Onewave ideas for when I got out – this kept me made me think this hospital visit happened for a reason and gave me hope
• ·      Meeting new amigos in there and hearing their story

After 5 days I managed to get out of hospital and get back in the ocean with my Dad and my brother. The ‘good feeling’ song had gone in my head and the Ocean was the feeling I really needed…onewave really is all it takes. Over 1 year later and I have not been back to hospital. I’m a bipolar bear through and through and I have a weird and fun outlook on life, but for me that’s living and that’s what us bipolar bears do best. Thanks to all my amigos for the love and support during the tough times…I will never forget it!

BIG BEAR HUG XX

What’s normal anyway…

I spent so many years worrying about what people think. Trying to act happy all of the time, because I thought it wasn’t normal to go through a mental funk and be down on life. This is crazy because what’s normal anyway? I think the sooner you realize that being normal is whatever you want it to be…the sooner you get to accept and celebrate your inner weirdness.

It’s not as easy as it sounds though. When you go through a mental funk you start to question everything about your life and all you want to do is fit in and be normal. The stigma surrounding mental health doesn’t help. Some people who have not been through it or seen loved ones suffer, throw around the terms anxiety, depression and bipolar like they are just an excuse for crazy behavior. I have heard people throw around the word bipolar, to explain someone who is up one day and down the next “oh they must have bipolar”– just because they think they are not acting what they think is normal. People need to get off their ass and realize that we were not born on this earth to be normal and if people are acting a little different either embrace it, or leave them alone to do their thing.

I used to want to be normal and be friends with everyone. That was before I nearly lost my life to bipolar disorder.  I went from doing marketing for a tequila brand and having all these party friends to finding out pretty quickly who my real friends really were. When you disappear to Manly hospital for 2 weeks and then NZ for 3 months, you really find out who your true friends are…the ones that will come and visit you in the mental health hospital. The ones that will just hang out and listen to you, no matter what. The ones that will get you back out in the ocean surfing, when you really want to stay in bed. The ones that will help you find a way to share your story to give you hope that you can turn this funk into something positive. The ones that make you feel good no matter what. I owe my life to my amazing family and friends that got me through the toughest times. They made me feel that it is normal to be weird and that being weird is actually rad…so I just started embrace being my weird self and shit it felt that good.

From that day I started opening up about having bipolar and decided I wanted to share my story, so anyone going through a mental funk in this weird rad world would hopefully know that they are not alone. It’s amazing once you meet another mental funk amigo, you start talking and can finally let years of feelings you’ve had trapped inside flow free.  Once you start talking everything gets a little easier and it feels like you have found a long lost brother/sister, who just gets you and you’re no longer alone.

Unfortunately not everyone is making it easy for people suffering from mental funks. One thing that absolutely rips me in life, is how the media treats legends that have worked their ass off and as a result are in the public eye. They suffer from mental funks like anyone else you dickheads, so keep your cameras and bullshit words to your self. It sure can’t feel good to make someone feel so bad, so keep it to yourself or even better write something nice. We need to preserve the legends, so stop being dick heads. 

The sooner we realize that no body is normal and we celebrate every little weird thing about ourselves, the sooner we can beat mental funks and enjoy this amazing thing called life.

BIG BEAR HUG XX

Depression is a flaw in chemistry not character...

The first time I really started to understand how depression works, is when I saw the quote “depression is a flaw in chemistry not character”. This made me understand that depression is a chemical imbalance, it runs in the family and sometimes you need to take medication to fix it. Medication is a hard thing to talk about for me because I have had good experiences with it and really bad experiences. For some people taking medication is a reality every day, so we need to start talking about it if we are going to beat mental illness.

When I was struggling with depression and I went to seek help from the doctor, I was hoping like hell I wouldn’t be put on medication. I thought I could fix it myself. That day I escaped without medication and I was referred to a psychologist for CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy). For the next month the CBT sessions were all about trying to change the way I think to beat depression and anxiety. This helped for a while, but when I suffered from really bad anxiety and depression on a trip to Mexico, the CBT did not cut it. I was lucky to make it back to Sydney and when I did I knew that I had to go and see a psychiatrist to get help.

I was diagnosed with depression that day and I was put on anti-depressants. I was so embarrassed that I was on medication. I didn’t tell anyone apart from my girlfriend and family and when I picked up the prescription from the Pharmacy, I would always make sure no one was watching. Apparently it would take 4-6 weeks for the medication to kick in. Shit when it kicked in I changed the name of the medication to my ‘pepe pills’, because damn they made me feel good. It’s crazy, the simple things like going for a coffee or having a shower in the morning I couldn’t believe how good it felt. This gave me hope that things could get better and it changed my life…for a short time.  Unfortunately these anti depressants made me feel way too good. 3 months later during a week partying at the Aussie Surf Open I had a manic episode and ended up in Manly Hospital.

It turns out that I should never have been on these anti depressant because my Dad had bipolar and it was part of my chemistry. The anti depressants sent me too high and I thought I was living the dream, when actually I was doing the opposite. I was so pissed off at the world when I went into hospital that I didn’t want to take any medication, because I just didn’t trust it. Hospital was hell and I quickly realized that the only way I was going to ever get out of hospital, was to get better and to get better I needed to take my medication.

I was diagnosed with bipolar in hospital and put on lithium to balance out my mood and protect me from the extreme highs and lows. I hated lithium at the start because it dulled my mood and made it hard actually feel things. When I got out of hospital I had to change the lithium levels a bunch of times to get it right – too much medication and depression would kick in, not enough and I would start feeling edgy and I couldn’t sleep.

I have been on lithium medication for 2 years now. Sure it is a pain in the ass to take every morning, but I have accepted that for now it is part of my recipe for managing bipolar. I don’t want to risk ending up in hospital again. Everyday I am learning new ways to manage bipolar, so that one day I can be medication free. For me It’s all about doing more of the things that make me feel good like surfing and hanging with good humans and less of the things that make me feel shit. The way I see it, medication is not putting a bandage over my true feelings, it is helping fix my chemical imbalance so that the storm can pass and I can enjoy this amazing thing called life.

BIG BEAR HUG

We surf in ridiculous outfits, because it’s time to kick the stigmas of mental health!

It was about 10pm on a Thursday night in Feb last year, when I got home after a few beers and I was thinking…how the hell can we get more people talking about ONEWAVE and mental health? I had never surfed in a business suit, so I thought lets do this. I thought I had a fluro green one from Bali but I couldn’t find that…shit! I worked out my other suit was at the dry cleaner…bugger! I managed to find a shirt & tie… so boardies and shirt & tie it was.

At 6.30am the next morning I rocked down to Bondi by myself with my board meeting kit on –party on the bottom, business at the top. I was quietly shitting myself but on the other hand I was pumped. At last it felt like I had bipolar for a reason…to try and get more people talking about mental health.  I remember getting these weird looks from people and once I got into the surf the comments went from “Straight from the cross for a surf ay bro?” to  “Big night mate?” “Did ya lose a bet buddy?” My response to the first few was “nah got an early meeting – haven’t got time to change” Then I built up the courage to say “I’m dressed up for the ONEWAVE board meeting – we are raising awareness for mental health through surfing”. The reaction I got from some of the surfers when I said this deadset changed my life. You can surf the same break as someone for 10 years and have the usual convos about “how was ya weekend man?” “how was the Indo trip” but you actually don’t get to know how they are actually feeling. Surfers all look so relaxed, like they don’t have a problem in the world. Once you have one conversation with someone in the surf about there mental health, you actually get to meet the real person behind the chilled out surfer and that conversation, might just change someone’s life.  Walking back from the surf that day I was a mix of frothing and emotional… I thought maybe if we dress up in crazy outfits every week, we can actually spark more conversations about mental health.

Thanks to Sammy Samsum. Joel Pilgrim and a bunch of amazing humans we have kept the ridiculous outfits rolling every Fluro Friday at 6.30am, since Feb last year and the ONEWAVE crew keeps getting bigger. The outfits have now changed from board meeting attire to fluro radness…anything from Stretcheyz fluro onezies, matchy matchy flamingos, retro getup, animal suits, fluro budgee smugs...anything goes. We keep getting out of bed early because dressing in fluro and surfing with your mates is so much fun, but the big driver is smashing the stigma of mental health. 

If we were dressed in normal wetsuits people wouldn’t ask us what the hell we were dressed up for and we wouldn’t have the chance to spark a conversation about mental health.  Once you start opening up to people, it is so scary how many good humans, just like you and me have been affected. 1/5 people are affected by mental illness, which means there is a good chance some of your friends and family that are doing it tough, that you don't know about. There is one way we can change this and that is by being open and talking about it.  There is no better place to do this than in the ocean – ONEWAVE is all it takes to give you hope, that you can beat the funks of mental illness. So get your most epic fluro outfit ready and ya favourite craft and come and join the ONEWAVE crew for Fluro Friday - 6.30am at Bondi or Manly.

Thank you for your amazing support and making me feel that having bipolar is actually pretty damn rad. Lets go surf real soon. 

MahaloJ

BIG BEAR HUG

Don't fight the feelings..

The day I worked out it’s actually ok not to be happy all of the time, is the day I started living.

When I used to get down the old me would have been thinking “Why the hell am I not happy? I have a rad family, sweet job, so many good humans in my life. I thought I had no reason to be sad” That just made it so much worse because the negative vibes just kept building up…I was fighting the feelings instead of just feeling them and letting my feelings do their thing.

This resulted in me hiding just how depressed I actually was from my friends and family. I wanted them to still see me as this happy dude who loves life and I certainly didn’t want to go and see a doctor and admit I was suffering from the big black dog. Mum and Dad asked a bunch of times if I wanted to go see a doctor and I would always say “nah don’t worry I will be sweet”.

I didn’t realise at the time that if I had listened to my Mum & Dad then, I could have avoided being hit with crazy anxiety and depression on a trip to Mexico, where I nearly didn’t make it back. I could have avoided days and days of pretending I was happy when I was hurting like hell. I could have avoided being put on the wrong medication, which led to a manic episode at the Aussie surf open and 10 days in the mental health ward of Manly hospital. But hey they say everything happens for a reason, and yep sometimes these things hurt like hell...but at least now I know I have bipolar and everyday I’m learning how to live life as a bipolar bear.

Quite a few people ask me what bipolar actually is. The way I see it is that everyone experiences highs and lows in life and if you have bipolar like me the lows are a bit lower than most people and the highs are a bit higher. It’s all about finding the right recipe to stay balanced, so you can make the most of the good things about having bipolar. One part of my recipe I have discovered is feeling the feelings instead of fighting them. If I’m feeling down, I’m like shit I need to do something to get the positive vibes going instead of getting frustrated at myself.  So I grab my  board and go for a surf or hang with my family or friends and talk about whats going on or sometimes I just wanna chill by myself. The one thing I know is that with time the negative vibes will pass, I just need to ride it out.

One of the important things for me is realizing that it’s ok to have shit days because it makes the good days even radder. It just feels good to be yourself and you realise pretty quick who the good humans in your life are. Feelings are there to be felt, so let them flow and the good vibes will follow.

BIG BEAR HUG